I've got a 1997 Soarer that got imported with one of the riciest / Fast and Furious bumpers I've ever seen. I haven't really cared about it (it scrapes quite a bit) as I plan to replace it, but I wanted to verify... is this an aftermarket radiator also installed that would interfere with an OEM SC300 bumper? Anything to look out for in swapping in / sourcing a new one in terms of compatibility?

In terms of replacements, I'm thinking either an OEM part or open to other suggestions that look a bit more grown up than... this thing.



Current wheels are these chrome 18s, planning on dropping to 17s so I'm not too worried about fender rubbing or anything like that.

 

It's an upgraded intercooler, the factory one is a much smaller one mounted in the right side of the bumper. These cars have a ton of clearance for intercoolers up front with the long nose, I did not have to trim my bumper at all to fit my Greddy front mount.

You should be able to fit the factory bumpers without any issues. The power steering lines, one of the AC lines, and the coolant overflow bottle need to be moved when fitting an aftermarket intercooler but that's already done for you.

Aftermarket bumpers may need a bit of trimming depending on the 'depth' of the lower air dam, some go in further than the factory bumper does.

 

If you want a totally OEM solution you can pick up a factory front bumper from any 1997-2000 SC300 or SC400 and grab some of the little OEM mounting hardware if your aftermarket bumper doesn't have it already. The bumpers are the same for LHD and RHD and your car used that same front bumper from 1996-2000 in Japan. You could pick up a JDM Griffin front emblem for it too

The intercooler your Soarer has looks quite tall. You may need to get another one that is known to better fit into a stock 97-00 SC front bumper or some other aftermarket variation of that. There are a couple of good polyurethane 97-00 SC stock style front bumpers available that also look good and very close to stock. Gerrb has one on one of his SC's.

No aftermarket company makes a 100% exact reproduction of the factory front bumper for late model SC's but the one I'm thinking of mentioned above is pretty much that but with a lower front lip.

If you for some reason want to go all-stock with your intercooler you can pick up a stock SMIC and shroud for a Soarer VVT-i. I did this with my SC300: found a 97-00 front bumper, 91-95 Soarer all-metal SMIC, 96-00 Soarer VVT-i intercooler shroud, sent the early style SMIC in for re-coring at Bell Intercoolers in Texas where they upped it from 214cfm to somewhere just shy of 400cfm within the same dimensions, then modified the VVT-i IC shroud slightly to fit the earlier style all-metal intercooler, located a mix of MKIV TT IC piping and Soarer IC piping (you'd only need the latter). Everything fit perfectly as stock within the 97-00 front bumper.

My car is not running high boost though and that uprated SMIC would be fine up to 18psi I'm sure. If you'd run more boost then definitely stick with some model front mount intercooler.

 

Thanks both. I'm going to take a look at this kit here: https://www.kbdbodykits.com/lexus-sc...ars-p-938.html as it seems actually available + might be the polyurethane one you are talking about.

Going for a look similar to the photo here:



(That grille I suspect is custom / I'll have to find some kind of material for it and build my own).

 

I got under there yesterday while doing an oil change / swapping headlights... goddamn there is so much room in the front of this car, it is insane.

Haven't unboxed the KBD bumper yet (waiting to find a paint shop first, so I can get it all done in one go) but hopefully don't have any clearance issues. I keep finding interesting mods to this car from the previous owner...