bcabano

Well it's been about 3 months since I've started to modify my 2005 Lexus LS430 so I figured I'd document all my previous progress and start updating everything from here on out as I go!

For starters my car is a pretty optioned out 05 LS430, Mercury Metallic w/ black interior. Currently w/ almost 148k miles



Here she is in her bone-stock form. I've had the car for 4 years prior to any modifications, but as of this year I decided it'd be fun to do a small build this summer and see what I could make of the car.

Well first things first I decided to install an exhaust, I originally was planning on doing a muffler delete but I figured I could put in the extra money and install QTP E-Cutouts and be able to switch from loud to bone stock quiet. I actually made a post about the installation that I'm going to past in this thread here.

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Well after driving my LS430 for quite a while (almost 4 years) I decided it was time to do some slight modifications to the vehicle. My initial plan was to start w/ lowering springs and spacers and then maybe eventually some wheels but I figured why not start with an exhaust! Nothing beats driving a car that makes a good sound when you step on it, so I thought why not mine?

So I ordered QTP Low Profile E-Cutouts from Summit Racing as well as the electronic controllers to go with it. After getting them welded in and wired up I was a little disappointed, the car now had a sound to it but it wasn't that loud! Here's a clip I got of it immediately after the install.


So me and my buddy promptly drove to a muffler shop and got the resonators taken out as well, and the car now sounds like a beast!
Heres a vid from immediately after the resonators were taken off (excuse our banter)


It's a little funny coming from a big luxury sedan but whenever I want the car to be silent again I can just shut the cutouts and it goes back to sounded exactly like it did when it was stock!
One more vid of a takeoff:




Here's where the cutouts are installed (this was before I took the resonators out). The muffler shop I went welded them pointing down a little due to the size of the piping (I think) but they line up perfectly with the wheels so as long as I take bumps two wheels at a time I won't scrape. It's been over 5 thousand miles since they've been installed and I've only scraped them once.

bcabano

Well I had the exhaust on for about a month and figured it'd be time for some suspension work. My initial plan was to go springs and spacers but I knew I'd regret getting springs and not going for coils. I really valued being able to adjust the height as I please and bags weren't quite in the budget. So I went to a new shop that my buddy works at in Scottsdale, AZ and got some BC Racing Type BR coils ordered. Spring rates were the standard 10k/8k that they came with for LS's and when I installed I adjusted the dampening to be a 3 clicks on the soft side. The car rides absolutely amazing. You can definitely feel the bumps in the road a little more but when I'm just cruising on the highway it really is smooth. The lower center of gravity really helps with the body roll and I love the sportiness that the coils have added, here's some pictures!



Here's the car in shop when I picked it up. The drop added some decent negative camber in the back that I actually really like. As you can see the wheel fitment from the factory is quite terrible, the rear wheels sit further into the car almost a half an inch then the fronts. I ordered some spacers to fix that problem.



One more shot sitting at home

Shortly after I ordered the coilovers I ordered spacers as well, they arrived a couple days after the coils and got them installed right away! I initially ordered 12mm, 25mm in the front but I ordered spacers for custom studs when I meant to order adapters w/ the studs built in. Larry from www.motorsport-tech.com was able to troubleshoot the order with ease and ended up changing my order to 15mm (the smallest adapter the had) fronts and 25mm rears. The ordering process was very smooth and I highly recommend them! Anyway here's pics after the install.





Car sits 100x better with the spacers, for some reason I have quite a bit of rubbing only on the front passenger side wheel but I think it's because my fender liner got messed up in a small incident, thinking of replacing the entire liner hoping to fix it. Besides that I only really rub all 4 corners when going over big dips but I haven't noticed any tire damage so I'm not worried!

bcabano

Now came time for a few little mods, all of these I just completed last week quite happy how they turned out!

First off was LED foglamps. I ordered this kit (bulb size 9006) It comes with three filters, one for white, blue, and yellow lights. I initially installed the white LEDs and have since tinted the housings yellow with the yellow LED filter. (I'll get some pics soon!) The install was very easy, just have to peel back the fender liner and unscrew the bulb from the back of the housing.



Before



After!



The lights are very bright as you can see. As I said I since have tinted the housings yellow and switched the LED to a yellow one and it I really enjoy it. Will post pics of that later on.

Next off I ordered some new exhaust tips from Amazon, Magnaflow Part #35121
Saw a few posts on here with these tips on their LS's and GS's so figured I'd go that route too. While I was at the muffler shop to get them welded on I made the impulsive decision of taking off the secondary cat as well. Just ran a straight pipe through and now the car sounds a lot meaner! Has a higher pitched tone under acceleration that I really like! Pics and vids below.




Here's how the tips look.


Finally here's an exhaust clip w/out the 3rd cat.

That's it so far for mods, thinking about adding a sport sway bar and some other little mods. I will continue to update here as I continue to build my LS!

DRTY430

Do you drone? I wanna do this to my 03 but I'd be worried about droning
I guess if you're modding the exhaust on a luxury sedan to make it louder it kind of comes with the territory at that point, but still lol
Edit: Sorry for necro lol