So I am writing this build thread about the past, starting in 2012. Currently at June 2014 in the build story! Hope to catch up to current day Feb 2016 soon...

Hi everyone!
This thread is where I will post all the different stages of my SC. From getting my first set of wheels, to installing coilovers and later doing a w58 swap and currently doing a 1jz swap. This is the first car I have ever modified/worked on besides changing light bulbs, oil changes and brakes on previous vehicles.

The original owner of this car was the wife of the owner of the Lexus dealership in Portland. The second owner is the person I bought it from. He provided me with all maintenance records and the original sales sticker (I think 58k).

Here she is. A 1996 Lexus SC300 with only 107k miles. We picked it up for $5400 in July of 2012.


Here is the original thread I made for my SC when I bought it.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...ggestions.html

 

First thing I did. Bought IS350 wheels. My friend's older brother had a 240sx with g35 wheels and I thought that idea was just genius... So I figured I could do the same to my SC but with an IS350.


Only after I bought them and someone pointed it out to me did I realize these were 17's and from the AWD version non staggered... So I searched for the other IS350 wheels.



Then I did the fog-light mod! And got some proper 18's.
DIY from another member: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/bui...light-mod.html


After getting the right set of wheels and wiring the fogs to be independent from the headlights. I got HIDs and Coilovers!


Next up: Supra Seats!


I can't remember exactly but I believe the roof spoiler followed shortly after!


I tried out green fogs for a bit... They were cool and all! Just didn't fit the whole "less is more" sort of OEM+ style I had going on.


Made an SC buddy in Washington! (Met him through a SC parts buy n sell from facebook)


I bought a Toyota Soarer from Canada in 08/2013.

 

At this point. The soarer was not legal to register so I put it in storage for the next two years (finally imported and registered in October 2015 since it was manufactured in 1990, they let me import it before 2016).

 

2014 rolls around, by this point I am itching to do a 5 speed swap in my SC... I spent countless hours reading 5 speed swap threads on here and hours on craigslist looking for any swap parts but didn't make any purchases till late summer.

Anyways, I continued with making the SC more enjoyable. A friend of a friend worked at a meineke and so I had my first "custom exhaust" made aka resonator and muffler delete with custom staggered quad tip blast pipes (2.25 or 2.5 inch i think)





This really opened up the exhaust and made the SC sound much faster than it really was

After the exhaust I really didn't do much besides daily the SC... Until I purchased my next set of wheels.



OEM 350z Anniversary wheels! My friend Alex rocked them on his s14 and I couldn't get over how simply clean they looked on his car, so I found a set and decided to try them on the SC. And I dumped the car down stupid low at this point... I guess I wanted to be all "bout that low life". Funny thing was that I never took it to a meet when it was looking all pretty like this, I guess I just loved the look.

Wheel/Tire specs:
18x8 +30 215/35/18 (25mm spacer)
18x8.5 +33 225/40/18 (32mm spacer)



Yea it was kinda ridiculous... I got an alignment done and it was at -6 degrees in the rear and -3.5ish in the front If I remember correctly. I wanted to tuck rim so bad at that point

 

What better choice of wheels than OEM TT wheels from a mk4 supra!?

As you can see, I was tired of scraping my SC at every parking lot and neighborhood so I ran away in a hurry from the "stanced" and "dumped" look and picked up a set of the classic mk4 tt wheels and threw them on after raising up the car a couple inches...





Ahh muchhhh better

Well, I noticed the ride was getting bouncy and I was getting frustrated with it. So after talking to a few friends they told me to check my coils for any oil leaking, sure enough they were leaking a bit... So I ordered new shocks from PBM in order to "rebuild" my coilovers



For some reason, getting the car to the same height all around is impossible for me. If anyone know's why please do share! It's annoying since I had all 4 coils out and still couldnt match height equally.

Next, I "stole" the swaybar off my brother's LS400 (built by: vincent123)


(Notice the soarer peeking in the left side of the pic! I had figured a way I could drive it temporarily)
It fit... But with a few washers on the drivers side mounting bolts. I didn't like the fact that I had to use washers but whatever...

 

Nice progress so far, that Soarer would be fun once you get it registered. The turbo swap would be nice on the 96 with the manual swap.