Cronus1995

I've owned the car about a year now and decided I have waited long enough to start throwing some parts at it.


This is my daily so the goal is a fun car that I won't lose my mind in while commuting. More or less a muscled up version of the factory car. It will see a few track days and autocross events a year (I hope)

I'll be gauging progress by my wife. If she doesn't notice or doesn't complain then it's a great mod!


Current mods:


LED interior, puddle, city, license plate lights
Noyka 3000k high beam and fog lights
15mm/20mm spacers front and rear
OVtune 7200 rpm tune
Sharp tone hella horns
Blackvue Dash cam
Fsport lowering springs
Darkstar "true" cold air intake
10mm RCAs
2 row aluminum radiator
Radium Engineering 1.3 bar radiator cap
Oil Catch Can


The day I picked it up!


A few pics of progress






I have a few more boxes coming in the next week or so. Hopefully I'll be able to update this again soon!

NIAautoDesign

looks awesome!

Cronus1995

Well i have a pile of parts waiting for install. It's always the same thing, you have the money for parts or the time to install them but never the two at the same time.

I found a little time to get my intake put in however!

So here it is! I bought it off another forum member a while back. It's about the only true cold air induction I've seen for these cars. It pulls in air from the passenger side in front of the wheel well. The one draw back is it's a lot of aluminum and it's run right behind the radiator so it can heat soak.

Here's the basic layout


Here's the layout with the couplers on. After this I installed it for a bit to see what intake temps would do. Compared to stock it lowered temps an average of 6-7 degrees while cruising. In traffic I saw huge spikes in temp though. The stock intake would get as hot as 98 where this intake would hit 114 in the same conditions . This nice thing is that the unlike the stock intake, it would get rid of that heat soak much faster. But I still thought we could better...

So I ceramic coated it! Where I work I have the ability to cerakote things. So after work one day this induction setup found its way into our little paint booth.

Here it is after the final install.

And with the plastics put back into place.


Now the question of whether or not that was worth the effort.

Totally! After the coating I was consistently 5-12 degrees cooler than the factory intake. And under high load conditions, temperatures are no higher than 2 degrees over ambient, and most of the time they are at ambient temps!

Now as far as the OEM+ theme... I showed a before and after photo of the engine bay to the wife and she had no idea what was different. When we went out for a drive she didn't notice anything until I got on the throttle. It's loud under high load but I did not get any complaints about it. I call that a success!

Speaking of the sound, this thing is incredible! When it gets into the power band it screams! I've tried to take a couple videos but it just doesn't do it justice.

As far as power I doubt I got anything more than what an Fsport or JoeZ pipe would give me but neither of those would have given me that just amazing induction noise.

Next on the list is Fsport springs and Figs LCA bushings!

ryanSC300lover

iTrader: (1)

Hello there neighbor

Nice car. I just picked one up (its coming on transporter tomorrow). Only has 7,100 miles. Be nice to see a local person, do mods, as the ISC doesn't have much stuff on this forum.

I want to do the F sport springs, the yellow fogs you have, and the LED light upgrades.

Looking forward to your progress and meeting in person to pick your brain.

Cronus1995

Time for some much needed suspension upgrades!

Fsport springs part# PTR07-53100

I purchased these from LexusPartsNow.com. It was the most reasonable price I could find and fairly quick shipping.

I'm not going to go through the whole install process. It's the same on the ISC as it is on the sedan, it's been well documented. I will give my overall impressions of the parts.






Holy cow these things are great! Lowered the car just a hair over an inch, so for a daily driver I don't have to worry about scrapping on everything. The ride feels stock. Which is just what I'm looking for.

I also changed the spacers I'm using. Instead of 20/25mm front/rear I went to 15/20mm front/rear. I had a little bit of an issue rubbing in the rear. Removing the 5mm solved it.

Finally I purchased some Megan Racing 30mm roll center adjusters. They are supposed to correct control arm geometry when you lower the car, and give a bit more drop. However….. I don't like them as is. Paired with the Fsport springs they lower the front way to much. 62mm total on an ISC. I was rubbing on the fender liners, scrapping going up or down every driveway I encountered, they added a bunch of negative camber. The drop didn't even look right. Mostly because I'm on factory wheels, but it was just too much.

It's a good thing I have access to a vertical mill! I removed 10mm off the parts. I have yet to reinstall them but I’m hopeful they’ll add the little extra bit of drop I was looking for on the front. If they are still too aggressive I'll just pull them off and mill more material off!




Some machining pr0n for y'all.

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Cronus1995

Thanks man. I'd love to see your new ride!

ryanSC300lover

iTrader: (1)

Yeah loving it so far. Don't want to ruin your thread with it.

Was at a Malaysian joint for food in Tustin last night. Feel free to PM, I can give you my number and email and we can check out the cars

Bempa

I like that you took time to confirm that the cold air intake was doing wat it´s supposed to do
It´s a really clean car you have! Looks awesome

Flick2JZ

Car looks good. Should be a fun setup, whats next?

ed21x

i'm from OC as well. Let me know if you guys ever meet up. Currently ripping the door apart to install both interior and exterior handle lights on the IS-C

ryanSC300lover

iTrader: (1)

Cronus1995

I'd be up for a meet! Saturday mornings at Enderle Center right up the street from me is a pretty legit cars and coffee. Normally a bunch of Porsche and vintage stuff shows up. A few imports here and there.

As far as what's next for the car I have a set of Figs LCA bushings I need to install.

Then I'm thinking I'll be switching back to power mods. I've been eyeing a few different exhaust systems. I'm going back and forth between a full custom dual setup or modifying a Tanabe Medallion kit. I want better flow but don't want loud.

I'm also starting to budget for that RR Racing supercharger kit. When I first started looking for a Lexus there was a big debate over the ISF vs the ISC. I wanted the V8 because, well, 400 horsepower. I also wanted a hardtop convertible. I guess convertible won out and I would settle for a measly 300 hp. But it looks like I just may get to have my cake and eat it too!

I guess I'll be changing this up from an OEM+ build to something a bit more..... sleepy.

ryanSC300lover

iTrader: (1)

Magnaflow

Great start to the build! We're tuned in to see what else you have in store!

Keithregal

Love the look of the C