To say that we've seen every badass Supra out there would be a flat out lie. Between here and Japan, we've featured some of the sickest Toyota supercars that you could possibly imagine. And now, we're throwing two more at you. Although both share some of the same characteristics, like being built by our long-time homies, the twins Mark "Koz" Kozeluh and Eric "Grim" Kozeluh of Twins Turbo, they couldn't be more different. Grim's car is more of a street car (although that's a huge understatement) that we dubbed the Triple Crown. The A-Team car, owned and piloted by Steven "A-Team" Aslanian, is a full out racecar and a fierce competitor in our Time Attack series. Whether you've seen an insane Supra or not, these two cars will amaze you to no end. And not just from the sheer horsepower numbers or the domineering exteriors, but because of the workmanship, attention to detail, and custom fabrication put into each car-it's the kind of blood, sweat and tears car guys always talk about. So if you weren't a Supra fan before, we guarantee you will be one after reading the story behind these two cars.
Grim's Car
It's been a long road of car building and racing for the Twins, but it didn't start off that way. Back in '93 when they were working as plumbers, Grim caught the Supra bug after seeing a black JZA-80. Checking around the dealerships, he figured he couldn't drop $50k on a car just yet.
Fast forward a few years, the Twins hooked up with Vinny Ten as he was about to launch the Performance Factory in Queens, New York. Grim still couldn't justify dropping the sticker price to buy his own Supra, so he and his bro figured that having a hand in building and racing one would be the next best thing. For those of you who remember drag racing, the Performance Factory Supra was a dominant force down the 1320. And it was the first East Coast car into the 10s, the first Supra that got into the 11s, 10s, 9s, 8s, and that hit 140, 150, 160 and 170mph down the quarter-mile. After knowing how much power they could exploit out of the 2JZ-GTE motor, Grim finally decided to start searching for his own Supra.
What you see before you isn't what Grim's Supra looked like when he picked it up, but it's exactly how he envisioned it to be. In '99, he purchased it in red automatic form (not his ideal choice) and stripped it down no more than three days later to start putting together the car that had been lingering on his mind for six years. Soon after, the Twins relocated to the West Coast and opened up Twins Turbo where they finally had time to start cracking on the gutted Supra shell. An Extreme Dimensions body kit was widened and put on, along with a custom hood to extract heat from the engine. A couple of other minor body mods were done before spraying the entire car with Viper GTS-R Silver paint. But that's just the outside.
Grim and Koz are the epitome of American car building and tuning. If you cut these guys, they'd bleed red, white and blue (which also happens to be the Clippers colors). Building massive horsepower engines are what the Twins have become infamous for, and they weren't about to skimp with their own car. The 2JZ-GTE motor was stripped down, balanced and blueprinted. Holding up the bottom end are custom Arias forged pistons and Carrillo H-beam connecting rods. On the top end, a full Darryl Cox ported and polished head stuffed with a R.E.V titanium valvetrain can be found. And for the boost: twin ball-bearing T3/T4 turbos from Innovative mandated to 40psi by a Pro Gate wastegate. Feeding the engine is a team of Bosch injectors, a Weldon 2025 fuel pump and an insane M800 engine management system from MoTeC with custom harness put together by Gregg Pyle at GP Motorsports. Shane Tecklenburg had the hefty task of tuning this beast.
But it doesn't come close to stopping there. Not known for using off-the-shelf parts, the Twins ended up fabricating a host of custom goods from the intercooler end tanks, to the turbo headers, right down to the 3-inch downpipes. Even the factory cooling system was junked and reworked with their own swirl pot design that utilizes a C&R aluminum radiator. The intake manifold was designed by the Twins and made by Fabworks/Spencer Motorsports. It took about six weeks to fabricate from three sheets of hammered-out aluminum and a billet lower section. For those of you who can't fathom how intense that is, Spencer Motorsports builds stuff for LMP/GT cars running in the ALMS. Sick ish. The entire setup boils down to 1070hp and 732lb-ft of torque at the mother f'in wheels on a Dynapack. No BS fake dyno charts or estimates either, this is all legit. Go ahead and calculate those numbers at the crank, we'll wait. When you're done with that, try finding a hose clamp in the polished-out engine bay. Good luck with that, because aside from the radiator hose everything has been converted to A/N fittings.
To maximize the handling on such a big car, the stock suspension had to be tossed in the dumpster. Replacing the shocks and springs are a set of Penske 8100 dual adjustable coilovers and Eibach springs. The wheels of choice are custom 18x9.5 (front) and 18x13 (rear) Kinesis K28 wrapped in Toyo RA-1s. When the time comes, massive 14-inch Stoptech front and rear brakes work in conjunction to slow the Supra down.