Hi all, I figured out that the build sticky is probably a better place to post car updates and cars in general rather than the regular forum section.

In 2022 I bought a Diamond Pearl White 1999 Lexus GS400 with 158k miles from some lady. She said she was looking for something bigger (bigger than a boat? Good luck). Anyway, the car came with a cold air intake (CAI), a pair of HKS Hi-Power exhausts, a replacement trunk with the spoiler (didn’t come stock because the rear brake light lights up in addition to the spoiler light), DEPO tail lights (score!!), and Aristo rear badge and door sills (yuck).

Since buying it for $5500, I’ve learned a lot and done not a lot. I fixed the tail lights (inner bulb wouldn’t light on braking, only regular night lighting), changed the lower ball joints, changed the sway bar links, changed the sway bar bushings, installed a simple head unit, an amp with a 12” sub, another amp with two 6x9s, did a full timing belt and water pump job (with all the small bits in between, thanks JonGS3 for the recommendations), changed the starter, flushed the green Toyota fluid to replace it with that generic pink autozone coolant, and of course tons of oil changes (every 3k miles). Here it is:





1 year and a half later, I find myself pretty much obsessed with 2GSs in general, and constantly looking at 2GSs for sale in my area. After countless searches that amounted to nothing, I hit what I thought was the jackpot.

Enter, Millennium Silver Metallic 2000 GS 400 with 100k miles, from off-duty used car dealer. Apparently this car had been through 11 owners, yikes!!! But after driving the car, looking it over up down side to side, I couldn’t help but wonder why, so I jumped. Jumped to hand over $4000. How could I pass up a 100k mile GS400 that seemed to have no issues, besides a samurai sword shifter, a chunk missing from the A/C vent and border, very worn front seats, a mysterious ticking ignition coil, P0446 and P0441 best friends, and a two-face Harvey Dent appearance (scuffed paint repair on the passenger side fender and rear quarter panel)? I’ll find out the answer soon once I find time to pop the engine cover off and do an oil change! Here’s the next star of the post:




and here’s this proud GS400 papa’s twins sitting all cozy together:



Thanks for reading and viewing, I will update this as I do things to the cars! I also have tons of pictures of the water pump and starter job on the white one that I may post, as well as other random moments.

Oh and I changed the side markers to clears on the white one as seen between the pics.

 

A couple days after I bought the silver, a GS400 and a GS430 pop up in my area, both in a lot better exterior condition, but only the GS430 had low mileage (105k, sheesh!)

But the silver popped up just in time as these bad boys came in a few weeks prior. I can’t wait to get them mounted on the white and swap the IS350 wheels to the silver:


(18s but I so badly wish that I got 19s, but of course with wheels, you’re gonna do your best to make sure you don’t regret buying them )

 

Also looking into pulling a Forward Momentum on the white (manual and supercharge).

 

Shorter term plans:

White:
- Restore honor by re-badging back to the original GS 400 badge
- Change charcoal canister EVAP valve and fuel pump to get rid of a very rare P0446 and P0441
- Mount Weds and put them on
- LS400 BBK waiting to be put on
- Seal or buy a new intake tube and replace some vacuum lines (P0171 has been on for 3 weeks now since I did the water pump, probably kicked a vacuum line while it was already down)
- Lots of rust above the windshield (have a friend that will weld metal in after I grind and cut out the rust
- Power steering job (pretty sure the black goop everywhere below the halfway point on the engine is power steering, or the cam sprocket gasket said see-ya a long time ago)
- New alternator, most likely high output (power steering fluid probably not good for electronics)
- Replace the front seats with tan seats
- A/C servo motors (JonGS3 made it look not-so-bad
- debating a Tanabe set as the current bazooka HKS Hi-Power set scrapes on every driveway and parking stall curb, and with 18” Weds, coilovers are pretty much mandatory
- Happily ever after: coilovers, new amp and sub, manual trans, blower gang

Silver:
- swap the samurai hilt shifter
- replace center A/C piece
- open Pandora’s box soon
- order new passenger fender
- PDR and try my hand at painting a section of rear quarter panel (can’t get any worse right?)
- swap out those oversized hockey pucks
- find new front seats
- Tanabe exhaust
- Happily ever after: daily if all goes well

 

Here’s to the car that started me down the Lexus path:



My first car ever, that I got for $2000. The one thing that made me get rid of it was a leaking power steering hose that eventually caused the steering to seize up completely. I was lazy and we had to do some work in the garage so I said screw it I’ll just get it towed away.

At the time I couldn’t take on a job like that, but after working on my 2GS, man I wish I knew then what I know now. Could’ve saved it for a little longer and let someone else drive it if they needed a car.

I also left an amp, a sub, a head unit, and a ton of wiring in it!!! could’ve gone in the silver for free!

 

New brakes alert someone said the LS400 brakes don’t fit if you have 18” IS350 wheels, but they do.

Car also sits a little lower thanks to the RCA, which is nice.

Apparently you have to shave your brake line bracket in order to fit upgraded stainless steel lines. I tried grinding the hole to open it up enough for the stainless steel nut to go in but it just wasn't working out. I'm pretty sure that's also what's causing a clunking/tapping sound that comes and goes. Unless I forgot to torque my lug nuts again but I drove for about 15 miles last night and my wheels didn't fall off so they must be torqued.

 

Which car is getting the OG Cerberus!?

 

I originally planned to put it on the white one but after putting the brakes on, in addition to 5mm spacers, the hub studs weren’t long enough to thread on lug nuts

So if I find the time to install longer hub studs (which isn’t too difficult), then that’ll go according to plan. Otherwise, they might find their way onto the silver one.

I also might need 10mm spacers as opposed to 5 mm ones. I’ll have to check this weekend what the fit is.

 

Progress update. I was able to put the Cerberus II’s on my white GS400. Took 25mm worth of spacers to clear the LS400 calipers with a mid lip. Replacing the oem wheel studs was pretty simple apart from replacing the parking brakes. I highly recommend the wheel stud installation tool. I have no idea how you’d do it without that.

Then I threw the old IS350 onto the silver GS and I have to admit those wheels work pretty well on the GS. Too bad they’re 18”. I really wish I knew how small 18” wheels would look on the GS. Thankfully I got 45 series tires, so at least it fills the wheel well a decent amount.

White GS400:



Silver GS400:



I’ll wash the cars and try to get better pics at some point. Also the white one is due for a paint job soon.

 

Nice to see you resolve your spacer dilemma and have it all come together.

18s look small at stock, or near-stock height, especially with thick tires. I'm biased, of course, but I think they're the perfect OEM+ size.

 

It looks like the white car came with some JDM LED taillights that are much nicer and way more valuable than a set of DEPO’s. And the trunk mounted taillights only come on with the headlights and not the brake lights. Although it seems like they should come on with the brake lights. It looks pretty good the way you have it now.