williamb82

well, been on the forum awhile. had a 93 ls400 that unfortunatly got totalled last year. this time around, i wanted something a lil different and easier to access stuff on then the ls400. that v8 was crammed in tight!

anyway, i bought a 93 gs300 with 260k miles on it. it looks like it was garage kept pretty much its whole life. paint and body are extreamly good for the miles, as is the interior. a few rips but nothing severe. suspension is good and tight. no slop anywhere etc... main thing is it is due for the timing belt replacement again and just needs alot of maintence.

i went to rock auto and ordered the hood struts, trunk struts, timing belt, timing belt hydraulic tensioner, timing belt tensioner pulley, oil pump, bottom end gasket kit, cam seals, coolant temp sensor, plug wires, cap, rotor, plugs, valve cover gaskets, pcv valve and grommet, ac compressor front seal kit, all ac orings, all ac shrader valves and caps, ac drier, o2 sensors, motor mounts, trans mount, serpentine belt, oil, filter, new coolant, gear oil for the diff, new front and rear pads, and i have the new tires from my ls400 that only have ~8k miles on them. 225/60/16.


plan for this weekend is to replace all the stuff listed and while under the car ill check the slop in the center support bearing. if needed, ill order a replacement for it, but i dont think its needed.


only other things planned is to remove the gauge cluster so i can try to repair the needles so they all stay lit properly. im guessing the same fix from the ls400 will work. using the rear window defroster stuff to complete the circuit on the back of the needle then paint it black. also want to remove the ecu to take it apart so i can order all the electrolytic caps and replace them.

car has a single din sony cd player that ill be changing out for the pioneer i had installed in my ls400. factory amp was already bypassed. also installing a kicker 12in cvr sub in the stock rear location with a sealed box under it. should sound pretty good. ill try to get pics during the install of all these parts. and the car should be tip top perfect once done.

i also have a hks smf intake leftover from one of my supras, so used the afm adapter and installed a k&n filter my friend gave me. its a brand new in the package cone filter. he got the wrong size and never took it back. eventually ill replace the plastic intake pipe with a metal one, and one day might do a gte swap on it. the aristo gte swap in my garage is very tempting, but thats designated for one of my mk2 supras.

heres a pic of the car when i bought it. and yes, that is original paint.

flybye

Sounds like you have your hands full. That car looks very clean and worth all the work though!

williamb82

yes, it is VERY clean. ive never worried about miles on toyotas as long as the car was taken care of, especially since these newer engines have hyperutectic pistons stock. to be honest, when i went to look at this car, i was fully prepared to replace the engine afer buying it if needed as the price was so good. however it runs so smooth, i dont see the point. it doesnt smoke, tic, or knock. only reason im changing the oil pump is because its only $90 and better safe then sorry since there is no oil pressure gauge, it is 260k miles after all. only leak i can see anywhere is a slight leak at the rear trans seal, and i have the seal for it already as well. ill do a compression test when i pull the plugs this weekend, but from driving it, i dont suspect any issues with the numbers, it runs great.

bad thing is when i got my ls400, it had a full set of eibach springs for a first gen gs300 in the trunk, and since i couldnt use them on the ls400, i sold them. now im wishing i had kept them. lol. oh well. ill worry about that when the suspension needs work down the road. this will be my new daily driver once i swap all the parts this weekend, which i should be able to do all of it on saturday. i drive 80 miles a day round trip for work so might as well do it comfortably.

promod1

Tell me more about the ecu caps you speak of.....also, does yours have tilt away steering column if so, does it retract when you open the door, key on, engine running?

williamb82

yes mine has the tilt away column, but i leave it switched off.1 or more of the gears needs replaced. that will likely get fixed, but im not worried about it so wont bother with it for quite awhile.

as for the caps, the electrolytic caps are common to leak, and should be replaced. i havent pulled the ecu yet. maybe next weekend. this pas weekend i installed all the new parts etc... come to find out, this is not the original motor. the oil pan has been off before. the timing belt that was on it was not a 60k mile old belt. i went ahead and installed the new oil pump anyway, cleaned the oil pans out. lower one had alot of pieces of gasket sealer in it from the previous pan install. my guess is they swapped a motor in from an sc300. the coolant had a oil shimerness to it. so my guess is the old motor blew the hg and had oil in the water and water in the oil. this one is fine. i did a compression test. no issues. also the cooling system holds pressure so again, no issues. i pulled the water pump. it has a metal impellar and looked brand new, so i reinstalled it. the alt is a toyota remfg alt, the engine under cover was there and in tact, radiator hoses look fairly new, etc...

i will note one thing. these valve covers are the ****tiest castings i have ever seen. started to wire wheel them to clean them up before painting. there is so many casting imperfections and whatnot. they are just absolutely horrible. idk wtf is up with them. ended up just scrubbing them clean with brake clean and painting. no point in wire wheeling them as it was just exposing more and more imperfections as i went. pretty sad.

on another note, i need to look up the diameter of the stock sway bars. the front bar on this car is HUGE!!!!!!! prolly the largest diameter sway bar i have ever seen, and i have addco sway bars for 2 of my supras. im wondering if somehow i got lucky and have aftermarket sways on this thing. that would be awesome.

williamb82

well, got it all back together. found a apexi catback locally for a great price on craigslist. bought it friday and installed it saturday. changed the diff fluid while i had the rear jacked up, though it was clean when i drained it so looks like that was maintained as well. i finished swapping the headunit from my old lexus in, got the dash back together. took the cluster out and replaced all the main backlight ulbs as most were bad. used nuber 74. 1.3 watt i think they were. took 8 bulbs so 4 packs. i pulled the gas needle to look at it as its the only one that doesnt light up at all. i have an idea to repair it, though thatll have to wait for another weekend. i want to find an extra set of needles from the junkyard to try it on first.if it works ill post a writeup.

also, does anyone know if the climate control takes bulbs or led's? if its bulbs, what size? i want to change them all as half of it doesnt light up like it should. kind of annouying at night when i want to adjust something as i dont have it memorized yet.

williamb82

wow, i havent updated this thread in a LONG time. to make it short, found out why the price was so good on the car. had a bhg. guy poured the copper stuff in it. first hot day i drove it, it overheated. had copper sparkles where the overflow is. pulled the head, had it surfaced, did a vlave job, put it all back together, runs great. installed a k&n cone filter with the hks smf adapter i had. installed a 3in aluminum intake pipe i got on ebay. dont remember what car it was actually for. i cut it to fit. was like $10 shipped. got the tires from my ls400 swapped onto the gs300 rims. etc...

few weeks back i installed a remaned ac compressor, all new orings and shraeder valves and vacuumed and charged the ac. works great, but in 95+ days when its sunny it doenst get very cold. it cant keep up with the greenhouse effect of the car. need to get the windows tinted asap.

last week, i bought a ss header for a mk4 supra, and the parts to make a 2.25" mid pipe to connect it to the apexi catback i installed awhile back(should have made it 2.5in, but for some reason i was thinking the first pipe of the catback was 2.25, its not, its 2.5. oh well, maybe ill make a new one later). got the header installed today, tight fit. VERY close to the ac lines, so i pushed them further toward the inner fender and wrapped them with exhaust wrap. i made the midpipe today as well. reset the ecu before starting it. pretty noticeable difference. car sounds much nicer, and there is quite a bit more power. way more power then a header swap on a mk2 supra. lol. saw people say this header has ~17hp increase on the n/a mk4. not sure if thats with or without the midpipe, plus mine is the chinese copy from ebay. lol. either way it is much better than the stock manifold and midpipe.















next will be thing i need to do is tint the windows and order the prolly bushings for the rear trailing arms and knuckles. getting the same wierd pulse feeling when braking like i did in the ls400 i had, and none of the rotors are warped. changing those bushings on the ls fixed the issue, so hoping its the same on this car. same year so most likely it is.


oh, and i think i have a couple pics from the rear sub install. ill try to dig them out and post them. nothing special, but it sounds really good with the way the car is setup.

williamb82

ok, these are the only pics i could find. i took the stock sub out. knocked the square nuts off the bottom of the back dash. made a wedge shaped box to fit on top of the gas tank and bolted it to the dash with 4 bolts.

i used the nuts with spikes in them on the inside of the box. made spacer of sorts out of 3/4in mdf. bolted it over the hole i cut for the speaker and had to grind it at an angle with a sand flap wheel on an angle grinder till i fit the speaker opening in the dash perfectly tight when the box was bolted up. didnt want any leaks.

i put strip caulk around the speaker opening of the box before bolting it to the dash. and i also put some dynamat on the metal gas tank to ensure that there would be any weird sounds in case somehow the box ever touches the tank. then i put some strip caulk on the bottom of the speaker before screwing it into dash/box from the top. had to mark the holes and drill through the metal dash with my dremel. then used wood screws to screw it down into the wood box.

after this i put the stock cover back on that hides the gas tank and you cant tell the box is there, but it made a HUGE difference in how the car sounds. its an old dvc kicker comp sub. my brother had a pair but blew one so gave me this one. wired it to 4ohms and have it on a mono amp. works great. still have my full trunk and full size spare tire as well.



you can kind of see the spacer in this pic. at the top of the black box in the center.







with the stock sub cover in place everything looks 100% factory original. still on the factory door speakers though. havent found any components i like that have tweeters thatll fit the stock location. plus all the stock pioneer stuff sounds great on my head unit so not that big a deal. if i ever have to take the box back out ill try to get pics of it out of the car and deminsions in case someone else wants to build a similar one.

Titten

interesting thread, keep it up. I have some questions though, when you changed the header do that ss, did it throw a check engine light? do you have pictures of the header once installed? also, what size is that subwoofer? also do you still have the original OEM intake? Thx much.

williamb82

There are pics posted of the header installed. and no, it did not cause an engine light. it has 2 bungs for o2 sensors, though they are threaded so the stock o2 sensors will not fit. also the stock midpipe will not fit. since the header is for a mk4 supra, the midpipe is like 2in too low from the header connection. didnt matter as i was making a new midpipe anyway.

as for the sub, it is a 12in sub. fits the hole in the back dash perfect after you remove the plastic ring the stock 10in sub was mounted to.

as for the stock intake, what part are you referring to? the plastic pipe between the maf and tb? i "tthink" i might still have it somewhere in the garage, why?

Titten

I'd like to buy the stock intake, from the air inlet to the TB.

image976

coming along rather nicely there......keep us posted.

williamb82

well, i installed the trac link bushings and rear knckle bushings from figgs yesterday.forgot to take pics. ended up removing the old bushings the same way i did on my old ls. knuckle i pressed the center out, the trac link i had to burn it out with a torch. then to get the outer sleeves of the stock bushings out i used a recipricating saw and cut a slit in the sleeve which released the tesion and made it easy to knock out with a screwdriver and hammer. new bushing install was easy, though the trac link was a bit of a pita to figure out on the first one. once i found the right setup on the giant c clap tool the 2nd one was easy to install.

now there is no more "pulsing" while braking. i knew it wasnt warped rotors. had the same issue on my ls400. anyway, i got ss braided brake lines as well, and ill try to take pics of the bushings installed when i install the brake lines later. have to wait till my buddy comes over so he can pump the brakes while i bleed them. stock hoses are getting some cracks in them so might as well upgrade to the ss lines.

later i will do the rear toe link bushings, shock mount bushings, and inner lca bushings. and on the front the caster arm bushings and lca bushings. prolly wont do the upper control arm bushings untill i have to replace the arms. i dont like removing ball joints unless replacing them. now i need to get the alignment checked to make sure its good in the rear.

williamb82

Well, installed the ss brake lines a few weeks ago and found that the rear lower control arm bushings in the front were completely shot. ordered the bushings from figs and installed them today. did the rear lower control arm bushings and the inner lower control arm bushings. total pita, had to drop the subframe, as well as disconnect the rack and pinion from the steering column and cross member. no more slop at all though. just need to get it aligned. going to take it in for that tomorrow.

stock rear control arm bushing.


so worn out i popped the center out with my bare hands with no effort.


new bushing pressed in


with the metal inner sleeve and outer rocker bushings installed.




one of the inner control arm bushings installed.


lower arm bolted back in place.


rear lower control arm bolted back in place


here you can see the black ss brake lines i installed.

williamb82

Also, found some old pics from when i installed the apexi catback, and also from the hg job i had to do thanks to the previous owner being a lieing explicit deleted!



and the various pics of the hg job.

Head cleaned


exhaust valves lapped and installed.


intakes lapped and installed


block surface cleaned and ready for the head to be installed.