Mingofish

Hi everyone, my name is Ming aka Mingofish.
I've been lurking on the board for a while now since I acquired my RCF about 4 months ago.
Hoping to get some constructive criticism from the CL family as I build this new ride.
I am not new to modding cars but I have been out of the car scene for many many years so some of the trends are new to me. I will say I have discovered that the parts for the RCF is ridiculously more compared to what I was expecting, especially JDM stuff...

I want to give props to JM Lexus in coconut creek Florida, which is the dealer that I bougt this CPO 2015 with only 3600 miles on it. The sales person (Mike Robbins) an the entire dealership was a pleasure to deal with. I bought this car remotely site unseen and I was not one bit nervous. The car showed up in mint condition as promised. Definitely will be using them again if I buy another lexus.

attached pic is the day my car showed up at the house. That was a good day!!

Mingofish

So most everyone mods the car first by buying rims. I was no different.

After much researching, I ended up going with a wheel by Rennen. Not many people heard of them but they're a very high end custom wheel manufacturer in California who actually cut their own wheels and not buy pre-lathed blanks from others/china.

I meet a great car guy in Atlanta named Kevin Nguyen who owns a tuner shop called 4 teh'Win. He works very closely with Rennen and showed me some crazy dope wheels in his show room. There was a set of carbon fiber rims there which are suppose to go on his wide body NSX. Those things were nuts!
Attached is a "base" model of the wheel I'm going with. Mine are going to be a good bit different since many options will be ordered
like floating spoke, step lip, counter sunk bolts which are color matched, candy finish lip, brushed spoke finish, etc etc. Hopefully they turn out like I envisioned!

The right pics are the ADV1 rim thats on the Renntech benzo GT. This is the car that inspired me to buy an RCF and build a red white black car! Plus I am a UGA dawg fan and those are my team colors!!

Attached is the base rim pic

Mingofish

Next mod was a skirt kit. Was going to go with Varis full CF but the wait time was a killer! I do want to give props to David Chi from BP auto. He was super courteous and thorough. I hated that I didn't buy from him. May be down the road.
I ended up with a Tom's kit from Josh at Meraki. I found out he had a kit on the way that wasn't spoken for and I jumped on that so I didn't have to do te 6 month JDM wait. The wait is a killer... Thanks Josh!!!
The kit was a real pain to install but I got it done. The directions were in japanese... Most of it was self-explanatory but the rear bumper piece was hard to figure out. There were bolts from inside the bumper that I had to take off. But you couldn't see em!! Had to feel for it with my fingers. Thank god for gear wrench. A regular box end would have taken hours.
Sorry for crappy iphone pics.

Mingofish

well next came the rice stuff. Haha Tinted headlights & tail lights & cf wrap on the hood.

started with yellow head lights & running lights. I liked them but caught a bunch of flack from everyone...
then I decided to do a poll and just about everyone liked either no tint on the head lights or smoked head lights.
I really like the yellow running lights. You can see the car well during the day. It looks super cool and definitly catch the eye, which is what day time running lights suppose to do!

Meraki Autoworks

iTrader: (8)

Looking good Ming...

Couple more weeks and you will have that Meisterschaft titanium exhaust!!

-Josh

Mingofish

well here's the car with the wrap & the lights tinted

Mingofish

well let see if I catch some crap for this one...

Mingofish

Wheels finally came 3 months later!! I'm happy with it. Thoughts? Still waiting on Penskes from RR so the car is a lil high. The off set on the front was a bit too much. I wanted the rim to be flush and it sticks out like 2mm. Hoping once I lower the car the camber will let the top of the wheel in some and it will look right...

Some pics Kevin Nguyen/4 teh'Win took of the rims. These were the 1st ones Rennen made for RCF fitment and they wanted some pics for their own promotions.
Few pics on car. I'll try to get some better detailed shots soon. Got some nicer Kics lugs coming so I'll wait till then.

Mingofish

Got these few weeks back but not happy with them at all. They don't cover the ends of the mirror but the website didn't tell you that. All the pics they posted was from a certain angle and you couldn't see the inner part of the mirror. They were expensive! Feeling ripped off.
I will refrain from naming the place I purchased from...
Only reason I bought those was because I tried wrapping the mirrors myself in vinyl and failed miserably.
Good news is I have a lead for a place that will make me some real CF ones (see next post).

Mingofish

So I met a guy in Atlanta (ZaxF) who is partner of a customs race shop called JL composites which builds/makes/works on F1cars!
I approached him to make me a carbon fiber hood.
Was originally wanting the Varis hood but it is pretty pricey plus the wait time plus it is dry carbon so I still have extra cost of clearing it once it gets here.
ZaxF aka Zach and I have agreed on a price recently and work will start soon on my hood. The hood is molded from an oem RCF hood so it will fit perfect. We are looking into changing the center grill inset just a bit but for the most part it will be an oem hood in appearence but made entirely of CF (Not fiberglass with cf overlay).
Now I wait...

few pics of his shop. Theyre working on a mazda Le Mans car right now. Cool!!!

Ne1tHeRe

iTrader: (3)

Awesome! Love the Tom's kit.

Any better side view pics of your wheels?

ISF4life

iTrader: (30)

Conngrats and very nice build sir

VTsuckah

iTrader: (1)

The standard finish of the wheels would have looked cleaner (love the style of wheel chosen). IMHO The red accented wheels and badges are a bit much and cheapens the look of the RCF, espeically with the paint color that it is.

One thing is for sure, your build is definitely unique. If you like it, that's the only thing that matters.

Mingofish

Thanks Will, heres a few for ya

Mingofish

Thank you sir! It's coming along as planned.