Leemanfor

Hello everyone, I am looking at purchasing a Lexus Sc300 for a project car. This will not be a daily driver. I have a few questions about the platform and I searched but couldn't find the right answers.
I am looking to make a street sleeper, 450 to 500 whp. I would like manual, but dont know if the manual transmission can handle that power. I am not new to cars but this would be my real first project car.

1. Is the aftermarket decent for these cars? I know they share a lot of parts with the Toyota Supra so I assume so.

2. Are they pretty easy to work on?

3. Is there a benefit to different model years? Like is a 93 better than a 95 etc.

I know there will be more questions later on but I think this is a good start. I hope to be a Lexus owner here soon!

Thanks!

BenStoked

iTrader: (3)

1)the important stuff has plenty of support. suspension is the same, driveline the same, even the front seats swap.
body kits are available readily.
the sc gas tons of support.
2) compared to fwd cars, they are very easy to work on, especially if you have some wrenching experience. there's tons of space everywhere for most projects and wrenching jobs.

3)there's more "desirable" options on newer cars. body kit on the 97+ cars, an extra cup holder, other knickknacks I won't go into. early cars have no real disadvantages, mechanically. 96 introduced obdii, so there is that, if you need to have inspections done by law for registering it.


I'm on my second SC, and I'll be doing this for a while. they are great cars, whether you want to just ride in style, or drift or drag, or somewhere in between.

Leemanfor

awesome, that was the info I was looking for. You must like them to have bought two of them lol. I would like Obdii.

mikef

iTrader: (3)

im moving to Thornton next week, collecting parts for my sc with a gte v160 swap
waiting till i move to start my project.
colorado is easy to pass emissions, just drive by one of those vans on the highway lol
but if I was you, stick with obd1 because you said your doing mods. so 92-95 years

im going to Pm you

oldManTan

in most states, i know in illinois and the surrounding states, cars older than 95 don't have to go through emissions. so check what it is in colorado, cz if you're planning on heavily modding most likely u wont pass emissions. also registration here was only $25 bucks cz the car is older than 20 years. more money for mods!!!

Leemanfor

This makes sense. I would like to keep it catless and we do require emissions here. Lucky for me my inlaws live outside the emission requirement area so I could register it there, but I Think I might look for a 92 or 93. I dont really care too much about cup holders, this will be a project car so those amenities I can do without lol

bigwes

92-95 is prime for modding. If u get a vvti then ur gonna have more troubles with modding. Also the rods are weaker on the vvti models than the non-vvti models

mikef

iTrader: (3)

yeah vvti is not the way to go, he should pick a GTE swap or even a 1jz obd1