Having been in production since March 2019, the A90 Toyota Supra has grown into a motorsport god. And while factory race cars have won championships in NASCAR and GT racing, aftermarket developers have done the same by modding the street car for drifting and drag racing. For today, we’ll be focusing on the drag strip, as the Mk V Supra has recently broken into the 7s quarter-mile zone.
In factory form, the fifth-generation Supra will complete the 1/4-mile run in 12.1s at 117 mph. And while some enthusiasts frowned when the sports car debuted with a BMW straight-six engine, the past four years have proven that the B58 3.0L unit is on its way to becoming a tuner legend like the 2JZ inline-six of the Mk IV Supra.
The BMW unit delivers 382 hp and 368 lb-ft of torque when stock and the stock internals are good for around 600-650 hp and 550-600 lb-ft of twist. However, when the A90 was just one year old, Formula Drift’s Steph Papadakis, backed by Toyota Gazoo Racing, introduced a GR Supra drift car whose stock B58 block had been taken to 1,000 hp. More recently, the enthusiast put such a B58 in a GR86!
The factory BMW B58 block can take up to 1,500 hp
Returning to drag racing applications, 2022 saw the factory B58 block being pushed even further into the four digits. Nowadays, you can buy stroker kits with rods/pistons that take the straight-six to 3.2L.
For instance, and we’ll stick to American developers here, P2Tuned offers an option with cylinder sleeves, while Titan Motorsports and Visconti Tuning skip that feature. These specialists bring together parts from companies (e.g., JE pistons, APR main studs) and some built by themselves, offering 3.0L and 3.2L engines.
The most successful applications to date—on the drag strip, we’ll get back to this—mix a single turbo with nitrous. As for the results, the most impressive output figures we’ve seen so far come from B58 ECU tuner Mikey (aka stimikey), who was testing on a 74mm turbo and a 100 shot of nitrous on his personal Supra earlier this month. The numbers? 1,275-1,300 wheel horsepower, which means around 1,500 hp at the crank—hello, Bugatti Chiron!
Mikey runs a Viscounti Tuning 3.2L B58. As far as reliability goes, the engine had been in the Toyota for a year, having covered 4,000 miles and hundreds of quarter-mile passes.
For 2023, he also tuned the said stroked engine in the Mk V Supra run by Bahrain-based EKanoo Racing. Led by Ebrahim Kanoo, this is a team that has set multiple drag racing records over the years. Here the B58 makes over 1,100 hp and 1,200 lb-ft of torque at the wheels (1,300 hp and a whopping 1,411 lb-ft of twist at the crank).
The A90 Supra is now a 7s quarter-mile performer
One year ago, we had multiple Mk V Supras delivering 9s runs in the quarter-mile, with a few playing in the 8s field. For 2023, the A90 Supra has become a 7s rocket thanks to (at least) the two machines mentioned above.
So, we have Ekanoo Racing’s Mk V Supra, currently the fastest in the world with a quarter-mile trap speed of 179 mph and also one of the quickest together with that of stimikey, thanks to repeated 7.9s ETs.
Of course, these micro records come and go, but make no mistake, this platform will continue to evolve. Engine-wise, the next major step, which could happen by the end of 2023, is the introduction of a B58 billet block, which should take over 2,000 hp.
Besides, making it big on the prepped surface also requires tons of other details to be sorted out. These go from wheels, tires, and suspension to the all-important transmission department. Speaking of which, mikeysti’s Toyota Supra runs a Stage 3-built iteration of the factory ZF 8HP eight-speed automatic. Done by Pure Drivetrain Solutions, this can handle up to 1,500 hp and 1,200 lb-ft of torque.
As for the costs involved, a 7s-capable B58 will cost you between $25,000 and $30,000, while the said built ZF 8HP sits at $15,000-$17,000.
So yes, the 2023 Nissan Z (aka 400Z), which has been in production since April 2022 with a tried-and-tested Infiniti 3.0L twin-turbo V6, has a lot of catching up to do.
