E50 Toyota GR Supra Drag Races C8 Corvette, E85 Ford Mustang With Drag Radials

4 years, 6 months ago - 14 April 2020, autoevolution
E50 Toyota GR Supra Drag Races C8 Corvette, E85 Ford Mustang With Drag Radials
From the get-go, the Supra is a match for the BMW Z4 M40i in terms of ponies and torques.

Introduced for the 2021 model year, the range-topping Toyota with the B58 engine is much obliged to crank out 382 horsepower and 500 Nm from 1,600 to 4,500 rpm.

Paired to the ZF 8HP torque-converter automatic transmission, this engine is more than adequate for a vehicle the size and weight of the Supra. The aftermarket world, however, can do better in heaven knows how many ways. The E50 Supra in the following video, which boasts "just the tune and fuel blend," is a testament to that.

The car in question develops no fewer than 485 rear-wheel horsepower on E85, but E50 is pretty potent as well considering the advantages of the mid-level ethanol blend over premium gasoline. Drag racing a bone-stock C8 Corvette without the Z51 Performance Package yields what can only be described as an obvious result.

However, care to guess how the E50 Supra stacks up against a Ford Mustang GT with the 10R80 torque-converter automatic, a modded exhaust system, drag radials at the rear end, and an E85 tune? Let's just say that the race is much closer.

Competing against the 'Stang shows the advantages of a turbocharged engine – albeit with two fewer cylinders and a smaller displacement than the Coyote V8 – over natural aspiration. The torque is developed much lower in the rev range, as if you were wondering, the bone-stock 5.0 maximizes torque at 4,600 rpm.

Pretty much every gas station in America sells gasoline mixed with ethanol, a type of alcohol that's also found in vodka. Henry Ford once said that using alcohol yields "15 percent more power than gasoline," and this is also the reason the tuning scene sometimes prefers C2H5OH over hardware modifications.

The downside to ethanol blends in regular automobiles, however, is hydrophilia and solvent power. Worse still, filling up your full-size truck or SUV with E10 or higher will translate to woeful fuel economy because ethanol contains less energy than gasoline.