Which Vehicles Have A Toyota 503E Engine Beneath The Hood?

Toyota’s racing historical past extends again practically 70 years, beginning when the corporate started competing in rally competitions in 1957. Since then, Toyota has constructed a motorsport dynasty, with 5 Le Mans wins, eight World Rally Championship producer titles, 53 IMSA victories, and eleven GT500 crew wins beneath the corporate’s belt. There is a widespread thread that runs by way of lots of Toyota’s most celebrated racing accomplishments, the 503E inline-four-cylinder engine.

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Toyota’s 503E engine was constructed out of Toyota’s need for dominance in motorsports of all types. Within the Nineteen Eighties, Toyota was taking its motorsport endeavors very severely, particularly Le Mans prototype racing and IMSA. Toyota had a 2.1-liter four-cylinder engine, often called the 4T-GT within the early years of its Le Mans efforts, but it surely was underpowered and unreliable. So, Toyota launched a brand new 2.1-liter turbocharged twin-cam four-cylinder to switch it.

The brand new engine glided by many names. Internally, the brand new engine was known as the 503E; nonetheless, it’s additionally generally known as the 3S-GT and 3S-G. The 503E obtained a large bump in enhance and horsepower over the 4T-GT, producing between 500 and 850 horsepower in its many motorsport purposes. Over the following decade, the 503E proved to be a dominant race motor, powering a few of Toyota’s most iconic automobiles to victory in a number of disciplines of motorsport.

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Toyota entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the primary time in 1985 with the 85C prototype, which was a collaborative effort between the TOMs race crew, Dome chassis producer, and Toyota’s TRD Racing Division. Built-in into the 85C chassis was a turbocharged 2.1-liter Toyota twin-cam four-cylinder, internally often called the 4T-GT. Sadly, the estimated 500 horsepower 4T-GT wasn’t highly effective sufficient for the 85C to compete with the very best of the sphere, resulting in a Twelfth-place total end within the race. Regardless of returning in 1986 with a very redesigned chassis, the 4T-GT was as soon as once more the downfall of that 12 months’s 86C automobile, as each manufacturing unit entries retired because of engine reliability issues.

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In 1987, Toyota was decided to place up a extra critical struggle. As an evolution of the earlier mannequin, the 1987 87C was constructed on a revised 86C chassis. Nevertheless, beneath its pores and skin, the 87C obtained an enormous improve. Toyota determined to swap out the torpid 4T-GT with the race-proven 503E 2.1-liter turbocharged inline-four cylinder that had already destroyed the competitors within the All-Japan Sports activities Prototype Automotive Endurance Championship. Within the 87C, the 503E made 680 horsepower, 180 greater than the outgoing 4T-GT. The 503E-powered 87C would go on to win each the Fuji 1000 km and Suzuka that 12 months however would fail to complete within the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The 503E was used once more for 1988 within the Toyota 88C, which completed the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans in Twelfth place amongst stiff competitors.

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IMSA, or the Worldwide Motor Sports activities Affiliation, was fashioned in 1969 as an American sports activities automobile collection that supplied the identical degree {of professional} group as NASCAR. By the Nineteen Eighties, IMSA was changing into a significant participant within the realm of worldwide motorsport, attracting entries from around the globe. In 1983, the All-American Racers crew, led by adorned driver Dan Gurney and identified for growing System 1 automobiles within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, teamed up with Toyota to make the IMSA Celica a risk on the racetrack. The trouble paid off in 1987 when the AAR-Toyota Celica GTO received the IMSA GTO Constructors’ Championship with a 4T-GTE straight-four beneath its hood.

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After AAR-Toyota’s win within the GTO class, the logical subsequent step was the extra excessive grand touring prototype (or GTP) class. To race within the GTP class in 1989, AAR and Toyota entered a brand new mannequin developed from the Toyota 88C Le Mans prototype automobile. The brand new AAR-Toyota HF89 (also referred to as the Eagle Mk II) featured a inflexible aluminum monocoque chassis and a separate rear subframe that housed the well-known 503E inline-four, producing 630 horsepower in IMSA trim. Whereas the 1989 season was used to iron out reliability points, the HF89 went on to win 4 races within the 1990 IMSA season, ending second within the total standings.

The following model of the AAR-Toyota GTP automobile, often called the Eagle MkIII, was launched in late 1991 for the 1992 IMSA season. It solved lots of the aerodynamic points confronted by the Eagle Mk II and used a refined model of the 503E, which was boosted to a whopping 750 horsepower. What adopted was sheer dominance, with the Eagle Mk III profitable 21 or 27 IMSA races between 1991 and 1993. 

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The All Japanese Grand Touring Automotive Championship, often called the JGTC for brief, was a GT racing collection that occurred in Japan between 1993 and 2004 earlier than being renamed to Tremendous GT the place it continues to at the present time. The JGTC included two courses, the decrease spec GT2 class and the fire-breathing, 500 horsepower GT1 class.

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The Nissan R32 GTR had been dominating in each racing collection that it entered, however particularly the Japanese Touring Automotive Championship. The R32 received each single Japanese Touring Automotive Championship race that it entered (even earlier than the JGTC was created) between 1990 and 1993, totaling 29 wins. That dominance carried into the JGTC, with the Skyline profitable the 1993 and 1994 seasons. Toyota responded by getting into the two-year-old Mk IV Supra within the JGTC for the 1995 season. Whereas the 2JZ-GTE was a really particular engine within the street automobile, it was too heavy and inefficient for GT racing. So, Toyota swapped the manufacturing unit 2JZ-GTE with the 503E, which was detuned from its IMSA counterpart to fulfill the GT1-spec horsepower restrict.

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The Supra misplaced to the R32 but once more that 12 months and was embarrassed by the dominant McLaren F1 the 12 months after, however 1997 was a turnaround 12 months for the 503E-powered Supra. The factory-backed TOMs crew fought tooth and nail with the SARD crew, additionally racing a 503E Supra, by way of the season, in the end tying on the ultimate race at Sugo. Because of favorable outcomes earlier within the season, Toyota Staff TOMs took the Supra to its first JGTC GT500 victory in 1997. The best Supra in racing historical past went on to win three extra championships, thanks largely to the 503E.

[Featured image by Mytho88 via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 3.0]

The Pikes Peak Worldwide Hill Climb is likely one of the most harmful and rigorous motorsport occasions on the earth. Began in 1916, the PPHC can also be the second-oldest automotive race in the USA and has been attracting daredevils and gutsy producers because the very starting. Whereas there have been some speedy report runs within the hill climb’s 100-plus-year historical past, Rod Millen’s 1994 report behind the wheel of a specifically constructed 503E-powered Toyota Celica is likely one of the all-time greats.

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By 1994, racing legend Rod Millen had already competed in IMSA, SCCA PRO Rally, and even the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Nevertheless, he wished his 1994 run to be a legendary one. Millen determined to accomplice with Toyota for his 1994 try for a few causes. He figured that the brand new Toyota Celica could be a great platform to start out with as a result of its all-wheel-drive capabilities would make it good on the filth observe and Toyota additionally agreed to provide him a few of Dan Gurney’s spare 503E engines from the AAP-Toyota IMSA undertaking that had simply concluded. Millen set to work adapting the Celica chassis for the hill climb, which used an underlying tube chassis and carbon fiber physique. It featured an aggressive aero bundle and leveraged floor impact aerodynamics to maintain it adhered to the bottom. In hill climb-spec, the 503E made a gargantuan 850 horsepower.

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Within the hillclimb itself, Rod Millen accomplished the 12.42-mile course in simply 10:04.06. Traversing 156 turns with no security measures in place to forestall an almost 5,000-foot roll down the mountain, Millen set the brand new Pikes Peak Worldwide Hill Climb report by 40 seconds. The report set within the 503E-powered Celica would stand for 13 years.