50 shades of grey is300

no real hiccups rest of 2022 except lack of tires.I did have a event where I entirely broke both oem engine mounts, upgraded to Serial Nine solids. Thanks Josh Buado for the help on the lift at the shop getting those in.

Relipped the rears pre-spring.

18x11+10

No spacer needed & fits -0.5 camber with musk overfenders in rear.

Tire size still wanted low height, went with 235/40 KR20 200TW

Engine management went with EMU black by ecumasters and a custom harness from Cam Rhinard owner at Tweakd Performance.

Sound Performance did the tuning, stayed on pump gas 93 with a drop in pump on stock Aristo Hanger.

Response was spot on, full boost low rpm range 3300-3500 iirc, safe tune and car felt awesome.

Upgrades as follow during the winter.

Couldn’t bite the bullet on a Garrett turbo, saw so many mixed posts online and didn’t have too many friends to bounce ideas off of. Wanted something easy to service and just worked properly. Didn’t need anything fancy, just a solid robust 400whp with great response.

Went with a Borg Warner s257sxe .82 AR out of many options of brand/size. Figuring if it felt lazy, could always bump down to a .62 AR as well.

Easy to service side, went with a UpFab up pipe adapter to stock cast manifold. Makes the 1J manifold into a top mount, no silly drain lines to worry about heat or rubbing a runner. It works, simple and effective. I guess down the road it would limit power, but for my current use, it works flawlessly.

While engine was out, engine bay got prepped and painted Gloss black. Easy to touch up and simple clean look. Didn’t want to get crazy with the engine bay as my main focus was reliability and easy to service.

Winter of 2021-March 2022

Engine was pulled to clean up wiring, remove the stock ct15 turbo (surprised the wheel never left the chat) at 18psi being ceramic. W55 was removed and sold as a 5 speed sway for is300 chassis for auto cars.

R154 Verossa 110 retainer cube speed shifter

orc 559d twin disc

R8 ignition coils

Simplified wiring and brackets/hardware on engine.

Now was the smart time to remove and tap NPT for the cylinder head water return on the back of the cylinder head.

Photo dump of the rest of 2021

Rest of 2021 and beginning of 2022. The car remained the same. At this point it always worked. The w55 still was solid, wasn’t running very gripped up setup.

225/40 rear with a spacer for the overfenders.

Random DDay event (during summer of 21')

Bodywork & respray complete.

Don Musk overfender fit perfect zero complaints.

Black gold Pearl - Urekem Brand with EuroClear

Had a local collision shop work there magic on their frame machine. The manager of the shop has a good relationship with the repair shop I work for in town. $700 was a hell of a deal, pulled all the damage. Got everything in rear aligned perfect. No body work from them with the repair.

Waited few months for DonMusk overfenders from Poland & BN type II kit. Decided to respray the entire car after repairs

March-May 2021

USair towards the end of the day, didn't have much tire left & ran a really shallow line on the wall of advance. Ended up making contact with right rear and right front of car.

rear quarter moved, trunk wouldn't align. Left rear door wouldn't even open. Right front arms all bent, front bash bar saved the rail/core support.

17x9 et25

18x9.5 et25

Kept driving and gathering parts for trans swap

Febuary 2021

Started gathering parts for a R154 and random upgrade bits. Ordered a set of 17/18 vskf from Phil at VR.

Louis at Acme Turbo out of AZ is the goat for oem Toyota bits. Specializing in R series inventory

September of 2020

Ended up putting a 3" exhaust back on the car from the future fab downpipe

Drove another event with new power plant. Even stock power with ceramic ct15 turbo. The originally w55 was on borrowed time.

Elixir aero with jdm rear

17" crkai

stock 1J power plant

May 2020

car moved on its own power with 1J swap

Future fab downpipe

eBay intercooler kit

eBay 6 puck w55 clutch kit

Used factory 1J harness & non immobilized ecu. Was even able to keep AC with a few wiring tweaks

Entering 2020 into the new year, there was a lot of unknowns with Covid etc.

Was working on the car, changed the oil and had a TON of bearing material. No knock though. Decided it was time.

Bought a 1JZ VVTI from a local importer. Got to inspect it and do my own compression check. Loaded it in my 4runner and dropped it off at work on engine stand to refresh.

At this time, entire long block with harness/ecu and auto trans was $900.

with current prices, glad i did it then.

random photos I came across from same time period.

Hanging out & helping staff on Advance course at USair Motorsports

October 2019

At this point, the car was just always driven when I had the chance. Finally purchased another car so the is300 was not on daily duty as much.

ordered a vented kfd hood from Russia. Didn't last long, as it fit poorly.

Got some more practice painting.

instead of painting in a dirty dark garage. My high school friend matt let me use his paint both from his cabinet company he works for.

Vertex kit was sold off and car got Elixir kit from ekb. Fitment was 9.5/10 very pleased.

September of 2019. Brothers GS and my IS. We painted both cars same color

Back at usair once again

June to August 2019

Decided on a whim, with zero painting experience, to prep and paint the car. My brother had a 1999 GS300 he started drifting as well. GS was stock 2JGE as well, basic suspension upgrades and chrome 3pc wheels.

Black gold Pearl 2 stage paint.

Painted with a Amazon gun and very small Compressor. As "rushed" as it was, prep was mostly just sanding as body didn't have to many dents. Obviously first time painting was full commitment to a entire car. Turned out very good.

Wet sanded the entire car & buffed. Turned out awesome and was very happy with color change and no more mixed silver fade of panels :)

stance xr1 22k/18k coilovers

w55 transmission stock exedy clutch replacement

Kfd rear arm kit

Welded diff

EZ knuckle steering

Vibrant muffler.

This point was roughly late 2018-early 2019. Car was well sorted, had a bunch of miles driven. Felt really sorted & confident in the platform/car.

RIOBASH October 2018

September 2018

more wheel changes

YahooJP find. 17x9 Work Cr Kai in wmb chrome finish .

Sold The MAE riversides

Another rainy 4.5 hour drive up to USAIR for drifting on a weekend.

Throughout this time every weekend i had free i was trying to drive up to USAIR and drive as much as possible.

GE tire smoke ftw

learned that rumble strips and dropping tire being a dummy is not a smart idea when you have no spare steers to drive 300 miles home on.

January of 2018.

At my work, changing out the clutch and flywheel. Decided to slip and disc has no material left at all. Fun times when your D car is your daily to and from work

Continued to drive clubfr events and hangout with friends.

Bubbas BBQ Shawano WI

Lexus at this point was still a 250K + mile W55 factory car. Clutch was very tired, suspension sorted and felt confident to drive on streets/track. Definitely needed some repairs and proper fixes to have it reliable and headache free.

Autobahn event ended up making some contact with another driver. Hood and a fender crunched.

Was able to get the car back home, found another hood and fenders local off another silver is300. Which also added to the 50 shades by this time.

I was beyond frustrated, and begin looking for a daily driver and have the is300 to actual start proper repairs on and start to take driving and building the car more seriously

Who remembers Coffee Haus meets in Schaumburg IL ? I know i do

The is300 at this point, had basic suspension arms redone (kfd & manzo toe arms)

Picked up some EZ knuckles which gained a lot of angle, but scrub of tires was not very street friendly as I still daily drove the car every single day rain or shine

Friends car during that period- Installed Airlift kit and managed to squeeze some 20x10 Produce wheels on it. Credit card fitment in rear on LS430

Picked up my first "aero kit" from John Kim if i remember correctly from TF works.

Vertex rep kit. Had local drift friend paint it & John Kim spec'd up some stance coilovers.

Stance XR1 22k/18k

Car drove 20X better with these, handled amazing. And they are on the same chassis current day (Dec 2024)

Dumb mistake. That fall/winter I sold the car and purchased a more suitable daily driver. Only to realize months later I wanted the car back but it was long gone.

Then, purchased another silver is300 same year. And put my MAE wheels on, imported a Gita bumper and Jdm rear bumper off YahooJP auctions. Close friends knew it was a 2nd chassis, but to most it was the same car. Stupid idea and had to start over basically. This is where 50 shades of grey was born. This chassis was from Texas but had some major panel paint issues. Had doors off other parts cars but, I continued to keep driving.

Scored some MAE Riversides local Chicagoland and lowered the car more.

Peep the OG TF works plate frame

Got the chance to drive at US41 in Indiana and hangout with bunch of people new and old.

Following spring did my first ClubFR dday52 in the car. I remember street driving 300 miles all the way there, just worrying if the car would break or have a hiccup i couldn't fix. But some seat time and patience started to get the hang of it, lots of clutch kicks and body roll. And seeing all the other cool

cars, realizing that I wanted to keep the car simple yet effective. Just wanted seat time !

Bought a set of R33 wheels from good friend Phil Stubkjaer off his 13' FRS after FinalBout 1. Installed a used sparco evo seat too

I remember thinking why do R33 wheels look good on so many cars.