I'm catching up this forum from another that I usually post all my builds on. I bought the car in June 2022.

I had said that it would be a while before I'd find another car to replace Brynn, my 2007 Supercharged Lotus Elise , and I'd be good and wait for the market to relax a little. Well that lasted about 4 days. The cheque from Lotus Vancouver hadn't even cleared and I was already spending the coin.

I had been pining for an LC500 for years. We drove one back in 2020 and instantly fell in love with it. It was luxurious and sexy looking, and really everything we wanted. So I set up some appointments and test drove the LC500 again before a later test drive in an RC-F. It's funny how different the LC felt the second time around. Still one of the best looking cars this past decade in my opinion, but it felt numb, and very disconnected the second time around. Off we went to drive the RC-F at another dealership, however along the way I thought I'd swing by another place and look at another one on the market. This was a Dealer spec'd car, so it has every single option available and was owned by a few dealerships before it was privately sold the first time. I was most interested in the performance pack, and this had it.

Instantly we were in love with everything but the wing. The blue is radiant, with hints of indigo in it, the engine sounds amazing and from factory puts out 475 Herspers, and the interior, while not as special as the LC, does have the same dedication to quality we have found in all our Lexus. It feels heavy, but immensely powerful in compensation. It's a visceral experience that I've found intoxicating since. I bought the car on the spot and haven't looked back.

So everyone, this is Letti.



As fortune has it, I actually know the past owners of Letti just not when they owned her. I have been able to get the majority of her history through them, and a listing of all the modifications done. Some of you in Calgary may recognize this car as one of the Illmotion guys former cars. When purchased she had 40k kms on her and the only mods were the Invidia Cat back, RR lowering springs and the spoiler. as mentioned earlier, this example is loaded. Every package and the much desired Performance Pack that is really only desired for the torque vectoring differential.

 

Originally posted on Aug 31 2022 on another forum

I couldn't resist this mod, and had to make it the first.




The wheel fitment on these cars is also pretty conservative, so the next up was a 20mm spacer at all four corners. Before and afters for your viewing pleasure.








For the moment that's how she sits. I may get new wheels, but I haven't found the ones yet. I want to stay away from the typical TE's and I want to go down to 18's. The front disks alone are 15" however, and once the calipers are on there only certain 18's will fit. If I find the right set of 18's, a 295 square setup would be my preference. Really, I don't feel this is a car I need to fiddle with. She doesn't do any one thing perfectly, but she's an 8/10 in everything, and I can't remember ever experiencing that in a car before.

 

Thanks for posting,. I have seen people fit 18 inch wheels for track builds on the RCF despite the big brakes and calipers. Looks great. Looking forward to seeing how this build comes along.

 

Having loved the LC500 machined aluminum *****, how could I not change the buttons for tuning, volume and drive mode? Found some replacement aluminum ***** for the volume and tuning locations and an aluminum cap that goes over the drive mode ****. They feel much better than the plastic ones and give a more tactile feel.

Before



After

 

Here's a couple shots from a run to Stettler for work last August. Found a few lesser traveled roads to drive and loved the contrast between the yellow and the blue.

 

There was a lot of debate in this household if we were going to drive her last winter. We had the LS, the GX and the RCF, and we constantly contemplated the need to drive her all winter. As most of you know I usually daily my project cars through the winter, with the exception being the very impractical Lotus. We got an offer on the GX that was more than it owed us, so we sold her. 13 mpg was not my thing anyway, and we never took her offroad. For those that didn't meet Tallulah, here she is/was.




With the garage space open and the extra coin to throw at some winters and a full PPF on Letti, that's the direction we went. I found some barely touched Hakka R3's in the stock RCF sizes and had SpecR mount them up for me. We removed the spacers as well, to keep as much of the gravel in the wheel well, and not on the cars rockers. I'm not a fan of the look, and flopped back on disliking the stock wheels now. Fitment is everything on my opinion of these wheels apparently.

Immediately after that it was off to Autokosmetic here in town for a full PPF. Every surface including the **** was wrapped in PPF after a full cut and polish. She didn't look this good from the showroom. The team wrapped almost all the edges so you can only see the odd line where the PPF just can't, and they are few and far between. I felt kind of ittshay driving the car home last night in the storm that was blowing through, but it's just part of the adventure.

In addition to the PPF, I have the chrome deleted on the window side blades as well as the grille. The team went the extra mile to put PPF on both of those wrapped surfaces as well, to ensure they stay looking sharp for as long as possible.




... And ten minutes after that last shot.

 

I happened to have an old set of generic Rally Armour mudflaps laying around from the Beatrice Build, my 1999 Birkin S3. I figured I'd put them to good use.

 

While not strictly this car related, I did build a baby Letti. I like to have an RC car of the cars I drive, and here is the RC-F.
Out with the old...


In with the new...

 

I ended up abandoning the 18's search. While I like the look of more tire for a more Japanese Muscle care look, Kirsten was less into it, and I found a compromise.

​​​​​I had big plans for the car and ordering parts like mad, but an unexpected layoff in October delayed much of that. Back to work in January and plans began again. I wanted to go with something sporty, and Kirsten (Mrs.Jackal) wanted something a bit more blingy. These are expected to land next week so I'm told, and now I'm doing the last minute pickups to have them on for the first show of the season.

I'm excited to see the weight savings at the corners now. Currently Letti has the BBS upgraded wheels that came with the Performance package, and they are remarkably heavy. I didn't weigh them when I have them off, so I'll have to go with what someone else on this forum said they weighed in at with MPS4S.

Front: 51.6lbs
Rear: 56.4lbs

https://enkei.com/shop/wheels/racing/gtc02/



For interest I went with these as I have always had great results with the brand, and they are proven light and strong. Plus EVERYONE in my town rolls TE37's and I can't be just another Volk sheep. Literally, at a show a week ago, it was almost all "yawn" TE's

Specs are

Front
ENKEI GTC02 19X9 ET40 5X114.3 HYPER SILVER
ENKEI HUB CENTRIC RING 75-60.1
5 mm spacer

Rear
ENKEI GTC02 19X10 ET 40 5X114.3 HYPER SILVER
ENKEI HUB CENTRIC RING 75-60.1
15mm spacer

I wanted to roll everything back from the 20mm spacers I ran on the stock wheels last year. I don't like any rubbing at all, and will sacrifice some aesthetics for that.

 

Going from forged BBS wheels to Cast Enkei wheels? interesting.

 

Over the holidays I decided that this years New Years resolution was just to not suck as much at taking pictures. I've committed to learning the functions of a proper camera, and make an attempt to make my shots more engaging. I started with a Nikon D300 (These shots), but I have also worked with a Canon G10 and have since moved on to the Nikon D750 FX.

Here's me not knowing what I'm doing, over processing, and weak setup, but I made an attempt. Those of you in IG may have seen some of these earlier. I got stopped by the police in this shoot. It was not quite the middle of the night, and there's this crazy dude swinging a lightsaber around, so they had to stop and check it out. They each took some funny shots of each other for the Police group chat and even hung out a short time to watch my back as I continued the shoot. The area is a bit sketch at night and they thought it best to keep an eye on me, the car and the camera equipment to keep everything safe. I was appreciative as the thought had crossed my mind.

 

I've had successes with autocrossing Enkei wheels before with relatively heavy cars, and I like the wheels.

 

One of my more recent outings with the Nikon D750.

 

Do you, but BBS is a superior brand and Forged wheels are superior to cast wheels. That's not to say cast enkeis wont hold up to tracking...

 

Looks good. The rubbing must be due to lowering. I am on stock height and have spacers on. Never had any rubbing issues even while approaching steep entrance etc.