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Just wanted to chronicle the mods I'm doing to my 14 GS350 AWD.
I picked this up on 11/22/19 as a certified vehicle, and I look forward to many many miles of just enjoying it.
The car was a 1 owner vehicle that seemed to have been pretty well cared (super stock) for and I hope to do the same, while adding some flair to it.
Nothing fancy - just aesthetic and functional mods to make this car my perfect daily driver.
Some additional info from my "welcome" thread - https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...gs350-awd.html
Exterior -
Pirelli Sottozero 3 Winter tires
Yellow LED fog bulbs
35% tint all around + sunstrip
Custom exhaust (replaced mufflers with Magnaflows 5x8, and deleted resonators)
Osram Xenarc CBB bulbs
F Sport front bumper cover conversion
Drag DR-77 19x8.5 +40 w/General Gmax AS05
Interior -
Center armrest divider
Phone pouch
Pioneer Ts-g690 front lower speakers
Pioneer Ts-wx1210a 12” powered subwoofer
Aside from the yellow fogs, the phone pouch is actually my favorite little functional mod right now.
Black leather with white stitching matches the rest of the interior (as well as being fairly discreet) and I finally have a good place to put my phone instead of having it moving around the cup holder (or me forgetting about it inside the arm rest).
Welp, much as it was nice driving a quiet car... It wasn't quite for me. All my previous cars had aftermarket exhausts - from nice catbacks to external wastegate setup, and even a straight pipe.
Seeing that there's not much options for this car (especially awd catbacks), I opted for a custom solution.
Had a shop replace the mufflers with Magnaflows (5x8) and had the resonators removed. I love the end result!
External:
Very deep sound, with a bit of growl with more aggressive jabs at the throttle.
Only thing I don't care for is the bit of rasp at the top end (at least when not under load) from outside. Under load, I truly don't hear the rasp, so who knows. Maybe I'll put some small resonators later.
Interior:
Deep and satisfying tone all the way through which gets augmented by the intake noise as it climbs the revs.
Under 2k rpms, when just cruising I can barely tell a difference.
Cruising at or above 2k RpMs, there's a constant low tone. Some call it drone, but it's a satisfying tone to me. Reminscint of the tone/volume I had on my sti catback.
All in all, love the sound and makes me love the car even more.
Removed the stickers on the door sills. Whomever owned this before either didn't know about it or just wanted to keep it new looking... Well it's not new and I hate protective stickers. :P
Also, as I found out from under the lift yesterday, whomever the previous owner was took really good care of the car, no rust I could see underneath.
Upgraded to the new osram cbb bulbs. Contrary to the 7000k temp marking, it's actually just a much brighter bulb. TRS has a comparison video showing the much higher lux.
I don't have a side by side of the stock bulb, but it is noticeably brighter based on a quick drive tonight.
I personally feel anytime you do a resonator delete it makes the car sound cheap and raspy. There are AWD catback options but it costs more. The resonator delete is the cheap way, but you get what you pay for. I went with just axle back joe z on my AWD and I love the sound. Mild tone but enough that my friends compliment it. No raspiness whatsoever.
I personally feel anytime you do a resonator delete it makes the car sound cheap and raspy. There are AWD catback options but it costs more. The resonator delete is the cheap way, but you get what you pay for. I went with just axle back joe z on my AWD and I love the sound. Mild tone but enough that my friends compliment it. No raspiness whatsoever.
That's the general consensus on resonators I've heard over the years. As I said above, I truly do not hear any rasp at all, in cabin, under load, see videos.
That being said, I've not had the chance to have someone else drive the car, with me outside to hear how it sounds, so I can't say for sure. If I ever get chance, and it does indeed sound raspy/tinny, I'll certainly have some smaller resonators installed as mentioned. Also, it wasn't just a simple resonator delete as I also had the stock mufflers replaced with Magnaflows.
Just for a background, this isn't my first rodeo with aftermarket exhausts. The last 5 (now 6) cars I've gone through, I've done aftermarket exhausts - both bolt on or custom. Some of them, I went through several exhausts before I settled on one I like. Truly, I'm pretty dang happy with how this one sounds with the first crack at it.
12-05-19, 08:34 AM
2014 GS350 AWD Mods - koopsgs
