* P.S. My Kleemann headers are up for sale, shoot me a pm if interested.* Basically I just stumbled upon one of Rollnnn's posts about the headers and found out that it's a 2pc kit! I purchased mine from a member and he only sold me the header without the down-pipe. I'm not interested in taking on this project LOL


Will be cutting the bumper's exhaust opening tomorrow and weld in tips. AMG style, not the c55/32 size but the more common larger ones. Trying to go for the CLK550 look.

Here are crappy iPhone pics of the car

 

looks great, but need to go lower imo..

 

Thanks, but I really can't! I've got a toddler who rides along and Boston roads aren't forgiving. Not to mention that I'll be finishing my degree next year and I don't know yet if I'll be moving. Kinda limits my options for the time being. That's why I'm trying to go for a clean sharp factory-like look.

I'll be dropping the front next week to match the rear.

 

Just got the exhaust tips done and the bumper trimmed. I could've widen the bumper opening further and get a better look, but that meant trimming through the bumper clips.

More crappy phone pix for now. I'll be taking decent photos once I'm done with next week's work.

 

Bumper's gonna melt.

 

Yikes! thanks for the heads up. I'll keep an eye on it and I'll probably revisit the shop and cut through the clips as soon as I seen any sign of the bumper discoloring.

 

if you're not going to lower it more why not get wider tires and have a more comfortable ride. I'd get 225/40/18 in front and 235/40/18 in back. your ride will be a lot smoother then the stretched tires you have now. or do 225/40/18 all around or 235/40/18 all around

 

phister, you are absolutely right.

Short answer, it's cheaper and I'm doing it for experimental reasons.


Long answer,
I am from a country that really makes it difficult to personalize vehicles. They've got many regulations against altering OEM look, specs, and group meetings. The roads conditions are only comparable to Mars. I've only modified one car so far, a 2nd generation Lexus IS300 (Asia specs excluding Japan). I fell in love with the hobby and decided that I would like to do it more often and to experiment with making it easier for everyone to customize/personalize their vehicles.

I had a great experience with this forum and the leading Lexus forum. But to me, the biggest point of pain with forums was difficulty of accessing data. I know that I am not alone by just looking at how many "noob" posts and "use the search button" responses that are out there. I'm currently working on a web platform that compliments automotive forums. It basically has none of the conversational text and pretty much just easily searchable data. My objective is to provide a tool that makes it easier, faster, and possibly cheaper for both the vendors to operate and the consumers to practice their hobby... especially for non-locals. Project is still under progress, hopefully I can get something up and running by end of summer. If it works, great! otherwise I'll just have fun while doing it

Back to the IS, I ended up investing roughly $16k in it Just like with the w203, I was after a factory-like clean but somewhat aggressive look. But I went for brand new quality products and international shipment costed an arm and a leg. So right now I'm going about customizing the w203 the opposite way. Going as cheap as possible and used parts from forums... I'm just trying to experience everything I've been missing out and learn how that can be incorporated into my project.

Anyways, the ride with stretched wheels is actually not that bad. It's more comfortable than my OEM 17" wheels with snow tires.


Here are couple of pix of the 2Gen IS:

 

Signature updated! turns out my front offsets were 46mm not 45mm

 

Speaking about cheap parts, I found old pictures of parts...

went for stickers instead of caps

I really expected them to be crap and not to look half as decent as they do or to fall/peal off in no time. I'll see how they hold for another month or so, if they keep performing this decent then I'm try to get them to make me the blue ones.

Here's how they look on the car right now


The weather was nice yesterday, took couple of photos. Will be sharing them soon.

You can see in the previous picture the exhaust tips, got them for cheap from eBay. Were suppose to fit the car, seller was willing to get them back but I thought I'd give them a try. Had to cut and weld to get them in, not to mention cutting the bumper too.

 

H&R 25mm DRA spacers all around

Supplied bolts fit the spacer onto the car, OEM bolts fit the wheels onto the spacers. I had to get shorter bolts though (I think 12mm x 1.5mm x ~25mm) the thread on the original ones were in the mid 39.9mm.

Speaking about spacers I still couldn't make my mind between 12mm vs 15mm spacers for the rear... I'll share pictures so you can let me know what do you think will flow.

Also is it safe to have spacers on top of spacers? they will both be hub-centric... I just purchased a torque wrench and I'll use it once a month or so to feel safer. I've got no idea what torque to set it to, arbitrarily I'm gonna just setting it to 80 psi... let me know what is the recommended torque

 

I was going to install these since I thought I'd see how it looks like. I don't recommend them at all! they were difficult to fit, difficult to take out, made the wheels look even smaller, but worst of all they get stretched and ruined as you install them.

D-Rings for the cargo net, will be installed tomorrow. OEM Aux kit, already installed.



This is what it currently looks like. I'm having trouble running the aux cable though, the glove-box compartment has already claimed one cable. It basically damages the cable seal and you get all sort of funny right-side / left-side only sound. If you look at the bottom of the picture, you can see an opening in the body, I'm thinking of drilling an opening there to the cable can comfortably pass through


These are the R04CA stealth side markers bulbs. They are suppose to give you the OEM amber light without the reflection that makes the clear side markers look orange when they are off. I'll hopefully install them tomorrow

 

I love the IS. Great color.

Phister's going to laugh at this one, but you should really consider a stud conversion. Your lug bolt would all go away with the conversion, and you'd have a much easier time of fittings, trying new spacer combinations, etc.

The only real issue I see with what you're doing is your wheel bearings are going to probably wear out much quicker with the add'l stress you'll be placing on them with all of the spacers.

My bumper kept melting when I had the Eisenmann race exhaust installed, so I kept a razor blade in the car and kept slicing it down like raclette, until it finally was a big enough opening that heat wouldn't affect it.

 

You should look at installing Aznoptics LED amber bulb instead. Same effect but nicer I think
http://www.aznoptics.com/index.php?m...products_id=53

 

Thanks, LOL I love the razor method. The bumper is fine right now and the shop is right next to my place so not a big deal.

I was going to do a stud conversion but I figured that I'd run into problems when I try to sell the car. But why will the wheel bearings be stressed more? the 12 or 15mm will be between the back of the wheel-face and front of the H&R DRA's

 

Thanks Slash I have them but I lost interest in the LED look since it looks somewhat green with the clear housing I've got . The current LED's I've got installed are flickering as well. I'll throw the AZNOptics in there tomorrow before making a call on the chrome ones and I'll keep them if they don't look as green as the current ones.

These are the LED's I intended to install in the first place but somehow my LED's got mixed up.

 

just use blue threadlock on the studs so if you do decide to sell the car you can just remove them its pretty simple to install and remove studs.

 

awesome! might do that with the rotors upgrade lug nuts FTW

 

I'll take a pic of mine & post on this thread later. The amber shade of the LEDs are actually nicer than the stock color, IMO. You probably put in the 4500K color temp LED in your sidemarker lights - on mine, pale white w/ very slight greenish tint. Absolutely no flicker @ all w/ Aznoptics LEDs I have installed. I think we have the same clear sidemarkers, Depo brand?

 

Thanks Slash, I'd really appreciate that yup Depo came as a freebie with the headlight housing

 

Those clear side markers look great on white!

 

I took couple of pictures yesterday...