Teenage David Kramar’s fondness for cars was a continual source of frustration. “I had been bitten by the drifting bug at 15, but I only had access to front-drive cars. You can imagine how that played out,” he recalled.
His folks weren’t supportive of their teenage son’s thrill seeking behind a wheel, but they presented him with a skydiving ticket, which proved to be a formative experience.
For the next 15 years, Kramar made his living as a skydiver. Thousands of jumps developed the visual acuity and the risk mitigation that would help serve him when he finally got his chance to go racing.
In the BMW 135i with which he entered his first track day, he could see that all his late nights at the sim wheel had paid off. Soon he had seen the limitations of his BMW, which was fun, but left a little to be desired. While he was navigating the bargain bin alternatives, a fifth-gen Camaro Z/28 popped up at the bottom of the value curve. Fast, powerful, and rear-drive, it fit the bill.
He ran it for a year, and then replaced it with a ZL1 1LE. Friends had cautioned him against getting a ZL1 for its terrible road manners, but he knew that the power output would keep him entertained, no matter the everyday drawbacks. “I’m at my best when driving the car off the rear axle, so it suited my driving perfectly.”
More than drifty, the car was capable – Kramar proved that by running a 1:57 at VIR on stock tires and brake pads, even the factory brake fluid. “At that time, nobody had driven a ZL1 faster except for Chevy’s pro driver,” he boasted.
Setting that time gave him the confidence to try sanctioned competition, and with Ben Grambau setting the standard he aspired to reach, he added the few parts needed to make the supercharged car competitive in Time Trial 2. The short list comprised an APR wing, Hoosier A7s, and a flat blade front splitter. Even then, the ZL1 needed ninety pounds of ballast to stay legal.
TT2 is a busy, competitive class in the NASA Southeast and NASA Mid-Atlantic regions, and that competition highlighted the car’s main hindrance: weight. Something lighter and more maneuverable was needed if Kramar was to continue progressing at his desired rate.
Though he never found the MKV Supra an appealing platform, he knew the value of a well-built car. So, when a well-known Supra from James Avellina fell into the middle of his reticle, he went to inspect.
Fast and Finicky
Avellina picked the car up in early COVID when there weren’t many experienced Supra owners to refer to. “It’s temperamental like a BMW,” he began, “and you really want to work with the car instead of against it. If you keep the computers happy, you’ll be happy,” he continued.
“For example, the ride-height sensor — it has nothing to do except balance the headlights – won’t let you turn off stability and traction if it gets upset with the ride height.”
Like the ride-height settings, the car struggles to work outside of factory parameters in the engine department. With only a tune and a downpipe, “It would hit 180 degree IATs in 90 seconds,” he recalled.
The B58 engine features a manifold intercooler with a tiny core instead of a conventional front-mounted intercooler, and this is one of the stock shortcomings. Avellina tried supplementing that with CSF’s auxiliary coolers, a heat exchanger, and a transmission cooler to no avail.
The other issue was fuel starvation through sustained right-handers, like Hogpen at VIR. For the first year of ownership, he couldn’t do much about it. In late 2021, some bright minds banded together to address the problem.
“We tackled it all at once. Mike Kang, David Leung and Zack Tucker of CounterSpace Garage gave me access to one of their temp coolers mani-coolers – one of the first temp-coated mani-coolers on the market. They were also iterating Titan Motorsports’ fuel system with their own little spin. That entailed new lines, a new FPR, a surge tank, and port injection. Since the manifold can support PI rails, we’d start running E85 to reduce temperatures.”
Now cool enough to run eight successive hot laps, Avellina installed Verus’ splitter, diffuser, wing, dive planes, and hood vents; JRZ RS Pro three-ways; SPL arms; and Titan 7 wheels.
Kramar could recognize potential readily. “It had a lot going for it, a short wheelbase, a bit of spice, and the clarity to feel each wheel. I thought, ‘This is better than a ZL1 — this is a place to invest!’” he said.
To maximize the car for TT2, Kramar added Hoosier A7s and upgraded to a Pure800 turbo — a stock-frame turbo with an enlarged wheel that could sustain TT2 power levels efficiently. Those were the only additions he needed to go and challenge for the title that year at the 2023 NASA Champs at PittRace.
“I fell a little short at the Nationals, but I can rest assured knowing I was beaten by a great competitor in Jake Latham, who ran a 1:46.784 to my 1:48.025. Ben was right there too at 1:48.296, and beating him by three tenths was the validation I needed after years of chasing. The whole event, I could see his Corvette’s headlights in my rearview mirror even as I was chasing Jake down. I was honored to share the podium with them.
“After that lap, the Supra was compliance dynoed at just one horsepower under the limit — with 125 pounds of ballast in the car. That’s how close to the ragged edge I had to run just to be competitive.”
Kramar didn’t lick his wounds long, and so he set his sights on TT1. Nearly as popular as the class he left, TT1 gave him a little more room to capitalize on all the Supra’s potential.
With Great Power Comes Technical Overhaul
To be competitive in TT1, the aero and mechanical grip would require real work. Finding the necessary bump in engine performance would be easy, but dealing with the accompanying increases in speed and loading would take some ingenuity.
The current Verus V1X wing generates more than 1,000 pounds of downforce at 150 miles an hour. To maintain aerodynamic balance, Kramar conferred with Jackie Ding of PHD Racing, who suggested one of their Spage splitters for a complementary 800 pounds at the front axle. To handle that kind of aero load, Kramar replaced the shocks with a custom set of three-way JRZ RS Pros valved to PHD Racing’s specs.
The present wheel and tire setup consists of 18 x 11.5” Titan 7 wheels on 335-section Hoosier A7s, and funny enough, that change in mechanical grip provided the most notable improvement in handling.
Remarkably, the stock bodywork accepts such massive wheels and tires easily, though the JRZs help there. The tires protrude by an inch and a half, but Kramar hasn’t seen any evidence of aero drag in his data. The wide Sayber Design ATTACK7 canards work with the splitter to move air around the protruding rubber, he believes.
“The car came to life with the extra rubber,” he began, “and after those tires is when I opened up the turbo to everything she had.”
Over 560 horsepower and 603 pound-feet of torque warranted a fortified version of the ZF8 gearbox, which is limited to roughly 500 pound-feet in stock form. Pure Drivetrain Solutions provided its Stage II transmission, and the result was more than just a bump in straight-line speed.
“It totally transforms the car experientially. I won’t say it’s PDK-crisp, but it’s not far off a GT3 RS. There’s more entry grip and exit grip now, and we’re talking about tenths, but after pushing the car hard for four seasons, those gains feel like an eternity.”
Not surprisingly, the power can still overwhelm the driven wheels. Thankfully, this has only highlighted his strengths as a driver.
“The Supra at high power really supports that driving style,” he said. “You see a lot of wheel input, but that’s the short wheelbase. If you’re committed and don’t lose the rear end in the process, you can drive off the corner with a lot of slip angle and still generate propulsion. In drifting, that’s called side bite.”
The power hike has forced him to adjust his approach slightly. “I have to drive a v-line now. My apex speeds aren’t anything to write home about, but I’m strong in the traction zones and can make up for midcorner losses with acceleration off the corner.”
Brakes remain a bugbear. Aside from too much front-bias, the factory items are not strong enough for big power. Upgrading to AP Racing’s Pro 5000 kit and CSG pads have helped, but additional hardware and software changes were needed before he was confident on the binders.
Additionally, the factory master cylinder is not quite up to the task, and when his first master failed down the back straight at VIR, he was fortunate to walk away with minimal damage to his car. He now treats the master cylinder as a wear item that he replaces every two seasons.
“When you’re generating real G, the DSC assumes it’s about to crash. Take Turn 3 at Summit Point Main, for example. I usually carry a minimum speed of 87 mph there. One additional degree of tire slip, and the car panics and clamps all four brakes,” he explained.
With an application called ProTool, he found a solution. After using Claude to help him learn the coding language, he was able to access the BMW M3/M4 brake calibrations stored in the DSC module, but not enabled by default. With these in place, the systems can live with real grip.
All this reworking has not sanitized the car – it’s only become drivable in recent months. “It went from approachable grand tourer to a rowdy bull – its nickname is ‘Toro’ now,” he said. “You have to accept that driving it will never be smooth and clinical – you need to stay just this side of the line.
“It gets a little hairy at times,” he continued. “Now, I don’t think we should be crashing cars out there, but to get the most from Toro as it sits, I think it requires taking chances. I think that’s special.”
Over the 2025-2026 winter, the Supr was up on the rack awaiting a few changes. “After I set the TT1 record at Summit Point Main with a 1:13.701, I drifted on my cooldown lap to celebrate, and the No. 1 piston left the chat.”
There’s a new six-port motor on the way — which ought to make additional power easier to find. Among his first mods is the Pure900 turbo, which uses a larger housing that still fits the factory manifold. Anticipating 700 horsepower, he hopes to put on a show for those in attendance at this year’s NASA Championships at Sebring, where he hopes to win TT1.
He regards the engineering feat in TT1 more challenging than TT2, and he’s not certain where he’ll stack up on a track that favors big power. One thing is for sure: Toro will be on the ragged edge, with its driver giving it all it can handle.
