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Well with things on hold, I decided to have a little fun. I bought OEM high and low-beams to replace my crappy "ebay" lights. You know which ones I mean, the angel eye projector ones. Ironically, I bought these ones from ebay so you could say I still have ebay lights. I know I know, that joke was cornier than ethanol. Here are some pictures of how they look after taking them apart, cleaning, and painting the inside housing of the low-beams. I used high temp engine paint, color is semi-gloss black.
They still need a little work, they both need new rubber gasket material around the edges (passenger side especially) but I know where to get some that comes in rolls. One of the mounting tabs is broken as well, I'll be trying to fabricate something to substitute.
Broken mounting tab:
Haven't done anything with my high beams yet because I've been lazy. They'll come next, and I have plans for a TSX retrofit as well. Already gathered the parts I need. I'll be using 4300k for the HID setup.
I ended up not quite liking how the low-beams came out, and I'm not confident enough in my sealing abilities right now, so I decided to send them off to KingPhilip for my retrofit and to finish restoring them as well.
I also just got these in the mail Friday my IMF headers back from being ceramic coated! This coating is called "white lightning", not sure if I'm allowed to advertise the actual company though so if you want to know who did it, just pm me for now.
So I finally had my bent wheel fixed. It was not cheap and I will tell you why. It was vibrating at speeds of 70+ mph, but below that you wouldn't notice it, so I continued driving on it and just stayed off the highways. Well, if I had only not procrastinated and gotten it fixed as soon as I first noticed, I would have saved myself about $900! Wheel repair by itself was only $150.
However: because I had continued driving on it, I completely blew out both of my front shocks, damaged a tie rod, had an unevenly worn front tire, and the bent wheel was also the straw that broke the camel's back for my front LCA bushings. Total cost of repairs? About $1,100. Ouch! This was not including 4 brand new Continental DW tires which I did not NEED but decided to go ahead with anyway. I also made sure my mechanic used new Toyota LCA's instead of ordering them from Lexus, saved myself some decent money there.
The car handles AMAZING now. I have never driven a RWD car on summer tires before. It is downright life changing. I'm obsessed with setting the car up for better handling now (for the street, no bone-rattling coilover setups for me). I can't wait to have the rest of the bushings replaced with my Vlamos set sitting in the closet, and see how it handles then!
This is a post-repair look at the spot where my wheel was bent. Unfortunately there are several scratches and some marring that I can only describe as "mesh-like", but at least it's safe to drive on and won't damage my suspension anymore.
I am dropping my car off at a shop for a very long appointment to have a lot of work done on my baby. She'll finally be mechanically base-lined. On top of that, my headers will be installed and a custom exhaust will be put in as well. I've used the following threads on lextreme, and user JBrady's advice in particular for reference:
01-24-15, 09:35 AM
I know I know, that joke was cornier than ethanol. Here are some pictures of how they look after taking them apart, cleaning, and painting the inside housing of the low-beams. I used high temp engine paint, color is semi-gloss black. 
