I spent some time cleaning up a few things on the car while i had some days off too. I took off the faux exhaust tips as they had seen some better days and the trim around them was starting to peel (i did a rushed paint job last summer on them but had to stop abruptly so didn't get enough coats or curing time in) and finally got around to cleaning some of the surface rust/iron fallout spots on the rear of the car while the bumper was off. In one of this threads initial posts, i mentioned i had to spend some time cleaning the spots off the side skirts and rest of the car...not sure if the previous owner lived/worked near a rail yard or if this happened when transporting the car but a bit of a pain to buff off. I also took the diffuser off as i wanted to reapply the tape and re-mount it so will be working on pulling the old tape off slowly at home gradually.

Before:




After:






I forgot to snap some pics of the exhaust tips before i polished them up but some pictures of the result below. I used some medium, fine and super fine steel wool and then some metal polish to shine them up and as for the trim, i just used some black engine enamel paint that i had laying around.

 

We had a Vancouver Club Lexus meet up a few weeks ago. By coincidence there's another ISF in my complex that's also white with a Tom's diffuser (had to double take when i saw him driving out one day while i was walking the dog that it wasn't my car leaving) that i met and came along to the meet along with another one of the local ISF guys. It was small but a good start to hopefully some more events to get put together. I included a few other photos from some drives over the past few months:

 

Awesome! I think I've spotted you around the Nanaimo and Broadway area a while back.

 

Thanks mate. Probably not me though...the whole VI stuff in Vancouver started happening when i got this car so i don't think i've driven on city of Vancouver roads with this car at all. Might be my mate Kent, (@dar7hchu_isf on instagram) as our cars look pretty similar.

 

What is VI? I’m curious what would keep your car off the streets?

 

VI is a vehicle inspection. It's something that police can issue up here to get your vehicle checked by a provincially licensed mechanic to make sure it abides by the Motor Vehicle Act (MVA). It's non-disputable and the cost of doing the inspection comes out of the car owners pocket (~$200 CAD) regardless of if there's anything that goes against the MVA or not. If there's an issue, you have 30 days since the date of receiving the ticket to fix the issue or else your insurance is void until it's fixed and then have to pay for another inspection. A flawed system that is up to the officers discretion with no check in place to make sure they're issuing appropriate tickets.

So the issue comes from police basically getting nit-picky with relatively minor modifications like coilovers and exhausts and also 'making up' rules like no non-oem wheels too because of the vagueness of the MVA guidelines. Then there's been lots of factory cars with 'sport exhausts' (i.e. BMW M performance exhaust) being sent in for being too loud while they are like that from the factory. I could ramble and rant about this but i'll stop there.

Fortunately, police are different from municipality to municipality and I live and work about half hour from Vancouver and this is only happening with the city of Vancouver police so I'm a bit safer where i am but having to avoid going into the city as a result or take my girls car instead. There's a long thread here on one of the local car forums if you're interested in reading more about it...quite frustrating.

 

Not too much different with the car but a couple of photos from the other week just because. I also managed to do a cones day with the car which was pretty fun. The morning was wet but it managed to dry up quite a bit in the afternoon which was good. First time doing one of these events so started off the day in Sport mode with TC off, but soon realized that Sport mode was much too sensitive for such a tight little course and combined with TC off i was just kciking the back end out too easily which was fun but not getting me a good lap time. After getting some input from the instructors, i ended up leaving Sport mode off which was much more suited for the tight little track they had set up and left TC on as a bit of training wheels to help manage the throttle and realize where i was giving it too much. Learned a lot and got some decent times for a first time only ever so slightly slower than a newer M4 that I've seen there a few times. Takeaways for next time are to keep my hand position static (as possible) rather than moving all over the place and to take TC off but still maintain traction. Track/Cones season is pretty much over up here for the winter but hope to hop on our local road course in the spring.

 

I also got a few more samples down to Blackstone Labs. I mentioned it earlier in the thread that they recommended an air filter change (which looked like it was much needed) and after doing that it cleared up their concerns. Nice for some peace of mind.

 

Haven't done much to the car recently but had some maintenance over the winter where i had to replace the starter (what a PITA) and found out my headers were cracked at the same time. The shop that was doing the work has a quality welder next door so got them fixed while in the process and everything is all good now. Aftermarket headers weren't an option for me unfortunately due to budget and an excessive crack-down on modified cars in Vancouver .

Got the car out on the local track (Mission Raceway) for my first road course event yesterday and had a great time. It's a pretty small track and not ideal for a heavier car like the ISF but was still great fun. I wanted to do my first track session here since it's pretty cheap compared to the other options and figured my first time would be a bit of a throw-away event in terms of getting the most out of the day.

The car is on continental dws06 and has stoptech sport brakes which will both need to be changed up for next time i think as i could really feel the tires slipping towards the end of each session and the brakes not being as effective as they could have been. Both of these are no surprise going into the event, however being my first event the morning sessions were pretty slow with a lead/follow system with instructors, adapting to new covid norms.

The car oil temp was also running very hot at 5/6 bars. This is in the PNW where it was probably around 25 degrees C tops (77 F) too so i don't know how the guys further south don't have larger issues with this. I'm going to do some more research and look into oil cooler options as well.

Lots of room for improvement with my driving lines but also planning to downsize to an 18" square setup in the future as well as the above fixes to see how that helps as well.

Video of my quickest lap below. I don't think i synced the videos perfectly but it was after a long day so that's what we're leaving it as

EDIT: Oh and i also need a better camera setup so i'm not using my dashcam and older action-camera