THE BLUEPRINT

TOYOTA'S 2JZ INLINE-SIX IS KNOWN FOR ITS LEGENDARY DURABILITY.

- BY BRETT BERK

NERO DELIWALA BOUGHT a 1994 Toyota Supra Turbo in 1998.

He and his brother, Baadal, better known as Bottle, immediately started modifying it. Wrenching in their parents' Florida garage, they bought parts from the car's native Japan and dug into the sequentially twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six (known inside Toyota as the 2JZ-GTE). Like generations of hot-rodders, the brothers lusted for more power and domination on the streets and at the track. They quickly earned cred within the era's emerging tuner circuit, doubling and then further increasing the engine's factory 320-hp output. With their growing overseas connections, they also started importing components for friends. “It was created by accident,” Bottle says, “just to hopefully sell a couple of parts to pay for some race gas and expenses to get to the racetrack. And it ended up becoming a full-fledged company.”

That company, Titan Motorsports in Orlando, Florida, is now one of the best-known developers, manufacturers, and retailers of go-fast mods, with a particular focus on Nineties-era Japanese cars. Nero and Bottle, the community of tinkerers that grew up with and around them, and the 2JZ engine itself have become legendary. This is, in no small part, because the 2JZ is beloved, even revered, for its ability to take simple mods, output insane horsepower numbers, and remain unbelievably reliable.

“In the Nineties, I built a car with the stock automatic transmission and air-conditioning—a total street car. I drove it to the track and ran a 9.50 quarter,” recalls Larry Prebis, who founded Sound Performance near Chicago as a custom car-stereo shop in 1989. It soon became dedicated to tuning the 2JZ. “You could build a nine-second car that you could drive daily, and it would still idle smooth, blow cold A/C, and get 25 miles per gallon.”