Guff's A90 Supra Rebuild - TA90 Lives On

So as some of you may know, I purchased Jackie's A90 Supra after his on-track incident. I picked it up from Jackie in Michigan and brought it to Chicago where my brother and I are doing some initial work to get it running again before I take it down to Texas where it will live.



So, as with many BMWs, this car has a Battery Safety Terminal, or BST, that will use an explosive gas charge to disconnect the positive battery terminal from the starter and alternator in the event of a crash.

This car was stuck in Park and had the e-Brake engaged and the car refused to go into Neutral or release the brake in accessory mode. This is a common BMW theme and generally requires replacing or bridging the BST in order to start the car. I jumped the BST with jumper cables but the battery was too dead and it refused to start (it wouldn't even take a jump). So I went to plan B, manually engaging neutral from the transmission itself. I got underneath and pulled the panels off, but alas, no release screw like other ZF transmissions. So from there was Plan C, putting the rear on dollies and pulling the car up by hand (I didn't have a winch). It was a long and painful process, but we got there...







The assessed damage is as follows:
-Front Bumper
-L Headlight
-Cooler Duct
-L Front Lower Control Arm
-Hood/Clamshell
-L Fender
-L Door
-L Rocker
-L Rear Quarter Panel

No structural damage, no mechanical damage. The only wiring damage is a little bit of torn insulation on one of the light wires.

Overall, she looks to be in decent shape!



Tomorrow I will try to sort out the battery issue and the BST issue and try to get the car started. Maybe even tackle the suspension. Then get the car back to Texas on Sunday.

I'm be making videos for YouTube on the Albon YT Channel, but those probably won't be for a bit, so I'll keep the build thread updated first.

Excellent! Can't wait to see you get this thing up and running again.

Cool! It is kind of annoying how these newer cars disable themselves after an accident. It makes even simple stuff a minor project. It's really frustrating on an AWD car.

fantastic. please don't widebody it

MA617M said:

fantastic. please don't widebody it

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But if you do, please at least make sure that it’s the widest body that ever wide bodied so that you can post a YouTube video as evidence that you were the first to do it.

MA617M said:

fantastic. please don't widebody it

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Supra Dupra said:

But if you do, please at least make sure that it’s the widest body that ever wide bodied so that you can post a YouTube video as evidence that you were the first to do it.

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Haha, no widebody plans. My trailer is hardly big enough for the stock width lol. Plus I think the Pandem kit looks like ass

Half Vast said:

Excellent! Can't wait to see you get this thing up and running again.

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Thanks man! Let's hope I don't take ten years like all my other projects!

s219 said:

Cool! It is kind of annoying how these newer cars disable themselves after an accident. It makes even simple stuff a minor project. It's really frustrating on an AWD car.

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Dude I can only imagine the difficulties on an AWD car . I'm hoping as I get more familiar with the Rheingold software and all the BMW nuances, it won't be as much of a hassle. Right now though, I'm just incredibly frustrated because this car seems to share very little with older BMWs in terms of electronics.

Exciting news! Are you going to document the rebuild on your channel? Could provide some good stuff for others who probably doing work themselves.

As the idiot who put this car into the wall in the first place, thank you Guff for willing to take on this project. I really didn't want the car to end up in the hands of someone who'll slap a widebody on, make it a show car, and then have it stored away for eternity after the hype has died and the internet crowd has moved on, and I'm glad knowing you'll revive her well. Best of luck!

JackieD86 said:

As the idiot who put this car into the wall in the first place, thank you Guff for willing to take on this project. I really didn't want the car to end up in the hands of someone who'll slap a widebody on, make it a show car, and then have it stored away for eternity after the hype has died and the internet crowd has moved on, and I'm glad knowing you'll revive her well. Best of luck!

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Jabba said:

Exciting news! Are you going to document the rebuild on your channel? Could provide some good stuff for others who probably doing work themselves.

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Yes, absolutely! The whole idea of this was to help get the Supra DIY scene kickstarted, so I will be documenting the hell out of it! I'll likely use this build thread to post more in depth things though.


Update: I stopped in Chicago for a day before heading to Texas so my brother and I could take a look at the car. I opened up the BST cable and rebridged the terminal, so now the starter and alternator can get power.


The Positive Terminal with the integrated BST ^^


The BST without the plastic shielding ^^ You can see that L-shaped metal tab that is now disconnected from the body of the terminal, that is what cuts power to the starter and alternator.


The solution to all problems is, of course, the venerable ziptie, or cable-tie as it is known the world over.^^

I'll properly replace the cable once it comes in from BMW Germany. But the battery won't take a charge over 7v so I'm calling it dead. Not sure why it's dead considering it's a new battery, but no matter, a quick trip to the Auto Parts store procured a Group 8H battery that fit right in. We threw the battery in anddddddd....

The car started right up! Barked into life with complete ferocity (there's no muffler on the car lol) and despite having a dozen errors, it was healthy!

We pulled it off the trailer with both front tires pointing completely opposite directions and started moving it into the garage slowly under its own power when BANG! A metallic clang echoed out from under the car. My brothers and I stopped and stared at each other worriedly, but then we all had the same idea "That bent control arm!"

I took a look underneath and behold, the control arm had snapped clean in half and was lazily dangling on the ground. We managed to get the car into the garage and jacked the car up to take a look. This is what we found:



(I have better video than pictures, so excuse the lack of visual imagery, videos will come soon.

Called BMW, gave them a vin off of a Z4 dealership listing, and found the part. They needed to order it in and soonest they could do was two days later. But I needed to get the car back on a trailer and headed to Texas the next morning. So I called Toyota, special order only, 7 day wait. Damn.

I tried fruitlessly to weld the arm together so I could at least get the car back on the trailer. Without the arm, the wheel was completely uncentered and had -5° of camber, so I needed it there. My awful aluminum welding did nothing, so I tried JB weld, and that was a fail too. My ghetto fixes had failed me, and the car was stuck in my brothers garage.

And so, I left it there. I'm driving back to Texas now, and I'm leaving in a couple days to be out of country for nearly 3 weeks, then SEMA is pretty much immediately after, so that means I won't see the car for another month.

My brother will get the arm and repair it, and I'll be sure to have him document it thoroughly. I'll start ordering parts in the meantime so that a month from now we can jump right into it and go full steam into getting this thing on the road.

I'll update with more pictures and videos when I get the chance, but for now, we all have to sit tight! Thankfully Jackie got his TA90.2 and so we can follow his build for all the badass Supra content we crave!

*Tavarish, Sam Cracc, Rich Rebuilds, and LegitStreetCars has joined the chat*

Thank you for buying Jackie’s crashed Supra
Can’t wait to see you get it fixed!

Here's a little phone-video walkaround, courtesy of @ManiM1191.

Also, a nice shot of it next to my A80 project

is that with no rear muffler?

MA617M said:

is that with no rear muffler?

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Correct! No muffler.

Mmm it sounds good. I wonder if it'd be too loud for daily life