The Modern Toyota Supra's BMW Engine Is More Than Equal to the Legendary 2JZ

Kyle Hyatt

March 30, 2023 at 2:30 PM·2 min read

A highly modified BMW B58 engine in a Formula Drift Toyota Supra

From Munich, with love.

When the current A90 Toyota Supra came out, many enthusiasts collectively raged over the fact that the engine in the car came from BMW. I mean, how could BMW’s B58 inline-six be as strong and reliable, and offer as much power potential, as the now-venerated-beyond-all-reason Toyota 2JZ?

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Early in the A90's life cycle, racing legend Stephan Papadakis decided to shoot a video series where he disassembled a stock B58 inline-six and evaluated its power and reliability potential in a racing application. The prognosis for the Bimmer engine was good. Now, fast forward a few years, Papadakis Racing is still running the B58 in Fredric Aasbo’s super successful drift Supra, pushing out around 1,200 horsepower.

So in the fullness of time, how has Papadakis’ B58 engine program changed, and how has the engine fared in the rigors of competition beyond its pure power potential? To find out, the folks from High Performance Academy cornered Papadakis himself at SEMA and got him to dish on his experiences.

Goodnight 2JZ? | 1200HP B58. Stock Block, Stock Bores & No Dry Sump!?

The most surprising thing to me is just how little they’ve had to change on the B58 to make it race-ready at four-digit horsepower, and how little continued development the engine has needed. For example, Papadakis uses the stock alloy block for competition, complete with the stock plasma-spray cylinder linings. He also uses use the same type of JE pistons and stock piston rings that they’ve been running since 2019. The biggest change has been to the cylinder head, which moved from a cast-in dual-outlet exhaust manifold to a more traditional six-port layout in 2021.

So, what does this mean for the beloved 2JZ? While that engine is legendary for a reason, technology hasn’t stopped advancing since it was killed off in 2007. New tech is a good thing, and this video shows that huge, almost unconscionable power is within your reach with surprisingly few modifications.