Some swaps are daring. This one is downright mischievous: a carbon-fiber-bodied 1993 Toyota Supra stuffed with a Whipple-supercharged, Gen-III 426-inch HEMI—and it runs 8s.

Built by Lee Carter, the car blends import aero and Mopar muscle into a package that is equal parts rage-bait and fast-as-hell drag car.

Carter's history with this chassis goes way back. He owned it years ago as a streetable 2JZ/6-speed car, sold it, then bought it back after the next owner turned it into a full race piece with a cage and concrete-filled 2JZ. "I got my chassis back and fast-forwarded to what I'm into nowadays, which is HEMI stuff," he says. The plan: big inches, big blower, and small ETs.

The centerpiece is a 426-cubic-inch HEMI topped with a 3.8-liter Whipple supercharger that uses a pair of intermeshing rotors to positively displace and compress air, trapping it in stages and forcing it axially through the housing before delivering it to the intake manifold.

Unlike Carter's usual junkyard-to-hero formulas, this HEMI started life brand new, sourced through BES, with DiTech cylinder heads, then finished in-house. Power runs through a Turbo 400. The car tips the scales around 3,100 pounds without driver—only a couple hundred more than the old 2JZ setup, yet still roughly 1,000 pounds lighter than most modern Chargers/Challengers on the road these days.

Electronics and fuel are pure Holley: a Dominator ECU with the dash display, relay panels, VR2 pump, fuel pressure regulator, and filters. It's a straightforward, serviceable package that Carter's tuner, Rick from Big 3, knows cold.

On the dyno, the combo has already shown 1,380 horsepower on a traditional roller at 22–23 psi. A planned hub-dyno session was postponed after a converter change right before the MoParty event, but with the tighter converter now in the car, Carter expects the number—and his ET.—to improve. "We haven't turned the nitrous on," he adds. "There's a lot to be gained under that eight-oh."

The Supra has only a handful of track outings, but it's already clicked an 8.0 and is trending faster. Carter and Rick are eyeing low-7s once they refine the launch and bring the bottle into play; 7.30 is the dream, 7.40s the realistic short-term goal. With its weight advantage, positive-displacement torque, and clean electronics, the math checks out.

Shop Holley's Gen III HEMI swap systems here.

Two things make this mash-up sing. First, the power-to-weight is vicious—carbon bodywork and a race-prepped Supra shell keep mass down while the HEMI and Whipple bring insta-torque you don't always get from big single-turbo imports. Second, Carter's crew loves engine musical chairs: a buddy's 2JZ-swapped Hellcat exists, and there's even a Honda-powered Hellcat in the works. If there's a through-line, it's curiosity and craftsmanship—make it fit, make it fast, make it reliable, then turn it up.