scott-o

Poly has a bit of play in it, solid doesnt at all. They also do a 'road' version which is softer than poly (but still not as soft as standard). Different versions for different applications.

As above, likely a direct order. Plenty of people fit these on the ISF's with great feedback. I intend to at some point. I order quite a lot of stuff from the US and normally tell myself whatever the price is in dollars is about what you pay by the time it's in your hand, never disappointed or shocked then! Install is relatively easy if you have a local trusted garage your normally like to use, would recommend an alignment afterwards too as belt and braces. I'd suggest you'd probably want the poly ones, rather than the solid ones? https://www.rr-racing.com/Lexus-Lower-Control-Arm-LCA-Bushing-p/isfxlca001.htm

My Brembo disks from Autodoc came coated like the standard ones strangely enough. I noticed some of the other brands available didnt though.

I've just fitted redstuff to my ISF, brakes feel great and no dust!

Buy car parts are part of Autodoc, i use whoever is cheaper at the time. For Brembo discs on my ISF £114 delivered when i bought mine! See thread below: The only upgrade discs i found for the ISF were 2 piece (so they were lighter) and 7x the price at least, i assume a similar thing may be available for the GSF.

Excellent, Thank You. They are only a couple of hours away so will be watching with a keen eye for the future! It would be great to get an all in fitted cost too, i understand the job of swapping them isn't straight forward so if they've already done it on other cars it'd definitely be worth travelling down.

Best tyres i've tried (admittedly not on the ISF) without spending PS4S money is the Kumho PS71/91 range. I've also had Hankook Ventus v12's on a car in the past and they were great but that was fwd. The PS4S tyres last a long time though, definitely worth not discounting spending the extra, i dont know how they do it but they do! If you're going to be doing burnouts then fair enough but the odd foot down out of a junction or off a roundabout doesnt seem to make them wear quickly. I think i'll be sizing up my next set but potentially only on the front and/ or maybe just a 265 out back.

Are these likely to have sports cats in to remain legal or are these looking to be catless? Wouldnt be fussed between equal length or unequal, would rather unequal if it made packaging better and good enough to fit a sports cat in. Be nice to have an off the shelf direct replacement should the standard ones ever crack!

Same here, i'll stick in £50 and go out for a long blast in the hills the next day instead of a night out, cars aren't just A to B for me. I had a Golf R estate before the ISF and interestingly the ISF is cheaper to run. Servicing has been cheaper so far (Oil and filter service Golf R was £120 at my local specialist, ISF was £105 with genuine Lexus oil/filter from LPD and labour at my local specialist) and so have the discs and pads (Golf R was approx £500 for clubsport s discs and ferodo pads, ISF £229 with Brembo discs and EBC pads). Tax being over double obviously evens it out but even fuel useage isnt much different for my use, typically 26-27mpg over a tank in the golf v's 22-23mpg in the ISF. In the same time period i've had the ISF the golf had also destroyed its rear diff and kept leaking rain water in too 😂 Yeh mine is about half of that so it is what it is, i couldnt pay what you pay, i dont think i've ever paid that much, not even when i was 17/18! The ISF isnt really any more than a 'normal' car on insurance for me and as above, its cheaper to run than my VW Golf R was and that isnt taking into account depreciation either. Insurance also made me fit a steering lock any time i wasnt driving the golf, that got annoying fast!

Thats my take on it, as my mileage has come down i've bought thirstier cars that i've wanted in the past but couldn't afford to run for 15-25k miles a year! Now im working from home and that doesnt look like it should change, i went straight out and got my ISF (Last august). I have the odd site meeting but otherwise it's to use at my leisure. I love driving and couldnt imagine on the more sparse occasion i do drive, getting into something boring!

Love the front lip on yours Wayne. I did fancy one for mine but wasnt quite ready for the prices of them 😂 One from yesterday, fitted new disks and pads and they needed bedding in. Good excuse to use it for transport to go for a walk 😁

Hi Rich, thanks. I ordered enough coolant for a full change (7L from memory) and a couple of bottles of transmission fluid, although only used a small amount of that, managed not to spill much and there wasnt much in the cooler. Also did the air filter whilst the airbox was apart and i ordered a few spare trim clips but did end up finding a load of them inside the airbox!

No idea why pictures arent showing!

Thought i might as well keep this thread going for ongoing maintenance, hopefully it may give others the motivation to do things themselves too. Got round to doing my disks and pads at last, recently. I've seen people on tis forum being quoted up to £950 parts and labour to replace the disks and pads on the front of these and before i got the car i made sure this wasnt the case generally, gladly it wasnt! I got the discs awhile ago when Autodoc had a really good sale on, OE Brembo discs were £114 for the pair delivered. The discs and calipers are Brembo as standard and the discs are exactly the same as standard. I then spent ages looking into pads, the standard Brembo ones are terrible for brake dust as im sure many of you know, i mean really annoying amounts, so i was keen to fit an aftermarket pad that wouldnt hamper the braking capabilities of the car but would produce a lot less dust! All the 'good' ones you seem to have to import in from Japan or the USA where these cars are more plentiful. You can get EBC pads over here quite easily and their new ceramic compound red pads seemed to be the ones for me reading up on them. I know in the past EBC have managed to get a bad rep for some circles but i've had redstuff pads in the past before the compound went ceramic and they seemed great for the use and reports of this new compound seemed even better than the old one. These came in at £115. Usually i give my daily cars to my friends garage to do the work but i've been keen to do things myself with this car, when i can. With these big brakes the calipers make it really easy to change the pads, pretty much the same as a mountain bike hydraulic brake but much bigger! It took me about 2 hours all in, including 30 minutes to get my old car out of the garage and swap it with the Lexus, ive no off road parking so have to try and be quick. This time also includes the resulting chats you get in to once the old thing comes out of the garage! [url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHffu8][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51006227767_5fa2a73f6d_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHffu8]IMG_20210305_135755[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/181965116@N04/]Scott Osborne[/url], on Flickr The pins dont appear to have been lubricated up at the last change and were a tiny bit of a pain to remove, as was the big brace pin in the centre! I cleaned these up with some fine grade wet and dry and used graphite paste before refitting. As they came out v's cleaned up [url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHffoX][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51006227467_d97d8cdfe0_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHffoX]IMG_20210305_123437[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/181965116@N04/]Scott Osborne[/url], on Flickr All cleaned up: [url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHfeT8][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51006225737_a6314274a4_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHfeT8]IMG_20210305_132540[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/181965116@N04/]Scott Osborne[/url], on Flickr One side done: [url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHeGT6][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51006121451_cb5e516508_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHeGT6]IMG_20210305_130634[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/181965116@N04/]Scott Osborne[/url], on Flickr Other side: [url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHfePW][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51006225552_834dc9ce6d_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHfePW]IMG_20210305_134731[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/181965116@N04/]Scott Osborne[/url], on Flickr Wheel on: [url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHb5Qc][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51005414843_4d8c09e2c2_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2kHb5Qc]IMG_20210305_140340[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/181965116@N04/]Scott Osborne[/url], on Flickr So the total spent was £229 as opposed to £950 and the solution is arguably better than standard! Just need to treat it to a wash now!

If it's any help at all my ISF was only the second one i'd ever seen. I went to look at it as i've a mutual friend through the specialist selling it and he was kind enough to let me have a look around it as he knew i fancied one at some point and you dont get the chance often! Long story short is that i drove off in it the next day 🤣 The specialist failed to tell me how good an example mine was before i went to view, that it had a Hayward & Scott exhaust already installed, nearly new Michelin PS4S tyres etc. I'm sure he knew what he was doing 😂 They are awesome cars and i cant think of anything that will be able to replace it without spending at least double the amount! I think my next car after it will just have to be something completely different all together.

Shove the boring car onto your missus, keep the isf and then get a weekend toy, best solution. My missus isnt bothered about cars so has a Volvo V50 as a daily, then i've got the ISF and summer/ weekend car. Unless you just fancy a complete change up then fair enough! Caymans are great and wipe the floor with everything else really unless you want 4 seats.

Thanks for the heads up, my struts have been really weak since i bought the car but having just looked at how easy they are to replace i feel a bit ashamed having left it for 5 months! I've ordered the ones in your link, it may be that one of them may not be strong enough with how weak my standard ones seem to be but we shall see. If thats the case ill fit both or perhaps one new one to spec!

Seems normal, especially at those constant speeds. If i drive around town, plenty stop start etc. it goes up to 3 bars on my ISF (normal running temperature) in around 20 minutes but on a longer commute i do twice a month im sat at 60-70 for most of the 35 miles without slowing or speeding up and it doesnt get over 2 bars until i reach my destination and park up.

It would be worth selling your mods and back to standard if possible. Sorry to hear about your circumstances around selling though.

I love it and the fact they've done it is admirable in its own right!

I loved mine, stuck 60k on it whilst I had it and nothing went wrong other than the rust everywhere, well I got a new clutch and flywheel as it started slipping but that's just wear and tear. It was a manual 330cd facelift, was sad to see it go, went through quite a few life changes whilst I had it and felt it always had my back. Link below, you'll see ye old faithful E46 in the opening post haha https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=1685552

I watched an ISF review on Youtube the other day and it said to outright ignore the cars without the lsd in them, followed by some very mediocre driving 😂 Its infuriating that people are told such nonsense. You can light the back end up, you can go sideways and the inside wheel doesnt just spin up like a typical open differential car, so the electronics are doing their bit on the none lsd cars fine. You can watch the 08 ISF in the video below leaving 11's at the end and happily going sideways spinning both the inside and outside tyres, not that anyone should be driving like that on the road or track anyway 😂 Also worth mentioning the LSD in the later cars is basically a soft LSD, its not a plate type but a helical gear one, basically works like an open differential until theres a slip difference then the helical gears oppose and allows more power to the wheel with more grip, they do work, i've fitted one to a car previously but its not like a proper plate type LSD. For a fast road car i cant see most being able to tell the difference, even on track the ISF is only tenths of a second behind the m3 and that has a better chassis and a plate lsd. The only thing i wish my '58' plate had that the later models do is DAB. Some of the rest are 'nice to haves' but not worth the money for me. I bought on condition and history and happily saved myself a few K.

Aye ive had an e46 and it rusted itself away. Its a shame they either have bad rust issues or bad engine issues, or both! Yeh the 2002 is mine, it's a never ending project that one, forever developing it. I've just been fitting a slightly larger alternator on it with the electrics i've added seemingly being too much for the original and figuring out how to fit proper droplinks on the front etc. Noticed youve just started a thread on Pistonheads, i've a big one on there for the 2002 as well!

Mine came with the exhaust fitted but i had one on the list to buy for the same reason. I was expecting "oh is that the Lexus with the fake exhaust tips" off everyone when i bought this car and wanted to say no 😂 saying that fake exhausts have become commonplace since 2008 so i dont think anyone cares now. Hope you are enjoying the new found noise Arthur!

Looks awesome that Wayne, not watched the videos yet. Where did you get the engine rebuilt at? I help out at a competition engine builders in N. Yorks and they do a lot of bmw stuff, quite a lot of it for other companies. My weekend toy is also an old BMW and i've done the engine on that (machine work and modifications done where i help out though!) Bet you cant wait for the first drive! Also love the e61 m5, wouldnt have the balls to own one though, same with the v8 m3, we get so many engine failures for both of them in to sort out, most requiring new cranks as you cant grind them and there's no undersize bearings available! Being that either one would be my daily driver i just couldn't afford to run either should i get a troublesome one, which is where the ISF stepped in!