Hey guys,

I've been a member on here for a while but haven't really posted much about my car. I bought the car back in June of last year. It was a one-owner, owned by some older women since they day it rolled off the lot here in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and serviced only at the dealership. I ended up getting the car with only 102,xxx original miles! It already had the timing belt job done when I got it. It was a in need of some service when I got it.




I had to replace the the rear passenger door lock actuator. I wrote up an article on how I did and what was involved in order to do the job:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...r-install.html

The car still needs a new rear, driver side window regulator but that'll come around one of these days. I had to replace that pesky harmonic balancer. It sheered right off of the pulley itself.


In December, I bought a new yellow top Optima battery and a set of Kouki JDM tailights from an Aristo:






In January, I ended up picking up a JDM Aristo sunvisor, an Aristo strut bar, and an HKS Hiper exhaust from an Aristo as well. I unfortunately didnt take any pics of the exhaust when I first picked it up, however I do have some pics of when I was polishing it up and cleaning it, getting it ready for install.

 

In February, I finally bought some Mothers metal polish and spent probably a week straight, hours here and there, polishing up the metal by hand on the HKS exhaust. The pipes are Stainless Steel but looked very beat up and corroded. After a week of getting up to par as best I could, I finally installed it:

Clean Up Procedure:











Install:










Video Clip of me doing a quick drive by:

 

The car looks great! I bought a set of the Kouki tail lights too and I love them! Did you feel any difference when you installed the Aristo strut tower brace?

 

So come March, I started saving up for a full set of twin turbo Supra brakes calipers, rotors, pads, and stainless steel brake lines.... but first, I needed a set of wheels to clear those bad boys. I sourced a set of twin turbo Supra wheels down here locally off the Supraforums site... excuse some of the pics, I had them up on instagram too so some of the shots were tweeeked a bit. Also, I had taken a few pics of the rest of the car up to that point:

 

and now the brakes....:










(That GS300 had an Aristo swap, getting a 5-speed swap done )

 

Now... where we are today... I finally got around to sending my Aristo strut bar off to get polished and powdercoated. I went with a Spanish gold powdercoat as I have plans in mind for my 2jz swap as far as color scheme and polishing work will go. I took it to a shop locally down here who normally specializes in refinishing, polishing, and powdercoating wheels but he'll do smaller things too. If you're in the miami area, hit him up: Alejandro: 786-683-9440 and you can find him on Instagram at @tornassembly. He did an amazing job fixing all the pits and scratches in the metal. I'll definitely be using him again:

Progress pics he sent me



Final Product

 

This is how my car sits today:

 

Amazing progress!

 

Now here's my next project... I have a set of JDM Aristo headlights I'm going to clear out and retrofit with s2000 HID projectors and ballasts. Also, I bought these JDM Integra Type R seats a couple weeks ago. I've been looking all over for a set of rails for our car. Aside from the Japanese Yahoo Auctions, I'm have 0 luck. I may just get a set made custom. Also, I have a bunch of Super Pro polyurethane bushings I HAVE to install. Ever since adding the Supra wheels, my bushings have been making my car run all squirrely at times so thats top of the priority list.

 

Thanks buddy! I finally got around to posting all these pics I've been holding on to for months lol. I actually did. My bushings are shot so my car would sway a bit if I hit a bump in the road. With the strut, it stiffened it up and reduced the amount of swaying. I definitely recommend it. I can't wait to install my poly bushings to really so how much stiffer it will be.

 

Thank you sir!

 

You did the rear Supra calipers too awesome! I don't think I have seen anyone else do the rears. How does the HKS exhaust sound?

 

Yeah I did the full setup.... it wasn't cheap by any means but well worth the investment for when I put the Aristo motor in. My next step is getting a set of coilovers once the bushings are all done. Here is an older drive-by video I made when I did the install. The exhaust sounds amazing, even with the n/a... it's nice and throaty and deep like a 2jz should sound:

 

Sounds great man!! Are the rear calipers just bolt on like the fronts? Just need the Supra rotors and calipers?

 

thanks!

Yeah, everything bolted up perfectly... all that needed to be done was to have the dust shields cut down to fit the calipers.