We Won! Supra wins Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge!

[marshallpre1]

And they say Supras are only good in straight lines...

From Curtis Chen (owner of the Supra):

Originally Posted by MyKarIsVicious

Hey guys,

Been waiting to type up a wrap up for some time here,

Let me start from the beginning with the build.

As many of you know the car’s seen its fair share of time attack events and revisions since 2006. After 4 years of successes and failures I believe we’ve got the ideal street/track set up.

We partnered with our long time sponsor Boost Logic to offer us a proven Turbo and Fuel system set up. Zohair recommended one turbo for our needs, and that was their BL Billet 67 BB setup. This was the most responsive turbo we’ve used and offered the perfect compromise between top end grunt and mid range response. Going on and off throttle on this turbo is near instantaneous. Finally to top it off and further enhance our power band we turned to GSC for their stage 1 cams and dropped our head off at Twins Turbo for some additional massaging. As a result we were able to dyno near 700rwhp on a dynojet at 25psi running E85 through 2 cats provided by Milspec thanks to Justin Nenni of Tuning Concepts and the Hydra EMS systems

Power was certainly not our only focus. We wanted to build a car that not only could blast down a straight away but could also dig its claws into the pavement and pull itself out of turns. Robi from Robispec is The suspension guru for time attack cars. Having him in our corner for a number of years gave us a huge advantage to develop the perfect track/street suspension. Robi developed, built, and refined the KW V3 suspension to fit our needs. To make the most use of our new suspension we teamed up with Nitto Tires to equip our car with their sticky NT01 tires. We were able to put 315/30/18 tires on all 4 corners. We also equipped the car with an ATS/Carbonetics Diff which allowed us to put down the power way earlier in the corners and threw on a set of JIC upper control arms for us to dial in the alignment.

Aero is a huge concern for us. It was great to have the advice and knowledge that Andrew Brilliant offered. I won’t divulge too much information here since a lot of what we worked on is confidential between Andrew and I. But to sum it up, Ridox aero, an APR wing, and AMB aero magic topped off our arsenal.

Lastly, we turned to Competition GT to tidy everything together. Mike Louie has been in the supra game since before the forums started. When I heard he was going to start his own shop, I didn’t think twice about bringing my car there. There are very few shops in S. CA that I trust my car with, and Competition GT is definitely on the short list. They were able to fabricate my ducting, clean up my wiring/electronic issues, dyno the car, and nut and bolt all the pieces together including providing track side support. Not only were they able to piece the car together to last multiple sessions in 105 +degree heat, but to top things off they were able to meet deadlines that I had set for the car. If you’re looking for a first rate shop that understands the demands of racing, and has ethical business practices, look no further.

We turned to Dusty at MVP motorsports to procure the majority of our parts and accessories.
We also used Castrol Syntec 10W30 Motor Oil for this competition and it performed flawlessly along with Carbonetic Diff Fluid

Next post will get into the event.

Originally Posted by MyKarIsVicious

Day 1:

We arrived bright and early to begin the battle with the other cars. Already parked next to me was Darin’s GTR and the 700+rwhp Shelby Cobra Mustang. I had looked up my competition early on and had a rough idea what they were bringing to the table, but seeing these cars in person gave me the idea that they had been doing the same and making the changes needed to take us out. The Mustang rolled onto the dyno and layed out an impressive number. We didn’t think we had more than 700rwhp, especially not through two cats. We layed down 699rwhp just shy of the 700 mark. We could have boosted higher and layed down the number but we didn’t want to risk exiting the competition early, especially considering this was the first event.

We ended up placing 2nd behind the Mustang and in front of Jim’s Red NSX. Right after the dyno we jumped straight into the emissions test. We were fairly confident at the cards we had in our hands. We tuned through 2 cats and ran E85 which burned cleaner than all but one car, the GTR. We knew the competition was going to be stiff, and the car to beat was going to be Godzilla. Alas the first day ended with the GTR having issues on the dyno and was unable to lay into the run without its ECU flipping out. We packed up and prepared for our 3 hour drive through traffic to Buttonwillow CA with Al Rhee (our stig drag racer).

I never once begged for AC…but this surely was one of those days driving through Butt ****ing Egypt to get to our destination. 5 miles out from our destination a huge big rig caught fire which forced all the cars to detour through Farmville to get to our destination. It must have been a sight for the locals to see 6 overly loud ass stickered cars with huge wings tearing ass through dirt. Believe me I was beat, and all I could see is Darin grinning in his damn Air conditioned GTR. **** him . LOL. Never been so jealous in my life. I think it was 100 +degrees and I was out of damn water.

Nevertheless we arrived in Buttonwillow with all the cars in one piece. Al and I met up for dinner that night and discussed how epic it would be if we could win this competition. Some of you may know Al from the message board days. Al and I and the OG supra community had been following Supra’s competing in these “Ultimate Street Car Challenge” competitions since Mani competed in his read beast. We thought it would be so cool if we could take first finally. (Al’s been dragging for most of these Supra’s since the start of USCC). I knew we had the right team, Al would handle the Drag, Matt Andrews would take care of the twisty stuff, and Mike Louie would handle maintaining the car in optimal shape. But we knew to win this competition took more than getting the right people on the bus. We needed some luck, and experience to go with it. Luckily I guess, we were not in short supply of the later.


Day 2

Today was the day that we were counting on Al to do what he does best. We didn’t touch our alignment to optimize it for drag racing because frankly we didn’t think we had a chance in hell to get a good hole shot out of the NT01’s on a dusty track in Buttonwillow. The GT-R, NSX and Mustang were expected to finish at the top of the pack. The GTR ended up nailing a low 3 second 0-60 time and an impressive 11.3? quarter mile time. AWD definitely has its advantages. The NSX took the top trap speed blowing the rest of the cars out of the water.

So I look over at Al and thought to myself of those damn jokes about 1000rwhp supra’s running 12’s. Al lined up at the grid and sped down the 1320 chasing the times of the GTR. Keep in mind, I’ve got a single disk clutch and Al’s never driven my car up to this point. I believe we ran a 12.3 which put us mid-pack in the acceleration test. This far exceeded my expectations out of the car. I was prepared to see 13’s especially since we had a high HP RWD car that the driver never had any seat time in. Needless to say, Al delivered the goods as promised. We were still a contender.

Next event was the stopping event. Mike had told me he thought the NSX would out brake us in this event, and we would finish mid-pack I guess no one ever told Mike about how the Supra maintained one of the shortest breaking tests ever for Car and Driver, only to be bested by the Carrera GT many years later. I knew we would take this portion of the competition. We had excellent brake pads by Endless and great stopping power provided by AP Racing. Couple that with our 315 size tires x 4, and you’ve got something that will make you feel as if the car would compress and roll into a ball at full stop. We ended up taking the braking competition and felt confident we were back in the top running for a podium finish.

Day 2 ended and we knew the next morning we would have to bring our “A” game. The time trial event was worth double the points and provided the biggest bragging rights possible.

Matt Andrews ( American Stig ) arrived later that evening, flying from Dallas to Buttonwillow just to make this event. Whoever said “don’t bring a knife to a gun fight” clearly has never heard of a lightsaber. Matt has had plenty of seat time in the car over the years and has owned a supra that he competed with twice in the USCC. He clearly knew how to pilot the Supra despite being a Miata driver.

Originally Posted by MyKarIsVicious

Day 3

Day 3 arrived and this day would determine who the winner was. We knew the competition was very close at this point so we needed to lay down a confident number at the track to give us a shot at winning the event. The team came together in the morning, checked tire pressures, nut and retorqued the car and made sure we had enough gas in the tank to last the 20 min session allotted to us. The temperature at buttonwillow was already 75 degrees at 7am. By 11am when we started the temperature was already a 100+ degrees. Matt had also committed to driving Jim’s NSX so he went out first in Jim’s car since we had already sorted our car the weekend before. Unfortunately Jim’s car blew a radiator hose and dumped all the coolant out of the car. Matt rolled it back into the pits where Jim’s team (Autowave) feverishly tackled the problem to get the car back out on track. Darin was left by himself with nothing but a torque wrench and Gary Sheean to drive the car. It says something when a competitor is able to show up with nothing more than a torque wrench and no support crew whatsoever and be nipping at our heels the whole competition…and damnit he had A/C! The GTR and Gary clicked off a 1:57:4 to my recollection. That GTR is truly as much of a street car as it gets and is still is that fast (gotta give credit when credit is due.)

As Gary clicked off the 1:57 time, Matt was doing what he does best. The car clicked off a 58, then a 57, then a 56 by its 3rd lap… Clearly he was getting more and more comfortable with the car. On his fourth lap, he was blazing, I mean it looked like he was disregarding his own life barreling into the corners and taking names. Then he slowed down and stopped. The bumper had come off and was dragging by the splitter down the track. ****. Judging by our sector times, it would have clicked off a low 1:55 on that lap. What we found out happening was one of the tire kicker’s made out of alumnum had snagged on the edge of the tire allowing the tire to pull off the bumper.

We pulled it into the pits but our time left did not allow us to address the issue and make the repair necessary. To click off a 1:55 at the track in that July Heat would have equated to most likely a 1:53:XX in cooler weather (Nov). We were disappointed the car didn’t get a full run at its potential, but still ecstatic that we clicked off the fastest time of the day.

The remainder of the competition involved factoring power to weight, and vehicle cost into the equation. We knew we would be strong in that department and hoped it would give us a large enough gap to distance our opponents to us.

We left that day not knowing whether or not we took the title or not. The competition truly felt that close. Results weren’t disclosed until the issue came out today, and I’m relieved to hear we brought home the gold.

Afterthought

I need to start off with my team and sponsors involved in this journey. I’m sure I’m leaving some people out, and if I do I apologize as I’m typing this at 1:00AM in Dallas TX.

To my sponsors:

Competition GT
Boost Logic
Nitto Tires
MVP Motorsports
GSC
KW
Robispec
Hydra EMS
Turboimport.com
Carbonetics
Tuning Concepts
Mint Speed
Super Street Magazine

Thank you for making this dream a possibility. Since day 1, I wanted to prove to everyone the Supra can be as potent as the best supercars out there. Thank you for your support through the years and believing in our efforts. Our achievements could have only been achieved with your help and knowledge.

To my Team:

Matt Andrews
Mike Louie
Andrew Brilliant
Nick
Al Rhee
Evan Shiozaki
Drew Kim
Lisa Nguyen
Charles Trieu
Ryan Hawkins
Kal
Supraforums.com
Thank you for dedicating your time and efforts to our cause. It’s been a long time coming, and we surely seized the opportunity. I truly believe we won because we had the right people on the bus, and although that bus didn’t have A/C and we were driving through the booger of CA, you guys stuck by me, the car and the cause. I could only hope we will have the opportunity to go on this ride once again. It truly is one of my fondest memories.

To my Competition:

It just sounds weird to say “competition.” You guys were a blast to hang out with and I definitely made some long-term friends out of this. Ken, Darin, Jim, Carlos, Oscar, Chris@HPF. I couldn’t have wished for better competition than you guys. Let’s hope we see each other back on the track.

To Supraforums.com

WE WON MUTHA****AS!!!!

[PAdutch]

Looks like some pretty stiff competition. Congrats!!!

[Nick 95 6sp]

Curtis' great planning and strategy finally paid off!

Originally Posted by marshallpre1

...they say...

I always wonder who the infamous "they" are. Must be a bunch of dumbass they's.

[marshallpre1]

Originally Posted by Nick 95 6sp

Curtis' great planning and strategy finally paid off!




I always wonder who the infamous "they" are. Must be a bunch of dumbass they's.

hahaha! True.

This one time I went cruising with these guys in my area through tricky mountain roads, one commented something to the extent, "What kind of coilovers do you have, it's handling the road really well."

My response: Stock. 100% stock suspension.

LOL. So much for their "handling" set ups!

[PaleDSM]

Great writeup. Thanks for quoting all of that over to us.

[TROLL]

awesome, love that car makin' us proud...

[GarageSpec]

Amazing..real impressive