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Here's a close-up of the motorsport-grade connectors. Although this ECU sits inside the passenger footwell, it can be safely installed in an any engine bay since it's weather-proofed.
Unlike the previous AEM EMS versions 1 and 2, the AEM Infinity is not only way more powerful, but AEM went the extra mile to make the software very user friendly. For instance, you can monitor things now either graphically, or by tables, or even with cool looking gauges.
Before we get into the dyno testing, let us shed some light on some of the aesthetic enhancements this car has been rolling with over the past several years. First off, this car used to be white. At the time, I felt white made the car look too big, and it was difficult to keep the rear bumper from turning a yellow-ish grey from the exhaust fumes. So, the car was painted “Estoril Blue”, which is the electric metallic blue made famous by the E36 M3, and later the Z3 M Roadsters and M Coupes. Estoril Blue later started showing up again on the X5 and X5 M, and today the color's returned in full force with the new BMW 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-Series cars.
Two of my four previous E36 M3s were Estoril Blue, and in case you care to know what the Estoril name means, it’s a famous racetrack in Portugal.
In the front you may notice a few enhancements over a stock ’95 Supra. First off, these headlights are genuine Toyota headlights from the 97-98 Supra. The ones for the 93-96 Supra were all chromed out and a little outdated. You’ll also notice a Stillen front bumper, which was chosen for its larger intercooler opening while retaining somewhat of a near-stock look. Then there’s the obvious hood, which is a TS-Style hood from Seibon.
The paint job for the hood was done at Modified by KC. They were able to use a cool paint technique where the hood, while still blue, would still allow the carbon weave to shine through. I was never a huge fan of carbon or black hoods on non-black cars, but I do like the look of carbon fiber. This sort of gave us the best of both worlds, limiting the undesired contrast.
Even more important than the look is the functionality of the hood. With the large, louvered vents, the under-hood temperature and, thus, the intake air temps, are kept at bay. I don’t think people with fully enclosed hoods realize just how much heat they can retain, especially after a turning the car off for a short while. In fact I’ve tested the intake air temperature on several cars with factory hoods, and found that unless you’re driving at highway speed, you’re looking at some serious heat retention.
For example, on a normal 80F day, if you park your car for 15-20 minutes, the engine’s fluid and exhaust temperatures continuously heat the air under the hood (and therefore the intake manifold and airbox and/or filter itself) until reaching roughly 175-200F, and it takes several minutes of driving at 60+ MPH to bring the temp down. And even after it’s cooled down at highway speed you’re still looking at an intake temperature of 30-60F over ambient, depending on the car.
With this Seibon hood, after a hot run, the underhood temperature stays at 30-40F over ambient after being parked for those 10-15 minutes! Couple that with the large ETS intercooler and the Supra’s Swain Tech coated components that were also wrapped, and you can see why the actual intake temperature barely reaches 10-15F over ambient while driving the car. The hood makes a huge difference!
