When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
You might just keep an eye on CL the other CL for a valve grinding machine and the setup to do the seats
Just need a real lathe, and I'm still lurking the other CL for cheap/free golf clubs as a source of Beryllium Copper to melt down for the seats, and I'm pretty sure the bronze stock I have from the marine world is manganese...
The Daizen Steering Rack Bushings have been ordered. Since my IS350 will be hitting the big 100k mark fairly soon, I figure she's due for new bushings.
Thanks for the great feedback and input on these bushings.
Re: bushings - pulled out all the rear 270k km bushings and... the only ones that had really deteriorated were the two diff mounts... actually, just the one with the two bolts holding it, which just so happens to be factory replace-able.
Currently waiting for tomorrow to reassemble everything back, the toe control arm bushing needs some custom machining as it wasn't a proper fit. Maybe the GS one is different to the IS one.. Strongflex "normal" kit (mix of 80 and 90 duro poly), OEM ISF IS-F (and suspension refresh ISx250) rubber subframe bushings, new OEM end links, didn't touch the knuckle bushings yet... they're solid, despite a small tear in the boot of the right one. I'll look at my options in the meantime.
Will post driving impressions once everything is installed. Initial impressions - the arms rotate a whole lot easier, I guess the shocks have to work a lot harder now.
Ok, changed:
-Subframe bushings - IS-F
-All rear control arm bushings - strongflex 80a and 90a mix (comfort kit)
-Rear sway bar end links - new OEM
Not changed:
-Sway bar or bushings - stock 15mm, the bushings are shot... getting a 19mm bar soon(TM) anyways
-Knuckle spherical joint bushing/pillow ball bushing/etc - managed to replace the boot on the one that was torn, shows no sign of wear otherwise.. we'll see.
-Diff bushings - the one with the two bolts is shot. Looking for altezza TRD OEM rubber.
-Ball joints (toe control & one of the upper control arms) - looked fine.
Impressions - under 50km so far, so they probably haven't broken in, but the rear end is... well, tight. Potholes, big compression events and the likes seem to be better on the rear. I can feel small imperfections a lot more, which I guess should go away... new rubber subframe bushings, after all.
On that note - the Edmunds IS-F article mentions that they made the arm bushings stiffer laterally, while softer torsionally, to >reduce harshness<… maybe the full pillow ball arms route is not so crazy after all. The same IS-F, with the CCSP package on Best Motoring:
Note the "softened suspension" bits. The CCSP, suspension-wise, includes coilovers, sways and "chassis dampers" (I guess a dynamic brace of sorts, please correct me if I'm wrong). Gunsai is quite a rough course. Note the drivers' impression of the car.
Maybe pillow ***** with a small polyurethane sleeve for vibration absorbtion?
Note the "softened suspension" bits. The CCSP, suspension-wise, includes coilovers, sways and "chassis dampers" (I guess a dynamic brace of sorts, please correct me if I'm wrong). Gunsai is quite a rough course. Note the drivers' impression of the car.
Maybe pillow ***** with a small polyurethane sleeve for vibration absorbtion?
Not sure if this is starting to go way off-topic
Definitely not off-topic. It's minute details like these that we can learn from and potentially apply to our own builds.
Originally Posted by 2013FSport
I'm guessing you've seen this before but check out the brace on the rack...
That looks like the Tom's brace set. I've certainly looked at their setup to see what braces to apply on my IS350. I believe I have all of the equivalent braces except for the one mounted in front of the engine.
It's been a bit of a crazy day today for me and the car. Yesterday, I received a warning on the dash that my TPMS was malfunctioning. I took the car to the tire shop today and had to replace a few of the TPMS sensors. When the job was complete, I drove back home and decided to do a 75% WOT in second gear. Oddly, the rear end started to fishtail slightly which was unusual as my rear tires are still in excellent condition. When I did a sharp turn into my neighborhood, I heard a very unusual clunk sound. Once I arrived at my garage and inspected the wheels/tires, I immediately noticed that my front left tire sidewall showed 275 and my rear tire sidewall showed 255. This obviously meant that my front and rear tires were mounted incorrectly! I inspected the sidewall and the only damage I could find was a broken clip from the fender liner which was likely caused by the oversized 275 tire up front.
I ended up carefully driving back to the shop and the wheels were mounted to their correct position. Unfortunately, I found another issue with the work performed. I found damage on all four tires around the lug nut area. It looks like the technician smashed the impact gun onto each hole and torqued each wheel without using any extensions. On the plus side, I spoke to the manager and the shop will pay for the refinish of each wheel so hopefully the damage will no longer be visible.
Despite all the craziness that occurred from the tire shop today, I did receive the new Daizen steering rack bushings in the mail so I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
That's messed up about the wheel sitch.... Sadly the big chain stores can be just foolish. They charge me TPMS seals to safely install new tires without harming them but don't remove and instead clamp the wheel from the front taking 4 each 1in chunks of paint off all 4 wheels and when called out, they did ZIPPO! Thank you Les Schwab for doing the right thing. NOT!
Despite all the craziness that occurred from the tire shop today, I did receive the new Daizen steering rack bushings in the mail so I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
Not sure. One mod at a time. LOL. As a matter of fact, earlier today I was finally able to install the beefier tunnel brace that I received from you last month as well as the rear FIGS sway bar bushings (I'll save the install of the front FIGS sway bar bushings for another day).
1) Here's the IS350 looking like a 4x4 vehicle:
2) Goodbye OEM flimsy tunnel brace:
3) Hello beefy new tunnel brace. There was probably only a 1/4 inch clearance between the new brace and the exhaust pipes:
4) Time to install the new FIGS polyurethane bushings for the rear sway bar:
5) Out with the old F-sport bushings (which are rated at 70 durometers):
6) In with the new bushings (I forget the durometer rating on these) and a sufficient amount of grease:
7) While I was under the car getting all dirty, I was able to take a glance of the solid differential ear mounts that I have to support the diff housing for the OS Giken LSD:
Interesting!!! Thanks for sharing that last tidbit as it is something I thought of doing to reduce wheel hop but didn't know how it would impact the cabin noise if at all. Personally I see no harm in it as te whole subframe is already suspended in rubber so....If I had the material dimensions I'd machine all of them myself.
Interesting!!! Thanks for sharing that last tidbit as it is something I thought of doing to reduce wheel hop but didn't know how it would impact the cabin noise if at all. Personally I see no harm in it as te whole subframe is already suspended in rubber so....If I had the material dimensions I'd machine all of them myself.
I didn't notice any additional NVH from the solid aluminum diff bushings but then again, that was back in 2013 so I'm already acclimated to whatever changes may have occured.
Originally Posted by 2013FSport
What else have you kept from us!!!? Haha!
Perhaps a flux capacitor?
It's been a while since I took some selfies of the IS350 so here are a few shots after it was freshly washed.
Perhaps a flux cap eh? Ha!
Question: when in situations of reduced traction and you stomp on it with the wheels turned purposeful promoting a slide, with the LSD doing its thing, do the nannies kick in? If yes and you disable track, can you Enjoyable slide the back out then?
I'm just curious how the nannies interpret the locker under reduced levels of traction and more specifically, does it go nut and chop the throttle like it does with a single tire spinning...
Perhaps a flux cap eh? Ha!
Question: when in situations of reduced traction and you stomp on it with the wheels turned purposeful promoting a slide, with the LSD doing its thing, do the nannies kick in? If yes and you disable track, can you Enjoyable slide the back out then?
I'm just curious how the nannies interpret the locker under reduced levels of traction and more specifically, does it go nut and chop the throttle like it does with a single tire spinning...
Thanks and nice pictures!
Yup, a flux capacitor and I have another big surprise coming up which I'll unveil this weekend if all goes to plan.
Regarding your question on VDIM intervention with an OS Giken equipped IS350, for the majority of the past few years, I've been driving my car, rain or shine, with stability control off. It's been very rare when I would leave the stability control on as I've been used to wringing out the full potential of the LSD clutch plates and to hone my skills on predicting when I've maintained or surpassed optimal slip angles which would lead to a two or four wheel drift. This is particularly the case when I'm prepping for an autox or HPDE track day. The reason why I was leaving stability control off 99% of my drives was due to the VDIM nannies interfering back when I had the OEM IS350 steering ECU. Though the LSD would keep both wheels spinning at the same rate during a cornering maneuver, the stock VDIM system would guesstimate that I'm engaged in an aggressive cornering situation and would try to safely bring me back to a more docile turning radius with the nannies. Hence why in the past, I've left the nannies off so I may further become one with the car without computer intervention.
However, as noted in some of my previous posts and from other CL members, obtaining the IS-F Steering ECU will give you access to VDIM Sport which provides a higher cornering performance parameter before intervening. It's actually only been within the past few weeks that I've been leaving VDIM/stability control fully engaged to experiment and determine how much of an impact the nannies would have when the IS350 is set to VDIM Sport (with the ISF steering ECU providing additional slippage before it activates either the eLSD [light braking of the inner rear wheel] or reducing steering angle and minimizing throttle input.). I found that on the street taking large radius corners (like ramps and left turns), there is no interference when trying to maximize cornering speed and maintaining proper tire load on the rear wheels. If you try to purposely be squirrelly with the car, VDIM will still engage (which I recently did when the tire shop had accidentally installed the 255 tire on my left rear side while the right rear side had a 275 tire). Under VDIM Sport, the only times I can purposely have stability control kick in is when I'm doing 90 degree right turns at lower speeds.
With you having an F-Sport steering ECU (with a different part number than stock steering ECUs of the same model year), I'm not sure if your VDIM parameters are tuned closer to the ISF or heavily restricting like the stock IS350 VDIM. If you do go forth with the OS Giken mod in the future, you'll have to experiment with stability control on and off to see which do you prefer during daily driving. I honestly find leaving stability control off, even in poor weather conditions, gives me better predictability and control with the two rear tires compared to leaving stability control on and never knowing when the nannies would decide to kick in during inclement weather.
Quite likely not the best link. At any rate, from what I've read so far, back in 2010 Honda and Toyota both recalled a number of models for a change of rubber seal material in their braking systems, due to incompatibility with, well... non-OEM brake fluids, "due to a lack of polymer lubricants" or whatever. It also turns out that Toyota/Honda OEM fluids (at least the dot3 variety) swell the rubber seals the least amount out of all (not exaggerating too much here) DOT fluids available. Brake issues due to seal swell are sometimes not very intuitive to diagnose apparently, and in my case, I REALLY don't want to damage the electric vacuum booster (hybrids, gs430/460/ls460 have those - no clue why they'd put it on anything other than the hybrids, to be honest).
I haven't found any solid details yet on what's OK and not OK and why. Turns out (no, don't quote me on it, research) most (NOT all - Shell ESC, Castrol LMA... etc) higher performance fluids have high seal swell characteristics.
And here I thought that I couldn't go wrong with a good brake fluid (was about to start an ATE blue/amber flush regimen). To top it off, I'm having trouble sourcing (locally) genuine Toyota dot3 fluid (can get "dot4" and "dot5.1" of course), yet I have the DOT3 stamp. Who knows if they're compatible or not. Actual scientific information is next to nil, or maybe I haven't found it yet.
06-25-19, 04:22 PM
I inspected the sidewall and the only damage I could find was a broken clip from the fender liner which was likely caused by the oversized 275 tire up front. 
Interesting!!! Thanks for sharing that last tidbit as it is something I thought of doing to reduce wheel hop but didn't know how it would impact the cabin noise if at all. Personally I see no harm in it as te whole subframe is already suspended in rubber so....If I had the material dimensions I'd machine all of them myself.
