IS300 tear down and track car build

Chuck33079

I decided to write up a log of my other car build just in case anyone might be interested. it's a 2003 Lexus IS300 5 speed. I bought it from a friend to use as a daily driver a few years ago. He took fantastic care of the car, and when I bought it off him with 115k miles it didn't look a day older than 40k miles. It was bone stock. That didn't last long.

I swapped out the sways for a set from Hotchkis and put on Swift springs and Tokico 5 way adjustable shocks. A Tanabe cat back, Megan headers and a JoeZ intake made a slow car be slightly less slow and sound good. The bigger sways kept snapping OEM endlinks, so a set of Figs engineering links solved that problem. I topped it off with a short shifter and weighted shift knob, and drove it daily for another 20k miles.

The previous owner and I had been discussing splitting the costs of a track car for years, and once I picked up the Z to drive every day it occurred to me that the IS would be an ideal track car. Rather than buy an unknown vehicle for 5k with a ton of miles on it, why not use the perfectly maintained vehicle. It's not going to be the fastest car out there, but tons of guys track Miatas and they're much slower.

So, the decision was made. He would buy a set of track tires and all necessary safety items- cage, seats, harnesses, etc. I'd contribute the car and odds and ends. Black Friday sales and combing the forums for used stuff supplied me with a set of prosport gauges, an old Blitz AFC and some other little stuff. I still had a catless Y-pipe to put in now that I'm not concerned with it being too loud.

The first step was to get the interior out and sell it to fund further parts purchases. This was to be a completely DIY low cost track car, so anything recouped from parts sales would be huge. Luckily, somebody bought the entire interior. Other little bits sold pretty quickly. We ordered a set of OMP seats and harnesses, a full Autopower cage and all of the mounts and sliders we would need. The interior came out pretty nicely, but it's a huge pain n the *** avoiding breaking all the little panel clips. Now we were left with an empty shell to work with.

The next project was the sound deadening. This stuff looked like it was going to be hard to get out. Luckily it came right up after letting some dry ice sit on it for a while and whacking it with a hammer. Other than some on the transmission tunnel that seems to be invulnerable to conventional weaponry, it's bare metal through the entire car now. It'll get a coat of paint soon to correct all of the little dings we put in chipping up sound deadening. There was probably 20 lbs of it in the car.

The next things to be tackled are going to be a little harder. The dash needs to come out, both to get the useless stuff behind it out of the car and to paint it. For some reason IS300 dashboards get sticky and nasty in hotter climates. The sunroof needs to be taken out, with a piece of metal riveted over the hole.

Once those are finished, the cage and seats should be here. I'll keep this updated as things arrive. I'd like to have the car ready to go in a month or two. My goal is to get the car sitting at about 2750-2800 lbs with somewhere around 210-220 whp. It'll be fast enough to have fun with, but it's not so fast that I'll kill myself.

Attached Images

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	chuck33079-albums-other-cars-picture53669-img-2795.jpg (106.4 KB, 37 views)
	chuck33079-albums-is300-tear-down-track-car-build-picture61145t-img-0389.jpg (5.9 KB, 232 views)
	chuck33079-albums-is300-tear-down-track-car-build-picture61147t-img-0398.jpg (6.6 KB, 239 views)

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent

Chuck33079

More pics

Attached Images

	chuck33079-albums-is300-tear-down-track-car-build-picture61147t-img-0398.jpg (6.6 KB, 231 views)
	chuck33079-albums-is300-tear-down-track-car-build-picture61143t-img-0388.jpg (5.9 KB, 232 views)
	chuck33079-albums-is300-tear-down-track-car-build-picture61144t-img-0392.jpg (6.7 KB, 232 views)
	chuck33079-albums-is300-tear-down-track-car-build-picture61140t-img-0354.jpg (5.9 KB, 233 views)
	chuck33079-albums-is300-tear-down-track-car-build-picture61142t-img-0358.jpg (6.9 KB, 233 views)

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent

DEpointfive0

PLEASE put a big áss wing on it!!! PLEASSSEEEEEEE!!! (No sarcasm)

Chuck33079

It's nowhere near fast enough to justify it, but it's not out of the question. Itll be after I home brew a front splitter and underbody panels. I'm combing the is forums in case some ricer needs to sell his wing. Other than safety equipment, I'm trying to avoid buying anything new. This is a low-buck track car above all else. Until the motor or transmission pops. Then it gets a ls1 and t56.

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent

Chuck33079

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1359478059.283459.jpg

Made my blood sacrifice to the race car gods.

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent

DEpointfive0

JEEZUS!!! That looks TERRIBLE



What happened............

Chuck33079

The chisel slipped chipping out the sound deadening. Looks worse than it is. It bled pretty good since I'd been drinking. Hopefully that's the most carnage this project causes.

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent

Chuck33079

Update- the roll cage shows up today. So this weekend I have to find out how to delete the sunroof.

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent

DEpointfive0

Look up Westabo

I think your best bet will be to take all the motor and railing and crap out and Westabo can hook you up with just a piece of glass there

Mitco39

Is there anyway to change the first set of pictures so that I can enlarge them to take a look?

Looks like a very cool build.

__________________
2007 Chevy Duramax - EFILive Tuned By Me
2010 40th W/ Nav - Boosted Performance - UpRev Tuned By Me
The Mrs. Ride -2012 335XI N55 BMW - Cobb Tuned By Me, Built by her
My Build --> http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...39s-build.html

DEpointfive0

Click on them

Mitco39

LOL, tried that. I recently downloaded a new add blocker for chrome, maybe that is whats doing it. I guess the issue is on my end then


Edit - Nope still wont work :/ the two first ones do but thats it. Weird.

__________________
2007 Chevy Duramax - EFILive Tuned By Me
2010 40th W/ Nav - Boosted Performance - UpRev Tuned By Me
The Mrs. Ride -2012 335XI N55 BMW - Cobb Tuned By Me, Built by her
My Build --> http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...39s-build.html

DEpointfive0

They work fine on my iWhore

Chuck33079

Glass is heavy. My plan is to cut a piece of aluminum or thin sheet steel to cover the hole and pop rivet it in. Some silicone to make it waterproof. I'll paint the metal black so it kinda looks like a sunroof. It shouldn't see any flex once the cage is in.

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent

Chuck33079

They're coming up weird for me as well. All the pics are in an album here anyway. I'll try to mess with them later. I'll have more from this weekends projects anyway.

__________________
2011 MB Touring-Sport-6sp-Nav/GTM TT/FI TT TDX/JTran/Kosmic/Eibach/Hotchkis/SPC/CSF/RPS/SoThatsWhereAllMyMoneyWent