deepfriday

..cross country from NYC.


At the Bonneville Salt Flats just a few minutes before getting stuck in the mud.


Parked at the Oregon Cave National Monument

From the beginning of the year I scoured the entire country for a cheap IS300 5spd manual or sportcross and after a few failed attempts at auctions, sellers in California, and other areas of the country - I found a manual IS300 for sale within an hour from NYC.

It's was pretty beat up when I first saw it; the rear bumper was even hanging off a few inches. After a long test drive and a quick look underneath a lift, I ended up buying it for $5400.

I had bought the car about a month before leaving for California and only did the following maintenance:
- Oil Change
- Install Bilstein Shocks
- Flush coolant, replace with original Toyota Red Coolant
- Flush transmission oil, replace with mobil 1 synthetic
- New set of Hankook Ventus V12 EVO K110 tires

6 hours before leaving, the check engine light went on. I was luckily able to pull the codes and discovered cylinders 4, 5 and 6 were misfiring intermittently. I reset the codes and haven't seen the check engine light since. In Colorado (after a 28hr non-stop drive) I picked up replacement NGK Iridium plugs, but never got a chance to put them in the car while on the trip.

This car never skipped a beat and was always ready to go. I'll be treating it to a nice tune up for sure.

For those wondering about the rack:
It's a Kuat Vagabond mounted on a Yakima Q-tower setup.
I bought the Q-tower set off of craigslist which came with the older, larger wind fairing. I was able to line up both wind fairings and put a piece of duct tape so it acted as one.

For long distance, non stop drives I packed both bikes you see in the 2nd picture in the trunk by removing all wheels and pedals. I custom made vinyl padding and wheel covers for protection while in the trunk.

sayayin

iTrader: (2)

Nice, I just bought my is300 with 147k, so far this cars look reliable and smooth, the only draw back is the power, I am used to my sc300 with 1jz.

deepfriday

I do think I could use a bit more power too..
I'm guessing your SC300 was tuned? I just looked it up and was surprised to see the SC300 weight as much as an IS300, but with the lower powered 1JZ.

I am glad to have another inline-6 though; wide open throttle reminds me of my '87 BMW 325is.. which was set on fire in NYC.

Originally I was planning on running this motor dead and hopefully have enough to do an LSx swap, but I think it has a bit more life in it than I thought.. I may start looking into a small turbo!

sennett0r

Definitely do the CDD removal mod. I just did it a week ago and its the best $5-10 mod.

deepfriday

I didn't realize it could be done that cheap.. Even though I've adapted to shifting slower, it still bothers me each everytime.

CTFY

Them roof baskets are sex!

jadu

iTrader: (42)

Wow sounded like an awesome road trip! And the mighty 2jz held up nicely