'Why fit a Formula 1-inspired Judd V10 engine into a Toyota A90 Supra' is probably not a common question we are all struggling with regarding our own personal projects. Still, we love that people like Ryan Tuerck can answer it for us!
Use ‘PODCAST75’ for $75 off your first HPA course here: https://hpcdmy.co/hpa-tuned-in
This 4L 730hp (630hp ATW), 11,000 rpm capable Judd V10 powered 'Formula Supra' was at World Time Attack, and if you didn't see the car, you certainly heard it on song from all corners during its exhibition laps with Ryan Tuerck at the wheel. But how did the build come about, and what makes it tick?
Before falling into Ryan's hands (while fistfuls of cash fell out of them in exchange), the Judd GV4 V10 itself was a spare for an old Benetton Formula 1 car (an everyday use case) and thanks to Ryan's solid relationship with Toyota, it found itself not at home in an A90 Toyota Supra chassis sporting a MoTeC electronics package and tuning from John Reed Racing including the venerable M150 ECU and PDM30 which help put the power to the ground through aa Hollinger RD6 sequential gearbox. Interestingly, a Ford Explorer 8.8 rear differential was chosen for its range of ratio options and lightweight compared to the usual Winter Quick Change rear end thanks to fabrication pro Dominic Biro.
A lightweight Tilton Engineering 4 plate carbon clutch helps combat a thrust bearing design that doesn't suit drifting (LMP1 endurance cars only use their clutch to get the vehicle moving), with other help from Judd coming in the form of detailed manuals that cover the life expectancy of every party on the engine down to the exhaust manifold for ultimate reliability in an engine that was ultimately built to be hammered on for 24hours straight.
'Why fit a Formula 1-inspired Judd V10 engine into a Toyota A90 Supra' is probably not a common question we are all struggling with regarding our own personal projects. Still, we love that people like Ryan Tuerck can answer it for us!
Use ‘PODCAST75’ for $75 off your first HPA course here: https://hpcdmy.co/hpa-tuned-in
This 4L 730hp (630hp ATW), 11,000 rpm capable Judd V10 powered 'Formula Supra' was at World Time Attack, and if you didn't see the car, you certainly heard it on song from all corners during its exhibition laps with Ryan Tuerck at the wheel. But how did the build come about, and what makes it tick?
Before falling into Ryan's hands (while fistfuls of cash fell out of them in exchange), the Judd GV4 V10 itself was a spare for an old Benetton Formula 1 car (an everyday use case) and thanks to Ryan's solid relationship with Toyota, it found itself not at home in an A90 Toyota Supra chassis sporting a MoTeC electronics package and tuning from John Reed Racing including the venerable M150 ECU and PDM30 which help put the power to the ground through aa Hollinger RD6 sequential gearbox. Interestingly, a Ford Explorer 8.8 rear differential was chosen for its range of ratio options and lightweight compared to the usual Winter Quick Change rear end thanks to fabrication pro Dominic Biro.
A lightweight Tilton Engineering 4 plate carbon clutch helps combat a thrust bearing design that doesn't suit drifting (LMP1 endurance cars only use their clutch to get the vehicle moving), with other help from Judd coming in the form of detailed manuals that cover the life expectancy of every party on the engine down to the exhaust manifold for ultimate reliability in an engine that was ultimately built to be hammered on for 24hours straight.
One of the cars I was most looking forward to hearing here at World Time Attack is Ryan Turks V10 powered Supra and saying I'm looking forward to hearing a car might seem like an unusual way of introducing it, but you absolutely need to hear this thing to believe it. Welcome to High Performance Academies, tuned in field report podcast series. In these special midweek episodes we look back through our archives to find the best conversations we've had through years worth of attending the best automotive events across the globe. We've pulled the audio from these tech filled interviews with some of the industry's most well known figures and presented it in podcast format for you to enjoy as a quick hit of insider knowledge. Ryan, I mean really the heart and soul of this car is that. Judd V10. I want to go back a little bit. When you first had Invisage building this car, what was the dream? Was it always to have that?
Speaker 2:V10 in it. Yeah, for me it took like maybe 10, 11 years for me to actually get this project off the ground and it was more for me like the engine. That was always like. At that point the goal in my motorsport career is like I want one of these engines in a car and I want to drive it. I learned about it from watching George the late George Plasso's hill climb videos and that's where I learned about Judd and that's pretty much what sold me on it. And then for me it wasn't like a specific chassis or car that I was going to go into. That was kind of the more of the afterthought, like whatever works out at that time when and if I do get one of these engines on my hands, that'll get sorted later.
Speaker 1:I'm also guessing. With the selection of that engine, it wasn't necessarily about power and it was more about sound. It's no slouch, don't get me wrong, but it would be easier to make a more powerful turbo engine combination, wouldn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100% would have been cheaper and a little bit easier and more cost effective to probably make like a six cylinder or a four cylinder turbo engine. For sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, so one of the things that I often get posted about this car is it's a Formula 1 engine. Now, while Judd do build Formula 1 engines, this specific engine is not a Formula 1 engine.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it is not. It's actually all derived from the Formula 1 era of engines that they made, but this is actually an endurance racing engine, so it was in a lot of the Le Mans cars. I think they want the team 1 and 99 Daytona with this Series 1 Judd V10 and I think they got another one somewhere else. I'm not a little shaky on the history there, but that's really what this is built for. They punched it up to a 4 liter and made it turn RPMs down to 11,000.
Speaker 1:Turn it down to 11.
Speaker 2:Probably like 16 and a half or whatever they were running their Formula 1 engines to at the time. And yeah, it just made it more of an endurance application.
Speaker 1:So 4 liter, 11,000 RPM, naturally aspirated, and what sort of power does it produce?
Speaker 2:So it's making 630 at the rear wheels on a dyno jet dyno that we rolled it on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's an HG650-700 flywheel give or take, depending what you want to call the drivetrain loss.
Speaker 2:It's rated by Judd at 730 at the flywheel In terms of getting hold of one of these engines.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess if you've got a big enough checkbook it's relatively easy, but it can't be a cheap engine. Can you give us some insight into how you went about getting your hands on one?
Speaker 2:It was more. For me it was like knowing about the engine and then searching like, are these things even for sale, like used, you know? So actually I contacted Judd a couple different times and kind of my inexperience and eager attitude and I was like how much of these things cost? How much does this one cost, you know, asking a lot of dumb newbie questions, and they came back with some pricing. I'm like, okay, at least I know what the benchmark is, you know.
Speaker 2:And then I had found this zero mile, used, well, used, but brand new, refreshed, zero mile engine on consignment on this website in the US and it was a gentleman selling it, based out of Texas, and he had a late model F1 program, you know. I think he owned a Benetton, had been converted with the Judd motor and this was his spare engine and he was parting everything out. So the motor was on consignment and I was like, well, this is probably the only shot I got at finding one of these things at this price, you know, which is probably half of what a brand new one would cost. It was perfect timing because at that point I had found out that I was going to drive for Papadakis Racing the following year in Formula Drift. So the current race car that I had owned it was campaigning. I could sell that and come up with some cash to buy the engine, so it starts a line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty much how it worked out and got my hands on it, and then I started putting some proposals together and trying to sell the project to some sponsors.
Speaker 1:So in terms of sort of maintenance, servicing, life expectancy of these engines I mean, it's an exhibition car, it's not endurance racing, I'm guessing. Ultimately you're still not really putting a huge number of miles on it. But what is the maintenance for an engine like this look like?
Speaker 2:For us it's really just changing the oil, making sure the temps on track are not going above what the engine actually comes to. The big manual of all these specifications, even to build the headers properly, which is really cool. So just to try to stay within all those parameters and know, you know, to get the longest life expectancy we can out of it, that's really our goal in rebuild intervals of 3000 Ks. So you have. You have a decent amount of time. You're thinking time attack. If you're thinking in time attack weekend terms, you're probably only coming out of a weekend still under 100 miles on the track. So you'll get a couple of seasons out of it and we're hoping to get three to four seasons. And this is, I guess, a second year on track really and we've only been on track maybe three or four times max.
Speaker 1:So in terms of the procedure for getting one of these up and running as well, because it's not like your road car where it's maybe snow on the ground outside. Turn the key starts up and you drive it down to the shop. So talk us through the procedures. This is a bit more like how you would see any one car being prepared for a startup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it takes about an hour for startup. We got a plug in the engine heater or the water heater and heat to cool it up. You don't have to do the oil. We do like to do the oil as well, just so it's. You don't have to sit here idling the warm up for so long, so we'll do the oil as well. And but yeah, you can't fire it up cold. There's no way.
Speaker 1:And this is really all about just letting everything expand out so that the clearances inside the engine are where they should be Correct, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything's pretty tight in there. So they say, yeah, you got to, you got to warm it up, get everything more to where it's supposed to be when it's actually running hot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you mentioned, the engine was really the heart of the project and then the chassis sort of came as a secondary. I mean, the A90 Super is obviously a pretty well proven platform at this point. How did that fall into place? Was there ever another chassis that was was going to be potentially home to the job? I don't know.
Speaker 2:When I got it it was just like kind of a perfect storm for me, because my relationship with Toyota has been great and they know I like to do projects. So when I it was the for me, when I got the motor I was like the Super is the car. You know, that's just all the, all the pieces aligned and that's the chassis was going to go into. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about the rest of the car. So, for a start, what have you got in the way of a transmission backing this engine?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're running the Hollinger Rd6, 6 speed sequential transmission. Same one is that we ran in our pro FD car for about five, six years with phenomenal success. So we want to continue with a lot of the partners and parts that we have proven ourselves in our own race cars to keep them going in other ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, of course, moving to the rear of the car. What have you got in there in the rear end?
Speaker 2:So that was actually came from Dominic, who built and fabricated the majority of this of this car, and he decided that we should do the Ford 8.8 rear end out of a Ford Explorer like an independent rear suspension. And we reason we didn't go quick change because there wasn't a lot of great differential options or no differential options. So for road racing we wanted to have an option that we could tune in the rear differential. So the Ford 8.8 has almost infinite, infinite amount of ring and ring opinion ratios. So that was that was good. And then about 15, 20, I think 20, 25 pounds lighter than a quick change as well. So it's not insignificant.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so focusing on the weight factor as well, it was kind of the easy one to go to.
Speaker 1:Do you want to take your car knowledge game to the next level? Join us in the next free lesson at hpacademycom. Slash free and start developing your own skills today In terms of the electronics and then specifically around the tuning. I'm interested in how that works because, again, jumping in the deep end with an engine revving to 11,000 RPM, yeah it's, it's no mean face. So talk us through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the harness and all the harness stuff is all done by John Reed racing all the wiring and then the electronics package all from him. So MoTeC M130 ECU I'm sorry, m150 ECU PDM 30, controlling everything, and yeah, we've had great success so far.
Speaker 1:Now, John's no stranger to our channel. We've got interviews with him. We've had him on our podcast as well. He's definitely one smart man when it comes to electronic packages. As I understand it as well, he remote tuned this.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, John, this is one of the ones he didn't remote. No, john, john made it a point he was going to come down and tune this thing in parts, even though there's no cam control. There's not a lot of these extra things that you want to be around to tune that he usually remotes, tunes anyways, but just the epic sound of this thing. He wanted to be in the car on the dyno tuning in person just to hear this thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I can absolutely understand it. It's not too often you get to hear an engine that sounds like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, in terms of the rest of the chassis, you're running this in a time of textile competition that's gone from sort of strength to strength and you know we're seeing some pretty wild cars out there. Your power level, for a start, I would say, is probably a little too low to be competitive at the pointy end, but also not too wild. In the air package on this, Is that something that's up for further development or where are you at with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the direction of the project. It was more about the engine than it was the chassis. And then it was like this mix of like OK, I think I'm going to do some drifting and some grip driving with it. And then we filmed the first video, when it was completed, about drifting, I was like this is not a drift car, this engine is not a like an engine used for drifting. So that that point it was like OK, the car is done, now I want to transition it to grip driving and throw an arrow package on and all of that.
Speaker 1:And then it's just getting slow progress because once the project is kind of done, the funding is gone and it's pretty much doing it, you know now, obviously you are well known, or best known, for drifting and, as you mentioned, you know initially there was some drifting intended for this and it has been drifted. But I understand a little bit margin on terms of the clutch that's fitted to it and you don't want to beat up on that too hard because that in turn can affect the engine.
Speaker 2:For sure there's.
Speaker 2:So there's a couple of things that we realized after getting three quarters of the way done with the, with the build project, and it was that Jud mentioned to us that and all this is coming from actually an engine designer within Jud, a young gentleman named Bryn who is in a drifting himself.
Speaker 2:So he was meant a massive, massive help in a completion of this project and making sure that we're steered down the right road and not making mistakes. So he mentioned that there is a very there's a lack of a thrust bearing in the crank, because these engines are basically made to run off the start line and then you don't use the clutch ever. So for drifting in those long, long entries on a handbrake or something and you're fricking wrapping the engine up to 11000 with the clutch in it's probably not going to last that long. So our thing was OK, it's a five and a half inch clutch. It's already hard enough and very expensive doing it. So we did a four plate carbon from Tilton just to try to relieve a lot of the side load on the crank and have a lot more clamping force. So a low kind of a low pressure plate rating and then just a stack plates to make it make a grab.
Speaker 1:So, essentially, you're going with a lightweight clutch pressure so that you're not putting as much stress on the thrust bearing Well, what is what is inside the engine in terms of thrust support? But then you've got to have multiple plates in order to actually get the torque handling capability.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, and thankfully the engine actually doesn't make much torque and the RPM range is about seven to 11000, which is great for track and grip driving.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask about that RPM range in terms of idle speed as well. I've heard of idle. It doesn't sound like it's sitting at sort of 900 RPM. What's it actually?
Speaker 2:idle, then we're idle around 22, 2300.
Speaker 2:It actually sounds much higher than that it does. I know it's just like when you fire it up, the sound just kind of engulfs every area that it's in the other. The other thing that we realized after getting to know this engine a little bit more is like everything is engineered for high RPM or for pretty much 7000 up. So when you're idling the oil pressure is so low it's scary, the water system doesn't work very well and all you know, because all those things are only engineered for a more high RPM.
Speaker 1:So what you're saying is that's not really much good for driving down to the shops and pick our check, absolutely not Another element I'm interested in fuel. Is there any special requirement for the type of fuel we have to run?
Speaker 2:on this? Yeah, and it's not. It's not as crazy you think, it's. Just they say you can go down actually as low as like a 98 octane. Yeah, and they recommend 100 octane from a supplier. But we sent over all of the data from VP, so we run an MS109, which is an oxygenated, unleaded 109 octane, and they approve that and that's why we're running that yeah.
Speaker 1:In terms of your relationship with Judd, I would have assumed that it would be difficult for a privateer with you know you're not running a prototype car or something like that to actually get support. It sounds like they've actually been really forthcoming.
Speaker 2:They've been extremely helpful throughout the process of the project. And don't get me wrong, they are paid to play all the way. Being a pro, you know that level of an engineering company and. But they're all gearheads, man. They love what these engines do and love seeing where they go and what they do in the world as far as racing and motorsports.
Speaker 1:So let's be honest, it's also got their name out in front of a massive market that may never have heard of them otherwise. So probably, even if those customers might not necessarily have the funds right now, can't be a bad thing, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not. Brand recognition is great, especially down a road. Maybe somebody strikes it rich somewhere and they're like, hey, I want to jet engine too.
Speaker 1:I'll put my hand up for one if I ever want to. All right, Ryan, look, I really appreciate getting a rundown on the car. Like I said at the start, it's one of the cars that I really wanted to see in person. It sounds amazing on your Instagram, but there's nothing quite like hearing it in real life.
Speaker 2:So there's, absolutely no. There's nothing compares online to being in person for sure.
Speaker 1:We'll look forward to hearing it go down the front straight again during the weekend. Thanks again for your time. Thank you, guys. If you enjoyed this podcast, please feel free to leave a review on whatever platform you've chosen to listen to it on. It goes a long way to help us getting the word out there. All these conversations and much more are also available in full on our High Performance Academy YouTube channel, so make sure you subscribe. It's a one stop shop when it comes to going faster, stopping quicker and cornering better.