RichGS11

Awesome. Thank you for the suggestions. Added to the itinerary. Will be good to get some diversity with the images, so Harbour shots would be fantastic.

Yeah the guys have all said the Military Road is a place they want to revisit, so I've planned a route into the Cairngorms.

Sorry, I think I need to say that the reason for this holiday is to drive and enjoy the roads of Scotland. We've all been and done some sightseeing before, etc, so it's less about seeing what Scotland has to offer walking, sightseeing and visiting places. We have a place we're renting out for a week with hot tubs, BBQ, etc, so our evenings and days off will be spent relaxing and doing some of the things mentioned. The long days with high miles will be mainly getting up to and near places of interest, as we're staying lower than initially anticipated. I do a lot of landscape and drone photography, so two of my days will be spent doing that. What the intention is for us is to drive to locations, grab some photos, a coffee, some food, then move onto the next and essentially leapfrog our way around. The high mileage days will be early starts and getting to the areas we then wish to explore.

The guys I'm going with did it a few years back and I think they didn't enjoy it all that much. Possibly due to how many other people were on it and sections didn't lend themselves to the supercars they take. We'll no doubt hit parts of it though for sure.

Hey all, I couldn't find an appropriate area to post this on the forum but I do know there are a fair few people in the F community from the area. I'm off to Scotland with some mates for a roadtrip mid Sept. I've been compiling a list of places to visit and roads to travel. We're just inbetween Stirling and Dunfermline and we're looking to to do around 200 to 250 miles a day. Any recommendations for good roads and photo locations for the cars? I'll have my drone if anyone can reccomend places for using that too? Thank you. Rich. P.S. please move this if I have posted it in the wrong place!

18" x 9.5 work. Offsets around 35 to 40. If you want to improve the handling, try looking into RR Racings USRS or at the very least get new ones from the GSF or RCF. https://www.rr-racing.com/Lexus-Lower-Control-Arm-LCA-Bushing-p/isfxlca001.htm These make you feel like you're in a totally different car. Best handling upgrade I've done and I've done a few!

I'd like to think you don't buy a V8 if running costs are a concern 😆

Haha yeah my concern is noise, well it was before, now I'm 100% sure I won't get in any track day lol. Are you close to Beds? I'm in Cambridgeshire.

Not yet. I was prepared for this but I'm happy to say it's all good. Considering the exhausts exited straight into the garage, I was expecting to smell it. Only hot metal for the time being, as the headers settle in.

Loi is doing the tuning and helping me get it where I want it. He can tune the gearbox settings too, so I chose him for all his rave reviews. You're completely right about the noise, the system will be getting valved. The main goal of getting an F was to track it and with the decibel limits nowadays, it needs to be more subtle for cold starts and track days. The car thankfully isn't a daily, so it's something I can live with in the short term, although that said, I have a weeks long trip around Scotland with some fellow car mates in mid September, it could be a long week 😆

So the verdict....I love it!!! They say once you drive an FBO ISF, you never want to go back and it's true. The sheer power that comes from it and it's not even tuned yet! So excited for the flash map and work from my tuner to get the car singing. Alignment next, but the handling with the USRS is night and day already. I'm a little annoyed I didn't do it sooner. The car is so much tighter up front with the mounts and the new bushes. Those USRS certainly give the car a more direct, BMW style feel to the steering. I'm shocked at how different it actually is. I'm very cynical, I don't try to find the positives, they're either there or not and the changes I've made, even before being dialled in, have made so much difference. It feels like years have been taken off the car! Next step....tune and alignment 🙏🏽

Now the noise.... DSC_7958_1.mp4 DSC_7959_1.mp4

So some last minute parts added that I've had rattling around in the garage loft space for a while....

Yes, luck was well and truly on my side! I still can't quite believe it! Thank you. It's been a tough process but thanks to the right tools and a great step by step guide by Sikky, on YouTube, I was able to do most of it quite quickly. I never want to take them off mind you! I'll use a ramp or lift next time haha 😄

A test post to see if I can upload a video file. This was taken a couple of days before the header swap and I will recreate the same conditions post PPE install. DSC_7943_1.mp4

Me too!! Hopefully today is the day for that. I have updated my build thread as to not hijack this post!

So Day 2 was a slower day, with the rest of the parts added including what is pictured here (engine mounts, USRS bushings and O2 extenders. The subframe was placed back onto the car and all nuts and bolts torqued to OEM settings. Which brings me nicely onto day 3, which is right this moment, where the build thread reaches me sitting on my sofa awaiting a brand new transmission mount. Hopefully today will see the cars first start since the upgrade and what I hope to be a successful swap! 🤞🏼

Then came D Day, getting the car on blocks and jacked up high enough to work on, laying out all the parts and readying my pen and paper for where each nut and bolt came from! After 3 and a half hours, the old headers were out and in the garage sitting next to their replacements. You can tell how the OEM units break so easily and why they strangle so much power from the engine! By the end of the first day the new headers were also on board!

Some more parts were ordered to assist with the swap, something I was going to undertake on the drive. I also took the opportunity to upgrade the top control arms, lower ball joints, rear lower control arm and engine mounts, plus the obligatory O2 sensors, gaskets, etc.

As the headers run rather hot, the next step was to look into heat management and keeping temps down in the engine bay. So I shipped the headers off to Zircotec in Oxford to ceramic coat them.

So with the trip to California came an unexpected upgrade, one I'd been pondering for a year or so. With the headers on my ISF cracked and the impending welding job on the horizon, I stumbled across gold dust whilst browsing Ebay. A set of RHD PPE headers for £1k in California! So after a 10 hour round trip, an extra £65 spent on another suitcase, I had in the hold of my flight home, the modification I'd been dreaming about for some time! Anyone that knows what these are and how much they cost to have custom made, shipped and taxes paid for, knows how much of a deal the £1,250 is I paid for them (fuel and a new case included in the total cost).

Modifications have been slowed by the decking and a holiday, as those both took priority, however I did manage to sneak in one upgrade before June and that was a brand new RCF mirror to update the older design. I also added a little F badge to the carbon bootlid.

So after some time away, a decking project and a month in California, I thought it best to update the build thread I forgot I'd created! So after having issues with discolouration in the lacquer of the SARD wing (I'm very fussy). I decided to remove it and to my delight I actually prefer the car without it and the unnecessary drag created by the wing. I also got a drone and took some snaps!

Thank you! I forgot I made this thread, time to update!

Not completely but almost. There's a knuckle in a very well placed area of the shaft that is removed, and this gives you the space to replace the drivers side header. It's a clever little addition that certainly helps. Today I managed to fit both headers in place. Tomorrow I need to run the O2 extenders after I've heat wrapped the wiring. I also have new RR engine mounts that are going in. Not to turn this thread into my PPE install story, but it's a manageable task if you can get the car up high enough, and you have some good air or power tools, and good mechanical know how. I think this is important to say because install costs might put people off from buying the set advertised here. This is a lengthy job, but you can do it yourself, which will save you a lot of money.