smooth1

There's alot more to this story than what we know, I'm sure.

:)

Well, like djspawn posted, it's up to you really. Keep in mind, that just because you go to 18'' rims, doesn't mean your car is actually going to be higher off the ground. The outside diameter of the tires should be the same size, as you adjust the aspect ratio to accomidate the larger rim. Personally though, I would lower the car, even if your running stock sizes, as I think the IS looks so much better when it's lowered some. The stock suspension system isn't adjustable. You really have 2 options. One is to get your springs replaced with lowering springs. Eibach, H&R, Tenabe, Tein and bunch of others out there offer springs. It would be up to you to check on the spring rate to make sure you get the springs that you like. They usually go for between 200-350 bucks for a set of four. But add on to that cost of labor to change them out, or a day of your time changing them out yourself. The other option is coilovers. Usually fully adjustable in ride height, and damping. But these can start at $1,000.00 and go up from there. And again, installation costs or a day of your time. But these you can tailor to almost whatever drop you want, and you can tailor the firmness of the ride somewhat also. If your new to the game, I would just start with a set of Eibach, or Tenabe springs. That will lower your car about an inch, which is a good user freindly daily driver amount to lower the car, and you won't have to worry about rubbing and scraping everything. And since your getting new rims and tires, that would be a great time to replace the springs at the same time anyway.

He said he has a problem with a 2008 ES350. Is this not the ES forum? It was posted in the IS forum. I just moved it to the ES forum.

Moved to the correct forum

Hmm, I haven't seen the MYIS thread your referring to, but I do it that way as a "short cut". They may have not been aware of doing it this way, or maybe just missed putting it in thier thread. The upper bolt and cotter pin are allways 100x's easier to get off and put back on. There are a couple ways to do it, but like I said, I just found this way alot easier. Once you jack up the car, and pull the tire off, you'll be able to determine for yourself. Once you do, let me know what way you went, and how it worked out. ;)

That depends on you really. How much work are you doing to the 2JZGTE going in? What kind of horsepower are you looking for? What kind of turbo work and so on? Do you have the GTE's ECU and tranny also? cause your gonna need those, maybe not the ECU depending on how much boost your looking for, in which case it might be better to go with a Haltech or AEM. But those are somewhat up to you. So, what's up with the Supra? Do you have the car or just the motor? And if your really lookin for some big numbers and something really nice, I can hook you up with a Tundra 4.3 liter V8 twin turbo swap kit instead. ;)

Well, I wouldn't exactly say no match.....as the Vette has an almost 40 year evolution history, and Nissan put out a 6 cylinder that is only 1 sec. behind it in thier first edition GTR. Not bad I would say.

Hmm, you have a black GS right? I would do yellow for sure then. (Pittsburg Steelers colors!!) LOL!!!! Honestly, yellow would be really nice. If your gonna do silver, I would have them powder coated silver. Silver paint allways just looks like a grey color that doesn't seem to match anything else. (Unless you paint it the same color.)

Yeah, that's why I started this with "I did it this way this time." I just wanted to see what this would look like first. Once I get my new wheels, I might decide to have a friend powder coat them black and do what we talked about. I just thought I'd use this as a How to and an experiement, cause I really like the red too. ;)

Here's a very budget minded mod that really adds alot of visual impact. There are several ways to go about this, and I'll try to cover those as I go along. I have done it several different ways, I just chose to do it this way this time. I really like the Stop Red color, but you can choose any color really. It's up to you. If you choose to use heat temp. spray paint, (Duplicolor is a popluar choice), in this case, I really suggest removing the calipers from the car, pulling the pads out, and taping it off to go this route. Alot more work, but if you want a different color, it's probably the best way to go, other than sending the calipers in to have them powder coated. I have done that also with great results. Usually will cost in the area of 35-50 bucks each to have them powder coated, unless you have a freind in the business to help you out there. So, I used a Ceramic Brake Caliper painting kit : You will also need a can of High Temp Clear coat spray paint, 4 peices of tin foil about 6"x6", and an extra can of brake parts cleaner. Your also going to need a few sheets of 120 grit sand paper, a roll of painter tape, some old towels, (clean), and optional Lexus caliper decals, some old newspaper, and a comfy low chair to sit on. :) 1) I use a floor jack and 2 jack stands for safety and lift the front 2 wheel off the ground. Remove the tires, and clean the calipers off. 2) Put the newspaper on the floor under the brake caliper and place the towels over the fender above the caliper and around the entire wheel well. Using the 120 grit sand paper, your essentially going to scrub the caliper off and make sure you get in those smaller areas where breakdust can build up. The better you do at this, the better the paint will adhere to the caliper, and the fewer chips and cracks will show up later. take your time, do it right now, and you won't have to come back and do it again later. Sand it down, and then "rinse" the caliper off with the brake parts cleaner. It should look like this: 3) Now using the painters tape, you'll need to tape off the parts you don't want to get paint on. Like the pads, clips, hoses and bleeder valve on both sides of the car. Taping both sides off now will give you the right amount of time to stay productive while waiting for paint to dry. 4)Replace the old newspaper on the floor under the caliper to be painted and put the 6x6 peice of tin foil on the front corner of it. I also taped off the rotor and the hub cause I can get a little messy. , But just make sure you don't get any paint on the rotor. It's a ceramic paint, and it can glaze the pad. So just be careful. 5) Using the brush apply the paint. I really reccommend a really light first 2 coats. Don't even try to make the caliper red yet. Just distribute the paint, evenly, and as thin as you can. With about 5 minutes between coats. Do this on the tin foil also. Then on the third coat, go to a medium thick coat. Wait about 15 minutes, then with the 4th coat, take your time and give it one last medium coat, along with the tin foil also, and try to get all the areas. If you go to heavy right away, it's going to loose alot of the nice sharp lines the caliper has. And it will have a strange coated appearance to it, rather than a nice clean finish to it. Don't glop it on. 6) You'll need to let the final coat harden for about 45 minutes to an hour. Don't wait any longer than that though. So, seeing as how you already taped off both sides, you should have plenty of time to go to the other side of the car and paint that caliper up now. Once you finished painting the other side, you can come back to this caliper. Now using the tin foil, test it to make sure it has hardened enouph to apply the decal. I use my finger and just press on it hard. If it leaves a print on it, then you may have to wait another 15 minutes or so. Using the painted tin foil to determine the paint is hard enouph, now apply the decal to the caliper. 7) Once the decal is on, now very lightly apply a very thin coat of the high temp clear coat. Wait 5 minutes, and give it another very light coat. Now wait about 10-15 minutes and give it another light coat. Then wait another 10-15 minutes and now you can give it several medium coats of clear with about 10-15 minutes between coats. the reason for going with super light coats first is if you apply a medium or heavy coat to the decal right away, it will saturate the edges of the decal and get under the adhesive, which will raise the edges of the decal up. And that's not going to look good. By keeping the caots light and thin, they will dry really fast and seal the decal first. Then you can give it some good medium coats after that. YOu also don't want any rund and drips at this point. So again, just be patient, and give it a few even coats. Now do the rear calipers the same way. The finish results:

Ok, I'm going to order these and give them a try. You guys better be right! (LOL!)

Sounds like the heater control valve may be stuck, or you could have a vacuume leak in the line that controls the temperature adjustment doors inside the heater plenum. Either way, the parts are cheap, it's the labor to get into there that will add up, unless it's the control valve, that shouldn't be too much.

see picture/attachment... is this what you mean? Those are access covers for the screws that help hold the bumper on. If you look real close, you can see a small notch in the bottom of the square. Slide a screwdriver in there and pop open the cover and you'll see a 12 mm bolt.

ok, the line has been tossed in, so I'll bite, "Oh?,,,,What ever do you mean...actually pay for gas?"

Here's a link to my install of the AVIC : Chronicles of a Dream Ride

Plug and play?, not quite that easy, but it does fit , and you can get a Metra harness and it will work. I installed mine, but if your not really comfortable with it, I suggest having it installed by a proffessional. Save yourself alot of greif. Sound Advice, and a few other commercial chains have the AVIC D3. And most of the time they have special offers going on like a free back up camera with install, or a free Sirrus or XFM or something.

Well, I'm not a religious person in any way a church would consider, and I am for pro choice, and I am even for allowing !Removed! couples legal institutions, but not a marriage as per say, I just think a marriage has been established, and in order to be called a marriage, it has to have a wife and a husband, not 2 wives or 2 husbands. I'm for stem cell research, and I think I'm for the flat tax program, but I'm not sure on that yet. ( It has some good pros, but I think we need to figure out the cons better first.) I tend to agree that we should allways have the choice in America. Right now we're in the biggest crisis that has happened in my lifetime anyway, and the only choice the parties could find to put up as candidates are a smooth talking political freshman puppet, and an old geiser that should really have retired almost 20 years ago. Great choices. Amazing. I'm normally not so negative. It's just that I do all the hiring for my company. And I don't think I would hire either of them for a job. And if I was put to the fire, and HAD to hire one, I would be hiring one based on thier negatives, and not based on thier attributes and qualifications. And I just don't think that should be how we determine who our next president is going to be. I will probably vote for Obama. But to me, it's more akin to choosing between electro shock torture, or the iron maiden. I agree that the Replican party has had alot of time to get things right and messed it up badly. That they should have done alot more with the time they had, and President Bush will probably go down in history as the worst president of all the presidents we have ever had. ( personally I think that everyone that voted for Bush should not be allowed to vote this year for making such a bad choice, twice!! mind you.) LOL!! So I think if the senate is going to have a Democrat majority, then we should have a Democrat in the White house, and hopefully things will be able to get done. And to sum this up, I don't know a whole lot about politics. These are just my opinions here. I smiled the entire time I typed this, and so I hope it hasn't offended anyone. That is not my intentions. I think alot of good people post here, and I like reading why some people feel the way they do. Even if I may not agree with thier point of view, I can definately try to understand why they feel the way they do, acknowledge it, and hope to find a solution we can all live with. That to me is America. The place I choose to call home.

I guess while we are on this topic, there is this fundamental issue I think we tend to look over when it comes to !Removed! marriage. The church. I thought marriage was started by the church? When a man and a woman became one in front of god and all that? How can the state force the church to change? I understand that marriage has become more than that, and is a legal institution, but many people contract together to form institutions and they aren't married to each other. I guess the real issue here is I just think it's up to the church not the state or the federal government. Besides, isn't church and state supposed to remain seperate? I mean heck, if the state is going to start forcing religious issues, where exactly do we draw the line? And I guess I don't think things like marriage should be left up to a "younger" generation. It's not about tolerance or social policy. It's about religion and state. Maybe we should vote on the requirements of baptism too. And the tax deduction for dependant children is just really an anti !Removed! tax also. Let's do away with that unfair and obviuosly biased tax credit.

A great head unit that offers NAv, back up camera, sat radio, DVD, CD, ipod, touchscreen, and even alot more blah blah blah's, is a Pioneer AVIC D-3. YOu get a ton of features for on of the best prices around so far.

Need a little more detail. Inside the trunk? where exactly are you talking about?

I never even saw your first post before. Sorry. But, my family owns a auto shop, and unfortunately we ran into this problem alot before. We have set up old part returns with alot of our vendors, and we also set up a recycling program for steel, iron, and aluminum. But it was completely my dads effort to make that happen. It is a shame. I agree. They should do alot more.

And no performance tuning. <_< By chance are you a former Ford owner?

Yeah, you put 850 hp on the pavement and just about anything would look good on a track!

There may be an internal volume setting that can be adjusted by the dealer. If I'm not mistaken there is a seperate amp that operates that function, albeit a very small one. Maybe check into that as well. This is the first time I ever heard of this issue.