The Toyota Supra is one of those cars where the arcane alphanumeric droid-name of its best-known engine—the 2JZ-GTE—is almost as well-known as the car itself. So when it was announced that the reborn Supra would have an inline-six engine developed by its partner BMW, that was a confusing development for many Supra-stans. How did that BMW B58 engine turn out, and what’s it like inside? This video is the first really comprehensive tear down of the new Supra’s engine, so we can finally see.
The reason this 500-mile Supra is getting its engine torn to bits is because it’s in the shop of Papdakis Racing, a Formula Drift team that wants to make 1000 horsepower from the stock 335 horse engine, and to do that, it all has to come apart.
Thankfully, Steph Papadakis filmed the whole teardown process so we can all take a peek at what’s going on in there. Here, watch:
The B58 engine looks like a very impressive, very modern design, all throughout. The whole car appears to be more modular and easy to work on than I’d guess, though it’s always a bit deceptive when a car’s in a full shop with all the right tools as opposed to you on your back under the thing in the gravel.
There’s a number of interesting traits about the engine that are worth looking out for in the video:
• This is a surprise: the timing chain is in a housing at the back of the engine, where it mates to the transmission. That’s not common; I think the Audi S4 engine did that, and Ford’s 4-liter SOHC engine had a timing chain at both ends. But this is still odd to me.
• There’s an internal exhaust manifold, which means only two exhaust ports are on the block, which looks weird on a straight-six. That lets the turbo bolt right to cylinder head, which is nice and clean, though.
• The intake manifold is plastic, and has an integrated intercooler. Neat!
• No cheap-ass thermostat for this engine: there’s an ECU-controlled rotary valve thermostat that can do more than just turn water flow on or off.
• The oil cooler is coolant-fed and mounted right to the engine, so no long oil lines needed to plumb one mounted in the grille
• Seeing the adjustable cam gears is interesting, as is the mechanical fuel pump driven off the camshaft
• If you want to change your own plugs on one of these, a warning: standard spark plug sockets seem too big to fit, you’ll need a thin walled one
• Very few gaskets on the engine
• There’s a nifty little clip to keep the rocker arm from falling off the lifter
• The engine block is a solid deck block, which looks nice and strong, not an open water jacket, and as a result should be able to handle much more power
It’s fascinating to watch all of this, and it once again makes me realize what bronze-age crap the cars I own and drive are. Oh well.