Hello all, introducing my IS300 build. To begin the journey I used to have a 99/01/ GS300 (reshelled) , I owned this car for roughly 5 years. Took a lot of inspiration from Eric Chobs GS at the time , drove my first event in this car and was my introduction into the drift world, new places and a lot of new friends. Photo of 2 out of 4 versions of that car, driving with my brother at US Air.
That car was sold to a random dude in New York for way to much money, late summer of 22' as I was going to take a break from drifting. That lasted a whole 3 days until I bought my next project and my current car.
September 22' I bought this IS300 from my brother that he was parting out. Funny story with this car, 3 years prior , my brother and I drove to Milwaukee for him to buy to flip. I drove it back for him and didn't think much of it and behold I'd eventually buy it off him to build. Funny how things work.
Got right after it with tearing it down to basically a bare shell for a full build. I've always taken a lot of pride and doing everything myself with limited outside help. Maybe it's because I'm cheap or maybe because I have trust issues but it has helped me learn a lot of useful skills. Being a former auto tech for 10 years the mechanical part of the build was the easy but time consuming part. Huge help I had a padded bank account from selling my previous car. (HUGE shoutout to Chris at TF Works for parts and my former boss for letting me have free range of ordering parts I needed off Turn14)
Didn't take very long before the car had a refreshed 1JZ-GTE VVTi , R154 , BW S257SXE setup installed into it. Bought the engine from a local who's car was totaled for a good deal and trans is a trade secret for a cheap R154. Fairly basic setup but makes really good power.
With the powertrain setup next was cosmetics. Went with a BN style kit from KFD (Russian import), Fineline tuning vented hood, Don Musk over fenders, GMR Evoke wheels (HUGE SHOUTOUT TO PHILLIP STUBKJAER) and this is where the car gets the motto of "Copied my brothers homework) Has the same setup and kit has my brothers car with the exception of the hood, wheels and paint color. Pic of my brother (Kyle) car below
His car was a big reason I went with building an IS300. After a few days of street tuning my car myself and some shake down miles to make sure the setup was good to go. I set out to get the car prepped and ready for paint. If memory serves me correct I had the car prepped and painted in 3 weeks. Went to with custom green metallic that's based off a Porsche color. Green is my favorite color and decided to finally paint a car green for the first time.
I started painting cars back in 2018/2019 with my good friend Karol and quickly learned it was something I was half decent at which ended up being a good side gig for me. From my first paint job to this car I've learned a lot about painting but due to restrictions in garage size and location I've stuck with mainly smaller projects for people. All things considered painting this car in a small 2 car garage it turned out amazingly.
At this point the car was essentially "finished" which we all know that's never true. For the summer I enjoyed street driving it a good amount, pulling busses on high school kids in their Focus ST's and driving events at US Air.
As far as what's to come over winter.... not much. I've toyed with the idea of a livery but working on a simple design as we speak. So far I've spent most my efforts on making the engine bay as organized and "show car" looking as i could possibly. This is where I've also learned that I enjoy these much smaller paint projects then painting body kits and cars. Here is how the engine bay currently sits which there's not much more I want to do to it seeing I'm pretty content with how it looks.
With all that said, heavily looking forward to next season to drift with friends and to have the opportunity to meet new ones also well!
Hey I know this guy!
One of my top 5 favorite SXE10.