[marko.dodo]

Hello guys!

I already wrote a tutorial for wiring up your ECU when going manual.
Now I decided to share my project with you as I have realized how far I have still gone and I want to participate and share knowlege with you!

When hail destroyed my old car in 2019, I was looking for a new one. It had to be reliable, dailyable and a good base for modifications without regretting having thrown all my money at it afterwards.

The only solution was the IS300 SX, the "supra wagon"!

Watched the market for a few months (I live in Germany and IS300s are rare in Europe) and found a nice one in Italy!

A virgin car, one owner, reimported from California! Full leather interior, navigation, all the good stuff!

Because its an 02 model it had the sticky dash. removed the stickyness with alcohol and partially wrapped the dash

You can already see the tablet fitted inside the navigation housing. it is controllable with a bleutooth touch pad which i have put in between the nav keys, which of course also work! i had to control the motor for the mechanism with an arduino so it still goes up and down. reused the factory connector, so its still detachable!

because i didnt want to go crazy with the sound, I was looking for a way to use the stock subwoofer with the aftermarket headunit. turned out pretty easy:

This is the connector on the subwoofer. you can just feed it with high level signals from your headunit, +12V and GND and it will work! Maybe I will write up a seperate tutorial if you wish!

Now it was time fore some brand new OEM headlights and taillights. all dark chrome. I painted the headlights black.

Also put some paint protection film on the inner taillights so they stay shiny.

Now the stuff which bothered me the most for daily usage was done and it got serious..

 

[01 SolarYellow]

Welcome again. You should do your build up info in the
Member Build Threads - Lexus IS only

Member Build Threads - Lexus IS only

Post up all your Lexus IS project build threads in here.

www.my.is

 

[marko.dodo]

Things went on with some custome made steering knuckles, CNC machined from steel. they have 50% ackermann and the steering arm was shortened as much as possible. this gave me so much angle, that i had to limit it!

now it was time for some proper suspension. I went KW v3 racing version (linear springs)

also replaced all the rubber garbage with polyurathane bushings. this was really hard doing it in my garage took me 5 days:

 

[marko.dodo]

Finally I found myself a R154. it has some of the driftmotion goodies. found a little crack in it and welded it.

had to find a new bell housing

cube speed shifter:

shifter linkage was missing, so I had to make one by myself:

also an extended shifter housing was needed:

and I extended the auto driveshaft by 55mm until i get an one piece shaft made:

 

[marko.dodo]

finished driveshaft:

and of course some premium juice for the tranny:

got some protrack one wheels. got to pull the fenders quite a bit.

 

[Pnut00]

Nice , unusual to see anything other than German cars in Germany. Ive been there a few times, NZ has mostly Japanese cars so seeing so many Audi BMW and Merc in everyday use was quite amazing. Of course to Germans that is normal, it is supporting German made after all!

 

[marko.dodo]

Germans believe that german cars are the most reliable, best enigneered and best quality cars. what they dont realize is, that they are only the most premium and none of the other.
Lets go on:
Did some drive by wire delete. found a way without any parts, just rotate the pedal position sensor by 45 degrees:

Picked up refurbished LS400 calipers:

painted + stainless steel lines:

made some stainless steel brake disc shields:

Many people dont know that the IS has a genius brake cooling system. air gets sucked from under the car into a channel and directed to the brake shield!

MAXX ECU RACE arrived!

very powerful thing! got my cruise control working again! tracked the stock vvti map and now i am controlling it fully on my own! also has CAN, currently i am working on a custom touch screen dash, coming soon!

 

[marko.dodo]

because the stock 3 row US/EU grill is the most beautiful to me, i gave it some love. tried to remove the chrome layer on my own, wasn succesful. gave it to a company to do it for 50 bucks:

modified the small altezza badge to fit. the black one is way to big!!

turned out beautiful. and because all of the chrome was removed the paint doesnt come off

because my rear muffler literally exploded why dialing in my crank trigger, i have made a 3 inch exhaust

added an adjustable J-pipe aka Helmholtz resonator to eliminate exhaust drone. I tuned it for 3k RPM, works beautiful! no restrictions added!

also baught a new HJS catalytic converter as going catless is not really an option here in germany

bought some Hardrace sway bars. Now the handling is right where i want it! the KW v3 is 9k front, 8k rear, which is pretty soft for ambitious drivers. however in combination with the stiffer sway bars its perfect for a daily street / drift car!

 

[marko.dodo]

got an amazing deal on some Evo 7 Recaro IS2000 seats! they are going to be reuoholstered in black alcantara, but until i get my turbo there will be no money spent on cosmetics!

as they were way to low i had to raise them by 40mm. i took the seat latches from the stock seats and welded them on some square tubes on which i mounted the stock evo consoles:

next step, ABS and battery relocation:

now i am pretty much done with all preparations for going NA-T! I really want to do it the right way. all supporting mods first. I dont want a trans to explode, shitty handling, exhaust restrictions, bad brakes when boosting it. my power goal is 500-600hp. I want stock looks and good response. i am going log style, bottom mount exhaust manifold and GTE FFIM. I think it will be a BW EFR! when boost is in, there will be some interior and exterior love

hope you like it!

 

[ill_mannered]

Car looks great! Thanks for doing suspension and brakes first before boosting it. I hope you do plan on doing something to the bottom end before shooting for 500-600hp? That stock GE bottoms end isn’t going to like that at all.

 

[marko.dodo]

of course i will redo the whole engine. i have not decided yet wether to go forged internals or maybe stock gte in combination with an oil squirter and gte oil pump upgrade. i think for my power goals and considering it is a daily maybe the gte parts would even be better in terms of longevity because they are designed to accept the oil from the squirters. will definately use the GE headgasket, wont ruin my squish. compression ratio 9-9.5. i already calculated it, i think with gte internals you end up with something around 9.3. should give good response and street driveability
3.56 rear end also planned.

 

[TobiasSing]

Nice build so far! Keep up the good work and pictures!

 

[ill_mannered]

I think the GTE route would be sufficient and cheaper (somehow I don’t think that matters)

 

[marko.dodo]

I considered going GTE, but there are a few reasons I wont:
-for the 4500 I would be paying for the GTE i can buy forged internals and a turbo and do all bearings. I will have better stuff for the same money in the end.
-I already have a standalone ECU
-emissions: the GTE is an EURO2 engine. It can not be legally swapped into a EURO3 chassis here.

 

[ill_mannered]

I considered going GTE, but there are a few reasons I wont:
-for the 4500 I would be paying for the GTE i can buy forged internals and a turbo and do all bearings. I will have better stuff for the same money in the end.
-I already have a standalone ECU
-emissions: the GTE is an EURO2 engine. It can not be legally swapped into a EURO3 chassis here.

No. I am not telling you to buy a GTE engine, that’s nonsense seeing as you already have a GE engine. I was saying to go with your idea of GTE internals.

 

[marko.dodo]

@ill_mannered sry, misunderstood that! haha, in fact money really is a factor but then you start doing sth and you realize you dont want to do it twice and you pay the extra money...

however did some stuff the last week:

As I dont really trust the bling bling tuning catch cans, I went MANN&HUMMEL Provent 200. Its OEM stuff, I think there's more engineering put into that than in some china can. AND it looks stock.
The Provent 200 costs 200 bucks, but there are knock offs on aliexpress for 15, so I got one of these. make sure to get a woven filter element for it!

was thinking about making a canister for collecting the oil, but then my genius found this LPG Filter, which you can simply open and remove the Filter element.

really love the stock look. didnt want to re-tap the valve covers. just took the pcv valve off and drilled the valve open.

thanks to my angle kit, its gonna be really easy to empty:

Also had some problems with adjusting my clutch when I swapped the R154. It was hard to get the R154 shift fork pivot hook last year, so I took the V160 hook and ground it a little bit down to fit. however it never felt right. the fork could touch the pressure plate when engaged. now I got a R154 shift fork hook and as you can see the pivot point is pretty different!

 

[marko.dodo]

Also started to mess with the fuel system and my sensors:

I got 6 meters of dash6 hose which was just enough for the feed and return line.

I also got some 330cc NA supra injectors really cheap so I decided to put them in. should be good for around 300hp on low boost till i get my engine done.
then I realized that the injectors in the IS are different. we have the air assisted ones, so I also got some OBD1 lower runners. this will also give me a greater injector choice later.

the OBD1 runners have one bolt less in the middle and the additional EGR port on the side, which I will have to cut off.

tomorrow I will be measuring the injector flow and dead time when i get the pump hanger finished:

also had to drill the rail for the return line. did it like stock on the non vvti. its a 11mm hole with two m6 threads.
the rail input is a M12x1,25 if sb wants to know.

so when I already took the intake off, I had some other little things to do. found a plug right beside the coolant temp sensor. the perfect spot for my type-K clt sensor!
now i can wire the stock sensor back to the stock ecu so the temp in the gauge cluster works again!
also pulled off the coolant hose for the throttle body and capped it off. I really dont think I need my intake air heated.

I decided to convert all my temperature sensors to type-K ones. My ecu has 8 EGT inputs, so I thought this would be a good way to free up some analog inputs.
also pulled out the unused wiring which goes under the manifold down to the transmission. the wires were just the perfect length to reuse them for the fuel pressure sensor and oil pressure sensor!

More tomorrow!

 

[Pnut00]

I'm curious, why change all the temp sensors to K type? I assume they were all J type before?

We deal with thermocouples at work, most common in our industry is J type but the odd machine has K.

 

[marko.dodo]

@Pnut00 Stock ones are NTC. My standalone ECU has 8 EGT (K-type) inputs. I plan to use 2 EGT sensors, one pre turbo, one after turbo so i have 6 left to play with. this also gives me back a few analog inputs on my ecu. today i compared my sensor reading with the readings the stock ecu sends via obd and it works great. its +- 2 degrees during the whole warmup. also the stock IAT sensor isnt located very good. now i have my type K directly in the plenum, the tip is right in the air stream so there is an accurate reading and lower risk of heat soak. the 1mm type K sensor is also really responsive!
the other 2 sensors are waiting to be installed for transmission temp and oil temp.

found this free port. it seems to be a M10x0.75. i just re-tapped it to M10x1.0

also got the hanger ready. welded the stock fpr shut. bent the floater a little to reach the bottom of the fuel tank so i can get accurate readings from the potentiometer from the hanger. everyone with a standalone knows that the fuel gauge isnt very useful after swapping, because the lower 1/4 of the tank is calculated by the ecu. i will try to find a way around this... aeromotive 340lph soon to be added...

here is the non EGR gasket on the EGR runners. I was happy to see the new gasket is made from phenolic paper! my old one was from plastic. this should have really nice heat isolating properties! maybe the old one wasnt original or toyota has made some changes?!

i realized that the injectors were a little wiggly so i decided to cut the plastic spacers where the rail is mounted by 1-2mm. now they sit nice and tight!

the fpr found its place on the manifold, a little bit lower than usual to hide it a little bit. i dont want too much bling bling in here

-added a fuel pressure sensor and an oil pressure sensor. below the manifold there is the stock oil pressure sensor. didnt know the IS has any at all. anyway, removed it and added mine. dont know if it was right but the 1/8 NPT sensor fits, readings are good, no leaks...
one day its going to be replaced by a sandwich plate anyway

-replaced all the tiny vacuum hoses with silicone ones, because i ordered way too much...

also got rid of some cancer my (and everyone elses) IS had:

1. my 3rd and last "hood-stick-clip" got replaced by a non toyota part:

2. all the throttle cable dampener stuff on the pedal got removed:

because the throttle cable is now too long i had to move both nuts at the throttle to one side and hold it down with a zip tie:

i thought the fuel stuff would take me one day, but the job with all the little things along the way took me a week. and im not talking about 2 hours a day..

cheers 🍻