Sad day... Presumably, not for you, though!

 

Great choice, you'll love the GS!

 

I'm still keeping it, but I haven't driven it since before thanksgiving.

I don't think anyone is crazy enough to pay what I would want for my SC. The SC has more $$ into it than the GS cost.

It's hardly a sad day. The SC has been "complete" for a while now. It's time for a new project.

Thank you! I always thought my next Lexus would be a the RC-F, but I didn't care for it after driving the car. It felt like too much of boat for the amount of money. The GS became the obvious choice after that.

 

Aha, not what I envisioned by "retired."

 

I’m happy to hear that. You have one of the best SC’s out there.

The GS was a good choice. I feel the same way about the RC-F and would have trouble deciding between the two cars. Will you be modding the GS?

 

Retired is the word my friends keep using, so it stuck. I guess retired from being the project car is the best way to put it.

If I could afford a GS-F at the moment, I would have went that route, but it's a little too much to be a driveway ornament.

I'm definitely going to change a few things on the GS to make it mine, but I haven't decided how far I want to take it yet. It's such a nice car from the factory. I almost feel like anything I do will make it worse.

 

Personally, I think you should wheels and suspension at least. It is an awesome car no doubt but car guys like us can’t resist!

For what it’s worth, a 2UR-GSE is only about 8 grand with the transmission…

Good luck with everything dude. Would love to see you finish your manual swap on the SC. I think if you did, you’d drive the SC more. Having two comfy, automatic cruisers to me means you’ll hardly ever drive the SC anymore. Would be a shame.

Nick

 

The GS-F is pricey, even used with a lot of miles. I can totally understand that. What year is the GS? It looks like the refreshed 2016+.

You can’t go wrong with wheels and a drop. It’s extremely nice stock but you buy high quality parts judging by your SC build. Unfortunately the big body cars like the GS get expensive to mod after the basic wheels/drop.

 

I actually have everything to manual swap the car. All brand new oem pedals, shifter bezel, manual transmission tunnel, transmission, differential, and drive shaft. It's just there is no way for it to pass emissions here in CA, so there was no benefit for me to convert it and have stock power. In about a week, it'll be 14 years since I bought the SC. I'm more than happy with how the car turned out and it drives fantastic.


It's a 2018 that came off of a lease. I bought it CPO.

There is something relaxing about having a nice stock car to drive when all your cars are modified.

 

2018 is a good year and a CPO Lexus IS the best used car to buy!

You’re absolutely right about that. You don’t have to worry about potholes or people messing with your car as much when it’s stock. My GS is still stock for that reason.

 

Fired the SC up for the first time in 2 months a few days ago. It needed to be jump started since I forgot to plug in the tender.

I drove it for a few days to make sure everything was ready for emissions testing. Luckily the battery wasn't super dead, so all the monitors were good to go and it passed with flying colors.

 

Still looking good! It looks like you’ve got the HRE’s back on too!

 

Congratulations on the new GS!! It looks great and I bet it drives very smooth!

I agree with the others that, depending on how it feels on your most commonly used roads, some suspension tuning, even if using all OEM GS-F parts could dial it in even more. A limited slip differential swap (if not already equipped from the factory) would be a great long term modification But I hear you on not exactly wanting to get into modification with this one as your brand new to you daily.

First, congratulations on the successful smog test!

It really is a crime that something as simple as one model year in the same vehicle makes all the difference to the ARB in terms of you being allowed to swap it to a factory manual configuration or not. Your car is already completely set up in every other way.

We were looking into the feasibility a while back of converting a 98-00 SC300's stock 2JZ-GE VVT-i with the ECU and electronics from a 2002-2005 IS300 5-speed M/T since it's using the same engine but the issue of early CANBUS signals (I think) got in the way. I think it is technically possible but it's a lot of custom wiring work to get all of that to talk to the SC chassis with no CEL codes, including those for the IS300 ECU's additional airbag monitors.

Still, for the right car (ie: one just like yours) it could be worth it.

The only mechanical snag that might get in the way is that IS300 5-speed M/T's came with 3.7:1 final drive ratios while the SC300 5-speeds all came with 4.083:1's... and I'd argue a stock SC300 5-speed is still much more fun an usable on California's mountain roads with the SC300 A/T's 4.272:1 final drive ratio. Years ago I passed many times with the 4.272 ratio in my stock 5-speed but the question would be whether or not the test would be thrown off when the IS300's configuration and ECU are set up for 3.7:1 and not 4.083 or 4.272.

A fairly easily sourced 3.769:1 diff from a Supra TT Auto / SC430 / Aristo could match the IS300 5-speed's final drive configuration easily but would it be ideal NA gearing in the slightly heavier SC300 body?

Anyway, you've got a beautiful SC already and now a great GS addition to your garage! "Retiring" your SC in a way makes it an event any time you decide to take it out to enjoy rather than using it day in day out

 

The car has been on HRE for a while. The car with the CCW is a different car that was made to look identical, so we can cruise around and confuse people. LOL

Thanks, the GS is actually a weekend car. I had my SC for 6 years before I started modifying it. I didn't want to mess with the car until I had enough cars to make it exactly how I wanted it. The same will probably happen to the GS.

My daily is a 2006 Acura TSX.



I've looked into converting the IS300 setup into the SC before too, but not for manual. I wanted to try putting the shiftable automatic into the SC, but all the canbus stuff went over my head.

It took a while for me to be okay with keeping the car automatic and not going turbo. I always felt like that would be the last thing to make my car perfect. Every time I looked into doing it, there was no way I would be able to get what I wanted for less than $30k. I decided buying another car was a better use of that money.

I'll keep all my spare stuff and maybe one day in the future I'll build another SC that's manual and na-t.

 

SC was temporarily kicked out of the garage, so I could ceramic coat the GS.



I drove the SC this week since it was outside getting dirty, but now it's all washed up back under the cover plugged into a tender.