I have a bad habit of buying car parts and installing them a year+ later. I had these sway bar sitting in my closet for maybe 2 years now. Honestly not sure why I havnt installed them any sooner. Additionally, I acquired more parts from Japan like the TOM’S Strut bar, lower member support brace, and oil cap. I also gotten some TRD door stabilizers as well.

Will post install soon

 

First of all, these are absolutely gorgeous in person. I have been waiting to finally install these to replace my current F-Sport set.

I needed an open ended lug nut due to having extended studs. My current set would not fully fasten with out a spacer since half of the set is smaller and the other half is longer. the smallest spacer I had was a 15mm spacer but even that was too large so the rear tires poked out. This was annoying when going over bumps and pot holes due to the coils being too soft and the rear fender/quarter panel scraping the tires and cutting in to them.

this helped out a lot since i no longer need a spacer to help tighten the lug nut. The tire now sits almost flush with the fender (slight tuck)

I will post more photos later.



Sooo beautiful

Sooo magnificent

Sooo sexy

A work of art

I don’t even want to touch these with out washing my hands or wearing gloves

Probably my favorite modification/tuning part so far.

 

 

Remove the under tray

Remove this panel

Same with the other side

Stock Sway Bar

Panel removed

Sway bar off, very easy to do. Just unbolt it from the end links and the bushing mount/bracket

Off comes the bushing from the sway bar and bracket. You will reuse the bracket

 

OEM Sway Bar Weight

8.35 LBS

F-Sport Sway Bar Weight

10.55 LBS

Lexus says the front sway bar is 30MM but here I have it measuring about 28-29mm.

More than likely I am not measuring at the right spots


OEM is about 27mm

To install the F-Sport Sway bar, you will just need to reverse the steps. First has the bushings to the sway bars and add the bracket on to it

You will want to install the sway bar bushing brackets first but not fully tighten down. Next bolt in the end links. Finally bolt down the bushing brackets and torque everything to spec

This was probably one of the easiest installs I have done on this car. Not sure why I put it off for 2 years LOL

 

Now let’s get started on the rear. Per Lexus, you will need to jack up the rear on the differential but I did the subframe install to be on the safe side. You want to remove all the panels and bracing from the rear. Please note that one of the bolts is also connected to the rear subframe so once you remove the bolt the subframe will come down a little.

Before

Once you move plastic panels, you will then remove the bracing.

Bracing is off. Kinda heavy ngl.

For the rears, I had this issue with the end links. They did. It want to come off and the ball joint kept spinning. Common if your end links are shot. I was suppose to replace the end links with adjustable end links but time and mainly budget did not allow it at the time.

This was my solution to get it off. You will need to have a plier and a ratchet/wrench. Apply pressure to the end link stud so it doesn’t move while using the ratchet/wrench to remove the bolt.

 

OEM Rear Sway Bar Weight

4.40 LBS

F- Sport Rear Sway Bar Weight

5.50 LBS

OEM Diameter is 17mm. It seems like I forgot to measure the rear F Sport Sway Bar but Lexus claims it is 19mm

This is with all the bracing and panels off the car.


To prevent the sway bar from being damaging during install, I decided to install it with the packaging. Would recommend since it was a pain to get it in. I also installed the end links the same way I took them off since I know it would be an annoying to try to install while on the car.

Once on, I installed the end links to the LCA

After

Some photos of it installed. I remove the packaging once it was fully installed.

Now to put the bracing back on

And the panels. Overall not too bad. Still easy but more time consuming than the front. I say maybe 30 mins?

 

Now the parts I am excited about. Tom’s Front Lower Member Bracing. Now to be honest, I was not sure if it would fit the ISC since I have not found any ISC owners install this nor does TOM’S say it would fit so I took a gamble but I was confident it would fit.

Install Instruction


TOM’S Front Lower Member Brace Weight.

7.05 LBS for these beefy bros

Ready for install

 

First, you will need to remove the front OEM braces.



You will also need to remove one of the bottom covers as well. (If you havnt already, you will also need to remove the splash tray. I already had mine removed since I was doing the sway bars)


Based off the instructions, you will need to mount the brace to one of the LCA #2 Bracket bolt and this other bolt as shown.
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This was a simple install. However, there will be no clearance for the OEM brace (they will touch). The very front of the OEM brace (the two end points that are almost touching each other shown on photo 5), those two bolts will be difficult to bolt done due to the interference with the TOMS brace. So what I did was took an impact, push on the brace until the bolt can touch the hole, and impacted that mf down nice and tight. Worked out just fine

 

Bow for the other brace. This one was pretty annoying to install because you have to align the brace, the steering rack, and the mounting point so the bolt can go in.

First remove these two bolts on each side.

I mocked up the brace first because I had no idea how it would be installed. The instructions were not clear. Once I figured it out, I took a photo for reference.

It will need to be mocked like this.

Once side lines up and the other side doesn’t so that was the issue I was dealing with



It took me about maybe 30-45 mins to mock this up. If you have an extra hand to help, please use it. Tbh I’m not even sure how I finally got it to a good enough position to start fitting bolts in.

It only took both my arms AND legs and maybe my head to get this align properly to start putting the bolts in. Probably one of the most annoying installs so far.

 

Before


After



Before

After

 

Novel Racing Titanium Lug Nuts Weight (w/box)

1.50 lbs

Looks beautiful with the WedsSport SA-20R BLCII and F Sport Blue Calipers




F Sport Lug Nuts Weight (w/box)

1.95LBS

 

I got my exhaust redone so help with the highway drone. I installed an additional 2 vibrant resonators 18” bottle style right after the X-Pipe. I still have my smaller vibrant resonators where my mufflers used to be. The car is not as loud anymore and it did help with drone on the higher RPM but not the low RPM. Looks like I would need to look for mufflers to help with that.


Parked next to a ISC i saw on my road trip.

 

Let’s gets started on rebuilding the F-Sport Rear BBK (StopTech ST-40). You will need a 10mm hex socket, a set of Allen keys, a 10mm and a 12mm socket. An impact gun is recommended but a wrench and elbow grease will do. You will also need an air compressor to take out the seals but I used a tire inflator. This was a pretty easy job to disassemble.


Before

After

Now let’s take out the pistons, boots, and seals.

It’s a little tricky to take out the pistons, boots, and seals. YouTube made it seem way easier than it was. I tried using a compressor before but it never worked for some reason. Maybe because I had a different style nozzle.

My tire inflator however had an attachment that provided a better seal so I ended up using that. You can try to take out the pistons first before you disassemble but I find it a lot easier to do it after. The issue I keep having is one popped out but the other didn’t.

The trick is using the other half of the caliper or even the brake pads or a wooden block…basically whatever you can find that can hold down one piston and prevent it from fully coming out.

What you do is pop one out. Then you will slide it back in the hole maybe half way or less. Then you will place your object under the position and use your leg or knee to hold it down. You don’t want to force the piston back in…that’s not what we want. We just want to prevent the piston from popping out again.

As you are using air to blow out the other piston, you will notice the loose piston will try to force its way out. You will definitely feel it and see one half of the caliper rising up. This is when you push down on that side to prevent it from popping out. You will keep doing this until the other piston finally pops out. This might take a while depending on how bad the piston is stuck.

once the piston finally pops out. You then grab a plier and gently pull out the other piston.

now you finally got both pistons out hopefully you didn’t have to do this and it was way easier for you.



All done ?


Fully disassembled

Now let’s do the other

All done

Now it is time to deep clean your calipers. I recommend trying to use wheel cleaner first to see if it will do the job. It did not do the job for me as this caliper had who knows how many years of caked up brake dust and grease on it.

the solution is to use iron remover. I used whatever I found at the local parts store.

you will need a brush and a soft wire brush as well. I got a pack at my local harbor freight for really cheap.

first step is to soak the entire caliper with iron remover. Be generous with it and let it sit for 5 mins or so.

next, you will want to give it a good scrub with the regular brush. Take your time with this. The better you clean, the better it would look and/or the better the prep is for your paint job.

this took several times to do. I kept spraying, scrubbing, rinsing, and repeating. Once you get 99% of the gunk out, you will notice there will be small spots of brake dust that will not budge. That’s when the soft wire brush comes in. Spray the spots with the iron remover and use the soft wire brush and it will take it out.

give it a final rinse and repeat for all other calipers

(the above photo is the final result)

 

As you may or may not know, it is extremely difficult to get new parts from StopTech for virtually anything. It has been extremely difficult and annoying on trying to source discontinued parts and or parts on back order with no ETA.

i decided I am just going to reuse all the hardware and save some $$$. The main part I was looking to replace was the cross over bridge and the bleeder valve but even that was hard to find.

so instead, I got a pack of wire brush wheel for my drill from good old harbor freight and went to town.

this was really time consuming and a strain on my hands. If you’re going to do this, please wear good gloves that won’t get tangled or cut through the gloves. ask me how I know . My hands and wrist were badly scrapped by the end of this you probably thought I was suicidal.

After finally going through EVERY piece of hardware, even down to the washers, I decided I wanted to protect all my hard work with a zinc coating. Now ideally, I would have liked it zinc plated but I do not have the time or space to learn how to do that now. I’m sure it is easy as YouTube makes it seem but I will revisit that one day. Instead, I got a spray can of galvanized zinc in a can from Oh Oh Oh O’Riiiilleeeyyyys in hopes I can use it as a temp. Once I finally got a can (hard to find), I was excited to use it. When I sprayed it I was like wtf is this. The finish was not shinny at all. It was like a matte chalk grey like cement. It also went on so thick no matter how lightly I sprayed it. I let it dry and once it did, didn’t really stay on. I immediately reused my wire bush and took all of the coating off. It looked awful and not what I expected. I went back and returned that can.

i ended up just leaking it like a raw polish look. I do not have photos of how trash the coating looked because i didn’t even take a photo of it.

if you want to zinc coat your hardware, stick with the zinc electroplating.

[img alt="Left: After
Right: Before"]https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.clublexus.com-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_4442_55c2c83b42557d64dd7fd0e795815da57a98c8c4.jpeg[/img]
Left: After Right: Before





Nice and shiny