Hey guys,
As an 11+ year owner of my IS300 I've come to appreciate it a great deal for both the engineering excellence but also just my own emotional attachment to the car. I dabbled with the idea of selling the car this year and even went so far as to take it in to my mechanic's shop for them to give it a once over prior to listing it.
Somewhat to my surprise, the only real issue that could find with the car were my stock brakes were in pretty bad shape. This is on a 139k mile car with 5MT/LSD and are completely original, meaning all-original pads and rotors (never replaced). So, I obviously got my money's worth! All the rotors are actually in decent shape, but my front drivers side caliper is freezing a bit, creating drag on the wheel. Brake pads are marginal on all corners.
This put a wrinkle in my plans to sell, but mostly in a good way as I wanted to find a reason to keep the car and this proved to be it. Knowing there was no way I'd put stock brakes on the front again, I went off to find out what my modern alternatives were. It came to my surprise that it is now possible to use IS350 front brake calipers and rotors with some adapters I found, and I'm now piecing together this kit. There are a few guys already roaming around with this kit, and the advantages are pretty numerous:
- OEM upgrade from a newer Lexus
- 4 piston caliper, versus 2 on the IS300
- Calipers made out of aluminum (supposedly), versus iron on IS300
- 13.1" rotor, versus 11.65" on IS300
- Pretty affordable pads/rotors considering size
I've been told they will NOT fit stock IS300 wheels though, and can prove that once I have them as I also have a spare set of those.
Best of all, these parts (including caliper adapters) are all pretty easy to come by, much more so than a Supra TT brake upgrade, and priced just as good or better. I'll let you guys know when I get this together and any impressions I'm able to offer of it, but it's really neat to be able to finally pursue a front brake upgrade on this car that I love so much!
As an 11+ year owner of my IS300 I've come to appreciate it a great deal for both the engineering excellence but also just my own emotional attachment to the car. I dabbled with the idea of selling the car this year and even went so far as to take it in to my mechanic's shop for them to give it a once over prior to listing it.
Somewhat to my surprise, the only real issue that could find with the car were my stock brakes were in pretty bad shape. This is on a 139k mile car with 5MT/LSD and are completely original, meaning all-original pads and rotors (never replaced). So, I obviously got my money's worth! All the rotors are actually in decent shape, but my front drivers side caliper is freezing a bit, creating drag on the wheel. Brake pads are marginal on all corners.
This put a wrinkle in my plans to sell, but mostly in a good way as I wanted to find a reason to keep the car and this proved to be it. Knowing there was no way I'd put stock brakes on the front again, I went off to find out what my modern alternatives were. It came to my surprise that it is now possible to use IS350 front brake calipers and rotors with some adapters I found, and I'm now piecing together this kit. There are a few guys already roaming around with this kit, and the advantages are pretty numerous:
- OEM upgrade from a newer Lexus
- 4 piston caliper, versus 2 on the IS300
- Calipers made out of aluminum (supposedly), versus iron on IS300
- 13.1" rotor, versus 11.65" on IS300
- Pretty affordable pads/rotors considering size
I've been told they will NOT fit stock IS300 wheels though, and can prove that once I have them as I also have a spare set of those.
Best of all, these parts (including caliper adapters) are all pretty easy to come by, much more so than a Supra TT brake upgrade, and priced just as good or better. I'll let you guys know when I get this together and any impressions I'm able to offer of it, but it's really neat to be able to finally pursue a front brake upgrade on this car that I love so much!