What is up engine heads! Today it's time for a true modern icon. A combination of a number and two letters known by pretty much every petrolhead out there. Of course, I'm talking about the Toyota 2JZ engine and in today's video we will dive deep into it's anatomy to discover what makes the 2JZ so great.
In 1978 Toyota wanted a car that would complete with Nissan's very successful Z car, without making a whole new platform. So it took it existing Celica, widened and lengthened it a bit and stuffed the inline six M engine under the hood, creating a bond between the word supra and an inline six, a bond that exists to this day. The new super Celica was called Celica Supra.
The Celica Supra lives until 1986, until the word Celica and Supra came apart, and turned into two seprate models. The Supra was no longer mechanically related to the Celica, but was based on the Toyota Soarer platform, a larger and more upmarket platform that gave the Supra room to grow. The new mk3 Supra also received the latest and final version of Toyota's M engine, the 7M-GE and 7M-GTE, which made some pretty serious power for the 80s and gave the supra true grand touring credentials. In Japan the mk3 Supra was also the first one to get some JZ lovin' because in Japan it could be found with the 1JZ engine, signaling the way of the future for Toyota's sports flagship.
In 1993 we would see just how great the future was, because in 1993 Toyota revealed the mk4 Supra, and this time Toyota went all out. The mk4 Supra continued on the path set by it's predecessor it offered more of everything. More power, more equipment, better handling and less weight. But a rising yen and a weakening sports car market ended its career pretty quickly, and the world had to wait two decades for a successor. But these two decades are when the 2JZ legend was forged. In 2001 the Fast and the Furious movie came out and the whole world fell in love with the Supra. And tuners soon started pushing the output of the 2JZ, trying to find its limits. But there was an issue, it seemed the word "limit" wasn't in the 2JZ's vocabulary. In 2019 Toyota released the mk5 Supra and sigh of disappointment from the fan-base echoed across the world. Fans expected a 2JZ successor but received a BMW sourced B58 engine instead. And although the new car is objectively good, the new engine too, fans soon started demanding a 20+ year old engine be swapped into the new car.
An inline six is a beautifully balanced engine, because in essence it consists of two inline 3 engines which are mirror images of each other. This means that in practice both the primary and secondary forces are balanced out in an inline 6. The engine block is, as we know a cast iron closed deck unit. But there's more to it, the 2jz block is one of the most heavily reinforced blocks out there. It has 11 oil return holes that also act as massive reinforcement ribs. On top of this it incorporates thick curved surfaces for even more rigidity. And to go the extra mile it has a girdle which ties together the bottom of the block making it even sturdier. Watch the video for a bit of comparison of the 2JZ, the RB30, S54, and Ford Barra. The internals are, as expected massive and beefy. The crankshaft is forged steel with very wide and large 52mm rod and 62mm main journals. Rods are also forged steel and are meaty on all 2JZ except on the late model 2JZ-GE with VVTi. The pistons are high pressure cast hypereutectic pistons with an internal oil gallery that combines with the piston oil squirters in the turbo 2JZ block to directly cool the crown underside and reduce chances of knock. The 2JZ turbo has a 8.5:1 compression ratio, which is pretty low by modern standards but it does make cranking up the boost safer. The CR is 10:1 on the non vvti naturally aspirated 2jz and 10.5 on the late model vvti ones. We have 33.5mm intake and 29mm exhaust valves, along with a 45 degree valve included angle. The 2JZ head flows pretty well, but it isn't the best and some engines from the same era will outflow it, which means some porting is a good idea if your power appetites are very big.
When it comes to 2JZ tuning you know the drill. Upgrade the fuel pump and injectors, ditch the side mount intercooler in favor of a front mount intercooler, upgrade the cams and valve springs, switch to a big single turbo, get a standalone ECU and you're looking at 700-800 horsepower. If you want to go beyond this you'll need to open up the engine and get forged pistons and 4340 forged aftermarket rods. The crankshaft can stay unless you're going beyond 1200-1500 hp (depending on application). You need a billet block only if you're interested in power figures near 2000 hp.
A special thank you to my patrons:
Daniel
Peter Della Flora
Daniel Morgan
William
Richard
Pepe
00:00 - Intro
01:27 - History
10:48 - Specs
28:34 - Tuning
34:17 - Cringe
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