Georgeous

Hello Clublexus,

Where do I start...

I have been searching for the ls400 for a while but could barely find what I want in the desired price range or in any price range really. I finally picked up a salvage title 2000 black on black ls400 from the Copart auction in PA and towed it to my garage. The vehicle had a busted taillight and a dented trunk and rear bumper. I have fixed those issues and took it through the state inspection to get a rebuilt title for it, which made it road-worthy again and allowed me to insure and slap the plates on it.

So, the LS went from this:




To this:


And then to this:




Then I've had the car on the lift and my friend's shop, inspected the suspension and have put a small to-do list of mine to refresh the car:
- new front lower arms (the forward facing ones that end with camber bolt), already installed
- new passenger side UCA from Moog, already installed
- new engine and trans mount(s), still need to buy these, thinking of OEM units, everyone seems to bash aftermarket options and say they aren't of a good quality.
- all new rear arms, purchased a set of Megan Racing ones, 6 arms total, still need to install these.
- extreme low coilovers from BC Racing, 18kg/14kg spring rates, purchased, need to install them.
- RCAs from Megan racing, sitting in my garage as well, need to install these.

I am still to complete some of the lowering-friendly prep on the car (like relocate the harness from the fender wells) and do a few other things. Thinking of fabricating some sort of plain skid plate to cover the oil pan. Also, it seems like everyone going really low is cutting a hole in their shock tower to allow for the UCA ball joint to clear, but upon inspecting my suspension, I am seeing that my UCAs first point of contact is not the shock tower but something like a metal rigidity thing in the wheel well (a vertical metal strip sticking out of the wheel well surface). Any advice on clearing these in a more or less safe manner?

Before I got to all of that, I played a little with factory bilsteins, and ebay collars, just to get an idea of the spring rates that may work, I tried 550lbs front and 350 in the rear and that seemed awfully soft, but gave me an idea of what I want from my BC setup, and got my car sitting a little lower and nicer.

Here's what it looks like now, sitting on this Frankenstein struts (stock Billsteins + ebay coilover sleeves):




P.S. My end goal I guess is to have a nicely looking daily, with possibility of occassional visits to local drifting events in Englishtown, NJ. With that in mind I sourced a UCF20 rear diff from the junk yard with an intent to weld it. I also want to install a hydro e-brake setup (cannot seem to find any pre-made brackets for the 2-caliper-per-wheel rear setup, so will probably just go with inline route). Also, thinking of slapping on a transmission cooler to help the auto last, before I can save up for the collins cd009 kit. I guess this route is pretty trivial and nothing of big news to people here...

With that said, thank you guys for being an inspiration, and a knowledgebase. If you have any advice to give or feedback to share - you are welcome to do so Mainly looking for the advice and tips on properly lowering this.

JohnAndic

Looks good. It looks so different then my 98 to me. Good luck with it all.

If you drift with a nice looking daily aren't you worried about messing it up? You can crash or rub a wall so easily, looks like you know what you are doing with the body work.