8M6

iTrader: (2)

I was previously on stock shocks and springs.

I was considering coilovers, but I don't really care that much about adjustable ride height as long as the drop is sufficient enough to get rid of the large factory gap.

The NOS Bilstein B6 shocks showed up for a good price in a Facebook group and I jumped on them. The seller also had a set of 1.5" Eibach Pro Kit springs that he later also advertised here in the CL Marketplace, but I didn't go for those because I knew if I was going with shocks, the 1" Vogtlands were going to be my first choice of springs.

The total cost of the Bilsteins and Vogtlands together ended up being less than a set of brand new entry-level Tein or Megan coilovers, and despite what I joked about in the previous post, I don't literally do what's cheap. If I went the coilover route, I wasn't going to get anything less than BC Racing.

Agent$mith

iTrader: (2)

Ahh I'm surprised you had stock suspension this long. What wheels are those? I don't worry about the jokes of being cheap; just do what makes you happy. I'm just trying to keep my car a daily driver as long as I can. The book value of the car has made me second think before I put upgrades into it these days though. I am maybe done after the headlights and audio system I hope. One of my rims are leaking air so I got a new set of wheels that will work with other cars if anything happens.

8M6

iTrader: (2)

Those are the 18x8.5" 45mm Lexus F Sport PROP-5 in hypersilver.

There's not much to be gained in selling these cars these days, so I quit caring about resale value. It wasn't until the last couple of years that I decided to go ahead with more serious mods to the car, but even then, I'm not making a full-fledged effort right now. For instance, I'm still completely undecided on supercharging, but I'm content with kicking that can further down the road.

For me, there's only a few small restorative things left to do or have done such as new paint on the roof and front door handles and new lower door molding rubber, having a detailer fix any remaining minor paint issues elsewhere, apply PPF and/or ceramic coating to the body panels (already have full frontal and partial fender PPF coverage), then one last custom interior mod inspired by DaveGS4. I probably won't have any other mod plans for a couple of years as I daily drive this car for awhile, but I've already done too much for it to be considered a true daily driver.

Did you finish your retrofit yet? What audio system plans do you have?

Agent$mith

iTrader: (2)

Ahh nice wheels. Oh I'm not worried about resale value. Lol I'm concerned with any accident that will probably total it out. You've done some tasteful mods imho.

Yep. I did the Q45 and high profile led retrofits and posted pics in the retrofit thread toward the end. I already did the audio upgrade. I upgraded the speakers to 6 1/2 RF Punch component and coaxial in the back with the adapters people talk about here, alpine amp and alpine ilx-w650 double din. Contemplating the sub with another alpine amp.

8M6

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for noticing. I like to keep it mostly OEM+ on the appearance side of things, although the wheels were more of a once-in-a-lifetime "Lexus completely screwed up their product catalog pricing tables and someone's probably getting fired for this" deal rather than a strict attempt to adhere to OEM+.

Agreed on the accident concern. Ultimately, the only way forward in terms of not getting totaled out is agreed value insurance, but the number one requirement for any of those policies is that the car cannot be a daily driver.

I've thought about agreed value insurance for this car, but the hardest thing about getting a new daily driver is finding something I like that I won't have the desire to mod and also has a relatively low cost of ownership. I totally failed on the "won't have the desire to mod" requirement when I got this car. I do have some ideas for a new daily, but that'll be a couple of years away I think.

I saw your pics of the Q45 retrofit, but I wasn't sure if it was completely done last I saw of that thread. Nice job on that.

I noticed with the audio that you had also went with the JayNunu aux jack mod at first. That was working great for me until I wanted to add a front and rear camera with a rear view mirror monitor. Problem was, the mirror monitor didn't have a mount compatible with this car, so that meant the only place to put a monitor was...the head unit. I ended up upgrading everything except the rear door speakers.

8M6

iTrader: (2)

That's probably the Metra then. The other aftermarket option is Scosche and that one has an extra ring around the double DIN opening, though I don't know whether it's removable to make the opening even larger.

I wanted the OEM JDM surround, but the stock and shipping time from Japan were questionable, so I ended up having the Metra one sanded down and color matched to the climate control unit. The Metra surround's color and texture out of the box is noticeably different from OEM.

Agent$mith

iTrader: (2)

That retrofit thread got me hooked into doing it. Tbh it was worth it since I can see the road a whole lot better so it was worth . I was using only xenondepot philips ultinon 9006 6K hid system back in the day when they sold them up until now.

That JayNunu aux jack mod was awesome to be honest, but I wanted to get Apple car play and rear camera to display on the radio as well. What audio system parts did you use? I didn't want to run a separate power cable to the battery so I used the Alpine KTP-445U which works wonder for my daily needs. I used the Scosche as it was a little pricier, but read comments on the look. Check it out. I'm not sure if the ring comes off, but I didn't pull too hard on it.

604GS400

Did you find that your braking performance improved with the newer IS calipers and rotors?

8M6

iTrader: (2)

I had 9012 Philips HIR bulbs and 9006 Philips CrystalVision Ultra bulbs before getting the LS460 retrofit. The HIR bulbs were surprisingly good, but there's no comparison when the LS460 projectors light up seven lanes wide with a crisp cutoff.

I have a Pioneer AVIC-W8500NEX head unit, Polk DB6502 DB+ 6.5" components up front, Kicker 44CWCS104 10" sub in the factory location surrounded by Stinger RoadKill Ultimate sound damping, and Kenwood Excelon X302-4 amp in the factory location by the glovebox. The front channels on the X302-4 drive the components, the rear channels are bridged to drive the sub, and the head unit powers the rear door speakers with a -6 dB cut for rear fill. I actually did look at the Alpine iLX-W650 and KTP-445U at one point as well because I also wanted a stealth setup.

I had searched for small five-channel amps that would fit in either the factory amp location or CD changer location, and the two Kenwoods and one Alpine I found were all too big by fractions of an inch. Then it was suggested to me to go with a smaller four-channel amp, bridge the rear channels for the sub, and run the rear speakers off the head unit especially since I wasn't planning on upgrading them or running them at the same level as the fronts. The end result was amazing for being able to reuse the factory amp and sub locations.

8M6

iTrader: (2)

I think it feels significantly better than what came stock on these cars. While I don't have before and after hard stopping distance measurements, braking in any other condition is all about the feel anyway. The pedal is much more predictable and no longer feels spongy.

I wrote more about it here:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...l#post10839848

AirRideFan

iTrader: (1)

Agent$mith- can you post some pics of the speakers/amp setup?

Damn!! 8M6 You also installed that LRB Speed undertray on your GS3? I LOVE that piece!! I really need something like that for my daily driver (2012 Suzuki Kizashi) -- That is sooo fuggin sweet. I noticed on eBay the price for the 1IS /Altezza undertray is $300! (Plus shipping) How much do they charge for the GS/Aristo undertrays?

8M6

iTrader: (2)

I bought mine on Black Friday last year for $191 including shipping.

The IS one on eBay is the full three-piece version for that chassis. The main undertray alone is the same price as the one for the 2GS. Either way, it's cheaper if you buy it direct from their website.

Agent$mith

iTrader: (2)

Sorry for the delay, but here are 2 pics. I used some speaker adapters to get the 6 1/2 component speakers to fit with tweeters. Also, I custom made the amp bracket to hide it behind the radio. 8M6 I was thinking about the Polk as well as they were highly reviewed, but I would have needed a higher amp to compensate the RMS.

Beezy300

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

Well, the front bumper was a week and a half late showing up, but I got the car back yesterday. The aftermarket bumper does have some fitment issues around the outside of the low beam lamp, in the form of a small (2-3mm) gap. Things are just loosely bolted/cable tied in place for the moment, so there may be some room to adjust, but I think it's just typical ****ty aftermarket part fitment. Can't do anything about it because the painter didn't catch it and went ahead and painted it.
It would have cost a substantial amount of time and money to ship it back anyways, so at the end of the day I'll just have to live with the imperfection. In hindsight, I should have just asked the shop to overhaul the beat up OEM bumper, even though it's really rough and I wanted to use this as an opportunity to delete the headlight washers. I did keep the old bumper though, so I may revisit that idea, and I can use it as a reference to fix my shattered Tom's bumper.

Aside from that, the good news is that now it's just a matter of collecting details like new side seals and brackets, misc. hardware for things, and reassembly. Home stretch. The shop painted the hood, bumper, both fenders, and both driver's side doors. So now, only the two passenger doors, the roof, and the skirts are original paint, and looking a lil' worse off by comparison.
Next big step (read: expense) will be booking an appointment to have the whole exterior decontaminated (parked outdoors near a railyard for many months) and have the paint corrected and sealed. That should be the last of the exterior work for this year until I can afford to repair the rust bubbling that I'm pretending not to see but am still acutely aware of.

Frankly, it was nice just to drive the car again, and I'm looking forward to some summer cruising.

TrueGS300, I promise I'll get around to grounding my trunk latch soon.