(engine roaring)
- Supra, ever heard of it?
(engine roaring)
For 25 years now, it's been JZ this,
and JZ that, but what is so special about that 2JZ engine?
(techno music)
First, a little background.
Toyota makes a whole family
of inline six cylinder engines called JZ's.
How Toyota names all their engines
is actually really interesting.
You should look that up sometime later.
But we'll talk about what we need to know for the 2JZ GTE.
Anyway, there are three 2.5 liter
inline six engines called 1JZ's,
and there are three three liter variants called 2JZ's.
So there's the first reason why the 2JZ is pretty popular.
The larger displacement of three liters
simply means more horsepower than a 2.5 liter engine.
And who doesn't want more horsepower?
I want more horsepower. (man screaming)
In the late 1980s and early '90s,
bad car accidents were getting out of hand in Japan
and everyone there thought that speed was a major factor.
So Japanese domestic market automakers
made an informal promise to each other
that they wouldn't sell any cars
with more than 280 horsepower.
It was called a gentleman's agreement,
and it was ignored by everybody pretty quickly.
Much the way Nolan repeatedly ignores
his gentleman agreement to pay me back for monies owed.
- [Eddy] Hey, hey, Bart?
- What's up Eddy?
- [Eddy] What about the RB?
- RB, yeah dude, I love Arby's!
You go get me a Big Montana, I'll keep rolling.
Look, everybody knows, speed doesn't really hurt,
it's the sudden stops that get you.
At the same time, automakers all promised
not to jump into a horsepower war,
the exchange rate was really favorable for the end.
If you're an econ kinda car nerd,
check out James talking about the LS-
- 400! (air horn blaring)
- But in Japan's recession,
it wasn't a big stretch for Toyota to spend a lot
of money on an engine development and quality materials.
So that's what Toyota did, and as a result,
they ended up with some overbuilt engines
that could easily make over 280 horsepower angle.
They were built so well,
they could make double or nearly triple that
without having to do significant engine work.
The Toyota 2JZ GTE engine
is the most notorious example of this.
At its core, the 2JZ GTE is a twin turbo,
three-liter inline six cylinder engine
with an iron block and an aluminum head.
So, 2JZ, three liter inline six.
G, performance wide-angle valve dual overhead cam.
T, turbo charged, E, electronic fuel injection.
Those are all very good things to have
if you wanna make more horsepower.
Both fuel injection systems and turbos
are pretty easy to tune and upgrade.
And since it's an inline six,
the primary and secondary forces that are generated
by the movement of the pistons cancel out,
making it a naturally smooth-running and balanced engine.
It also leaves extra space in the engine bay
to get your hands dirtier and install bigger turbos.
If you wanna know more about all that stuff I just said,
check out our episode on inline six versus V6s.
American market Supras were sold with bigger fuel injectors,
stronger turbos, and different cams than JDM cars.
That helped them make 320 horsepower
at 5600 RPM, and 315 foot power of torque at 4,000 RPM.
In it's stock form, the 2JZ uses a sequential turbo setup.
The first turbo spools up around 1800 RPM,
and then the second turbo starts making boost around 4,000.
This kind of setup reduces turbo lag,
but to make the biggest horsepower numbers,
tuners swap the twin turbo setup for one big turbo.
And that sacrifices the spool up time,
but a bigger turbo can make more boosts
than two smaller ones.
And that helps the engine make peak power.
Making more power is pretty dang easy.
The upgrade to a better flowing intake,
better flowing exhaust, a big single turbo,
bigger front mount inner cooler
to replace the stock side mount inner cooler,
higher flowing external waste gate, bigger fuel injectors,
fuel lines, fuel pump, and an ECU tune.
If you're gonna make huge power,
you're gonna need a strong engine.
A lot of times, if you wanna unlock
the hidden potential of an engine, you gotta get in there.
We enforce a bunch of stuff, swap out some cams,
replace all your valves and gaskets, and you know,
time consuming dirty, dirty stuff.
The fact that Toyota over-engineered the 2JZ
is the main reason that it's so easy
to bolt up a huge turbo and make 800 horsepower.
The cast iron engine block is, well, cast iron.
Which is really heckin' strong material.
The block also has a fully-closed deck,
and that means unlike some other inline engines,
the area around the cylinders is completely filled in,
except for some coolant passages.
And that gives the block extra strength,
and really keeps it from cracking
when it's running high, high boost levels.
The engine's crank shaft is made
out of ultra-strong forged steel,
so it can easily deal with all those extra forces
caused by making more power.
The seven main bearing caps that hold the crankshaft
in place as it spins are also massively strong.
You see where I'm going with this?
Straight out of a Toyota factory,
the 2JZ can take a licking.
Engines that are built using more modest components
would have to be torn down to upgrade all the components
that could fail under higher stress of more power.
I mentioned earlier that the cylinder head is aluminum,
which is lightweight.
It helps dissipate heat much more quickly.
The pistons are also cast aluminum,
and they have slightly dished tops.
That gives the 2JZ GTE engine a lower compression ratio
than the last popular 2JZ cousins in the family.
And while sometimes lower compression
can mean lower performance,
a benefit of lower compression from the factory
is that it makes it easier to safely run more turbo boosts.
Another unique feature of the 2JZ GTE is that
there's oil squirters in the lower halves of the cylinder.
They spritz a bit of oil on the bottom
of the piston to keep them
more lubricated and reduce friction.
There's over twice as many lubricating ports
in the 2JZ compared to some of it's newest competitors.
At high engine speed, that helps
keep the engine temperatures a bit cooler
and help keeps the pistons lubricated
so they don't break down.
Jeez, check out our video on engine oils
to absorb more info on that.
(light drum music)
Man, that's gotta be it, that's so much stuff.
No wait, there's more!
(children cheering)
This engine's also got a high capacity oil pump
and a cooling system, do you see where I'm going?
The engine is made to withstand mind boggling abuse.
(engine roaring)
JDM Toyota's got variable-valve timing in '98,
but the US didn't.
You wanna know more about valve timing?
Check out the video on V-Tech.
Turns out, people are just fine with the Non-VVT2Js
because it's a non-interference engine.
So, if you're running at 6,000 RPM
and a timing belt breaks, a non-interference engine
means the pistons won't smash up into your valve.
With variable valve timing,
it doesn't always know that the belt broke,
so the piston still driving up,
the valve might be pushed down to open
and, kaboom, you got a bent valve.
The non-VVT2JZ is not a valve bender.
Which means if the belt breaks or you skip a tooth,
you don't gotta get inside there and replace all the valves,
which is both pricey and time consuming.
So why all the love on the 2JZ GTE?
It was a beautifully designed,
over-engineered cast-iron behemoth that,
because of it's inline design, is somehow still elegant.
It feels like the engineers designing it
took into consideration every possible condition
that could damage an engine,
and they designed around all of them.
They created a nearly bulletproof inline six,
and people love it so much
that there's immeasurable aftermarket parts forums
in assistant if you wanna start working on one.
We're all jazzed up 'cause there's some cars coming off
the line in the last few years
making ballpark 800 horsepower.
There have been 2JZ reportedly boosted and tuned
at six, seven and, yeah, even 800 horsepower
with stock internals,
and even more when you swap out them jugs.
2JZ engine, subscribe to Donut, guys.
It's how we get to do such awesome stuff for you.
Means a lot.
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Go to shop.donut.media and check out this video
from James on the Supra.
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check out Eddie in front of the camera, en prostato.
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Don't tell my wife I 2JZ swapped everything.