well its been a long ride for me with this....i started pursuing this in october.

i was trolling the my.is boards trying to find some jdm alteeza lights to put into my tag lights. (drop in housing that has 6 oem leds on each one) when i noticed some CF engine covers for a is300 and thought i would email the OP and see if there was any interest in doing this for my car. He said to send him a spare engine cover and he would see what he could do.

i sent my engine cover over to Justin from Advanced Automotive Concepts (yes i know his rep from some of you guys, knew it before going into this - he used to be a vendor here on CL but he isn't now)

Anyways i was told not to expect anything till january or february as the cover was being sent to china to get a mold made and start being made. i just thought i would check on it so sometime in dec i sent a email and was being told they werent gonna make one and i would get my engine cover back.SEVERAL weeks l8r i finally got a unexpected email WITH pics showing me my CF engine cover. Well I finally got it in and noticed a few things....

i DONT know if the production version of these wont have these issues i list below

(im 100% sure the arrows in red/blue on the first pic will still not be there)
for some reason they didnt include these when they made the prototype but i doubt they gonna correct it for the production version





IGNORE THE BLUE ARROWS IN THIS PIC BELOW (this is the one im hoping they fix before it comes into production) the red arrows indicate areas that have OEM mounting brackets that i needed to mount the cover but werent included with the Cf one (the pic is my oem cover but wasnt returned with the brackets)





these are the brackets u need





so i removed the OEM heat insulation, and brackets and mounted them onto the CF cover. one little issue here, the place where the brackets screw in, werent threaded (again another issue im hoping for them to fix for production version) i ended up threading mine and then to be safe, i epoxied them in and broke out the heat gun to force it to dry quicker. i then hotglued the heat insulation onto the back as it was held in by melted tabs of plastic and the hot glue SHOULD be ok, if it doesnt hold with the engine heat i will mount it another way.








so thats all the issues i had with the cover and the only other issue i have, is my drivers side engine mount is shot (u can feel it and see it if you pop the hood) and although the strut bar i bought from Ck6speed but PHML actually made, it has plenty of clearance on the oem engine cover it will barely rub and i didnt want it to rub my CF cover so i did the next best thing (keep in mind this is temporary, soon i will order my engine and tranny mounts and then have the SB repainted another shade of yellow as i like the offset color) i wrapped the bottom and part of the SB with some foam adhesive


Oem engine cover with clearance



Rubbing damage on the sc430 black engine cover i bought months ago







Strut Bar All Wrapped Up (again temporary)

Coulda swore i took pics of this before i mounted it but after wrapping it but i cant find them (oh well you'll see it soon). i used this stuff....a product we sell at work





took a few pics JUST the engine cover with no lexus symbol and no strut bar mounted on car



one of my fav shots below








then i had my poll to help me decide on the Chrome L symbol.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...ine-cover.html

i ended up going with # 3 from that poll even though it didnt win for 2 reasons. one being when i actually went to 3m the L symbol that did win (#2), i couldnt find it. (it had fallen out of bag and slipped in between seats) and when i did find it and actually placed it on the cover in the engine bay it looked small, and out of place and i had already 3m taped # 3.i think # 3 fit better and it is my cover. although if i have to do it again i would probably pick # 2 if i dont lose it again and mount that one






So i went ahead and 3m taped the # 3 and got it ready to mount




it was a slow day at work so i worked on this at the desk at work, mounted the emblem and snapped a pic (all the chrome L symbols in that bag will be for sale soon for CHEAP, there are like 15 in there)





Next i mounted this without the strut bar and snapped some pics

















just to show you the clearance with the strut bar is still the same

 

so here are the final pics....





Outside in the sun







and the money shot, i think

 

what kind of strut bar is that? cuz I'm tired of people complaining about clearance on their GS430 or 400.

 

Nice...how much did that set you back brian?

 

nice work brian. i hope you get the engine mount fixed soon...cuz the engine jumps up and down during normal driving... which may hit/rub the stb.

 

Looks good B! Hope that the foam does it's job in protecting the CF cover from marring for the time being until you get the mount replaced.

 

clean job and nicely done!

 

Looks nice. Next step, cut out center and polish the intake

 

its custom, PHML (pete) bout 2 quotes down from your original quote made it, i bought it from ckspeed (chris) who he sold it to about 2 years ago maybe

not half of what u think, i got a good price for being the guinea pig and using mine as a prototype

thanks, yeah i need them. they my next project after my audio gets wrapped up

thanks, i hope it does too.

ty

nah, for 3 reasons. 1) i'll never polish ANYTHING again after doing my motorcycle frame. 2) i dont like bling, bling. and 3) the gs400 uses 4 bolts (10mm) 2 in the front and 2 behind to hold the engine cover down, whereas the gs430 uses 2 front bolts and the round ***** to clip onto the others. if these end up breaking im gonna use figs (mike) to get me the magnetic ones he uses in his CF covers

 

looks great overall, nice piece!

 

nice, when will they be mass producing this?

 

Wow, that turned out real nice!!

 

That looks great. I'm trying to buy another strut bar now I wanted to do some CF on the engine cover myself. I just bought a spare engine cover and will probably just do a wrap since I want to paint some parts as well. Anyway, good job

 

Looks great brian, Are you doing any other engine bay peices..

 

thanks

well, since mine was just a prototype and since i was asked not to indulge alot of the info since the seller isnt a vendor on here. i will answer what i was asked to tell you.... google AAC or Advanced Automotive Concepts and u can email justin and see how much they are going for.

thanks

lol, sup chris. yeah that SB def clears everything....does pete have more SB's? thanks btw

im not sure yet, i JUST got some chrome bezels and im gonna start my retro and redo my chrome bezels into the CF ones i had before. i might do some under hood stuff in CF but i dunno yet