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Alright so picked up this 2002 Lexus GS430 with 177k miles off craigslist.... Paid 5500 cash for the car. Been driving it for a couple weeks now.
Black exterior
Tan Interior
Has Navigation, Woodgrain Steering wheel, rear factory air ride. The speakers suck, has a JL sub in he rear deck? Previous over claimed it has a boss system all around... but they sound like stock paper speakers. Arm rest is tore, front seats are worn good, no tears, but cracking and getting hard. Rear seat is okay, has a few random stains. Carpet is ok, I deep cleaned the interior the best I could so far with carpet and leather cleaners. Disappointed at the pound of melted candy I found in between the seats and carpet, the random soda stains, and I even found sound some melted cheese on the passenger side door panel and carpet.... YUM!
The Exterior has the clear coat pealing bad, the driver rear quarter panel, truck and most of the rear bumper are bare paint and faded. After looking the car over in the air at the shop and balancing the wheels, needs a rack and pinion, lower ball joints, and valve covers gaskets.
Under the hood its super clean! I hope to restore this car and tastefully build it for a comfortable Daily Driver. 3 of the 5 factory wheels are bent, 1 beyond fixing... so wheels are in the near future. Would love to go with 18x9 and 18x10.5 XXR 526. Gotta do some more research on back spacing and fender work for this style car. This is my first actual car, iv built numerous jeeps, and 4x4 trucks so ittl be nice to have a change of scenery.
Feel Free to post your opinions, concerns, and any advice is grateful as I'm new to the whole car thing and I enjoy criticism!
SO as far as mods go...
Custom tune done by Previous owner
Cat back exhaust with 3" tips. its LOUD! Previous owner.
Iv only cleaned the car the best I could, installed some White Led peanut bulbs in the smaller inner headlight housings, and did a real ****ty job on attempting to tint the tail lights lol.
Iv already ordered a new rack and pinion and lower ball joints and hope to get those done this week, between the crappy wheels, 1 bad tire, and the play in the rack the car road walks a bit.
Waiting on my truck to sell before I can really throw some money at the car.
Next on the list is to get the car to drive staright.
Wheels and tires and fender roll, Window tint, CAI, Coil overs
Nice, and welcome! Since you are about to do the front end. You might as well go to Figs Engeneering and get, #1 & 2 front control arm bushings, streering rack bushings, front n rear swaybar bushings. All urethane. Then pic up some swaybar endlinks. If you replace your rack and you still have the original bushings, the front end is still going to feel sloppy.
Thanks for the advice! Is figs engeneering any better then moog or import direct that I can get at Oreillys auto parts? I work there and can get a discount.
Welcome to the 430 club! i second replacing the bushings with the figs bushings as well, that's an awesome bang for your buck mod on these 2nd gen gs's.
so whats the plans for this bad boy besides fixing up small things. Any performance mods in the near future?
Performance wise I haven't really looked or done any research on the 430. I did find some headers on a Japan website that looked nice, but also a nice 950$ tag! Is there any simple bolt on performance things that are worth it? Is the cold air intake, larger throttle body's, or intakes?
Plans for now are to get rid of the road walking, bent wheels, and make it a nice daily. I'd like to look into getting rid of the rear air ride and go coilovers once my truck sells.
Moog are good replacement parts. Figs takes what's wrong with the part,redesign it using better materials. The control arm bushings are polyurethane with steel inserts, instead of sub par rubber with a thin sleeve. The swaybar bushings will take away most of your body roll. Well worth the $$$. Unless you budget allows for swaybars, they come with the good bushings.
if you want headers, the $950. PPE headers are the best way to go. If you find some cheaper eBay headers more than likely u will have some fitment issues or they will end up cracking later. When you lower our cars or with age the rear toe gets out of wack. So if you do coilovers you are going to need toe links, traction rods, n maybe lower control arms for the rear. I have a mixture of Figs, and Megan, haven't tried the God Speed yet but they look just like the Megan but a diff. Color. Then you have your higher end suspension companies, but I didn't want to get too crazy. I have a track car already, i just wanted to upgrade suspension parts as they wore out with something better than stock.
I haven't done any engine mods besides a K&N. We don't have a big selection of true cold air kits that isolate the filter from the engine bay heat, besides the SRT intake, unless there is something out there that I haven't ran across yet.
Got the rack and pinion lower ball joints and outter tie rods done and a decent alignment for now.
Feel like and idiot for thinking this car had factory rear air lol, I just trusted the previous owner...
new LED tail lights are in
df210 drop springs are on the way as well
wheels are arriving today! 18" fr1 f23 wheels... just some cheap knock off wheels for now so I can learn how these tire sizes and fitments before I get crazy with it.
18x8.5 +38
18x9.5 +20
hoping to run a 245/40/18 front and 275/35/18 rear do y'all think I will rub? I ordered a fender Roll tool, and if they rub I'll go down a size in the rear. Any info would be great. As I'm taking a road trip to Dallas to install everything at my buddies shop I want to make sure I order any other tire possibilities that will work if the 275s don't work. According to the tire size thread it says the 275 will be with in factory diameter as my goal is to stay in the factory diameter for the speedometer and "performance" If it's to wide I'll probably go with a 255
DF210 springs installed , wheels and tires installed. 245/40 up front 255/40/18 rear. Half assed rolled the rear fenders with a roller tool. Wheels came out a little more wild the I originally thought but I'll rock em for now. No rubbing. Didn't touch the front fenders. New LED Taillights
Next to an Imported Aristo at the ECM car meet in north Texas
SO as far as mods go...
Custom tune done by Previous owner
What kind of bs lines was the owner feeding you about this? Same thing as it having factory rear air, just making stuff up that sounds good I assume...
Otherwise at least you've cleaned that car up alot. And if the prices of figs or not going extremely low then stick with Moog or OEM replacement parts for the suspension bits you need and you'll be in good shape.
430's are fun, you'll enjoy it. But adding headers, srt intake, and an LSD will make the car considerably more responsive, if you are ok to sacrifice a little mpg's for quicker accel you can do the 3.76 v300 aristo or 3.93 gs300 rear gears along with the lsd and it will really wake the car up.
02-12-17, 09:20 PM
2002 GS430... Early mid life crisis?
