The SEMA show is the best showcase of what the greatest tuners bring to the table of increasing tuner cars of the world. One of the main highlights was the Toyota Supra with a 4 rotor engine! The Supra is renowned for its BMW engine as well as a platform which is incredibly tuner-friendly and allows for various components which can be added aftermarket so let’s have a look when things are taken to a slightly extreme extent especially when it is used for motorsport competitions like formula drift!
Firstly, this supra is owned by Adam LZ or Adam Lizotte Zesler, a popular YouTuber who is known for his extreme builds and has garnered fans like anything. Millions upon millions come every day to his channel to view what he has done. He is a massive fan of drifting and does it at a professional level. There are controversies as to how much of his license granting was for the fact that he was a competent drifter rather than the fact and elephant in the room that is his massive social following. But the bottom line is, that he can hang around with a lot of professional folks as documented on his LZ World Tour where he has taken the 4-rotor supra for drifting against fierce competitors.
Now let us understand the 4-rotor supra. Built by Virginia-based Angel Motorsports Group, this Supra has a Naturally Aspirated 4 rotor engine swapped into it and it produces 450 hp. The car roared to life for the first time in December 2022. Compared to a normal engine which has pistons to move around and make the power, the rotary wankel however, has pistons shaped like a Dorito which do the movement. It looks cool when animated but this engine formula seemed to have a lot of reliability issues back in the day due to the lack of precision during production,but with modern machinery and precise engineering this can be a pretty solid block, but it wasnt back in the day which is why it wasn’t a huge success if you leave Mazda RX-7 and RX-8 aside. But there are some upsides a rotary too, with high-revving engines generally being the case. This rotary also has an 11000 rpm redline. Most wankels have the limit set at 10k but this car has it higher for better performance.
In addition to it, this flame-throwing 4-rotor supra also has goodies like a mandatory drift stick, and a winter performance quick change rear end. Not to mention, a Haltec ECU is managing the engine-swapped 4 rotor, and fully adjustable suspension.
Now let’s look at the fun part of this supra, it is used for serious drifting! Adam has been using it as part of the LZ World Tour entering various Drifting Competitions and beating pros at their game. We have seen a few clips of this animal and it sounds amazing! The LZ World Tour has been a success and the supra has been the centrepiece. We would love to see this supra at a formula drift event but it makes half the power of a regular formula drift car. In addition to it, Adam also has plans to use it for “normal” track driving which it is a master at thanks to that BMW underpinnings.
It would be lovely to witness this supra in real life seeing the donuts it makes and chatting with Adam who is the guy who built it and what efforts it took. It has been a labour of love which you can watch for yourself on his YouTube channel and it was a pleasure to witness this supra especially as someone who lives in a place where drifting isn’t as mainstream as the West.
