Two best friends and the journey to remind everybody what quality is...

[403is300]

Alright, well hello again StanceNation. I'm back, but this time with a friend.

My first account was 93180sx -- I joined up back in December of 2010 and was active for a while till my life got busy and I lost track of my passion for updating my threads. I decided now that I've settled down in life, that I have time for such luxuries as sharing with you all my own, and my best friend/room-mate car's that we have begun to build.

My Nissan 180sx Type-X was the car I last shared with you all (found here: http://www.stancenation.com/forums/s...ada...Wut-Wut! ) -- and I never got around to finishing the thread off with all the hundreds of things I did to that car, but let me assure you it was a long, hard, extensive road. Since that car I have owned a 2004 Nismo 350z and a 2004 WRX STi, both which I have sold.

Lets get to the good stuff.

About a year ago my best friend (Hiebz) decided that he wanted to buy an IS350, so he went and got himself into a 2006 Black/Black IS350, which was a perfect candidate for what he wanted to do. He quickly got a hold of our longtime friend and parts slinger, Jimmy B from RCTS in Calgary, Alberta who has been into fitting cars since before "Hellaflush" was even a word on dictionary.com. Landon sold his fully built 180sx drift car and started to pool money together to begin his IS350 build, all in the meantime him and Jimmy having constant battles over rim selection, coilover selection and various other things.

The key we decided behind these builds was going to be showing people what a few carefully selected quality parts can do for a car. No flashy custom interiors, no monitors in the headrests, no useless fender vents, no "oni-camber", no unusable ride height and NO KNOCK-OFF PARTS.


If there was one thing im sure Jimmy was tired of seeing, it was all these young guys going out and buying Rota's, XXR's, and all these cheaply manufactured rims and running them with garbage, china-made crappy camber kits hooked up to a car sitting on china-made coilovers with garbage spring rates, just to be able to drop some played out stickers on their car. So we set out to turn a few heads and hopefully help people realize that when you put knock-off parts on your car, you endanger yourself and everyone in your car -- this is your way to work, your livelihood and your life you put on the line when you trust these parts... so spend the money, PLEASE, for your sake -- and just do it right. Not only will it show pride in your car, but it supports the companies doing the research and development on all the new parts and sick wheels that you love, all the companies like Rota and XXR copy them for a reason, because their R&D teams put hundreds of thousands of dollars into researching cool new wheel ideas and ways of making them safer and stronger... the knock-offs just copy the looks, nothing else. You've all seen the rim failures that Rota has had... I dont feel I need to rant anymore. Back to the build.

Hiebz's car when he first bought it, looked like this (on winter wheels, I had the stocks in the RX350):


Just your basic looking, 2006 IS350.

Hiebz and Jimmy finally came to the conclusion of what rims to buy, and Jimmy went to work using his connections at Work Wheels to get Landon the a set of rims in a special finish that nobody has yet seen....

This is what they came out with:






Now, if your not "up" with your Work wheels, those are Work Schwert SC1's in a long discontinued gold finish.
BUT, if you didnt catch it, behind that gold finish, which is just on the faces of the spokes.. sits a Burning Black finish on the rest
of the spokes, something Work does not offer... but Jimmy managed to accomplish through his mastery of pursuasion techniques. Can you say ballin?

The coilover choice for the IS350 was obvious, as a newer heavier car, it was going to need something custom and something built to handle whatever he threw at it... so what else to go with other than...



Now let me tell you, these arnt cheap, but god damn are they worth it. Jimmy got then custom made just for this build. Those specs will be kept secret, along with the rim offsets in true PoorForm style. Unless your a bro, you'll have to figure it out alone.

Hiebz dropped the car off in Calgary after the 3 and a half month excruciating wait for these parts and let Jimmy go to work on the installs and his magical ways with fenders... and the fenders needed some MAJOR pulling. Here's some progress pictures:










After the first batch of fender work, they realized there'd definitely be some more major fender work to be done...and a smaller tire.





After many long days and nights, the stance finally got finished on the IS350 with:
Work Schwert SC1'S - GOLD/BB - Front=19x10 // Rear 19x11 (Fitted by JIMMY B)
Zeal Function Xs Coilovers - Poorform Proprietary Valving
Endless Low-Dust SS-M - Brake Pads
Custom Fender Work (Jimmy B)
JP Fusa
Tanabe Medallion Catback w/ Tanabe Mid-Pipe (Going in)
HKS Intake
6000k HID's (Lows)
6000k HID's (Fogs)

And here are some photos taken by myself with my old garbage SLR... stay tuned for professional shoot this spring. And yes, he was one of the first people to put 11's on a IS350/250 -- theres a few now, but its still a small club.










Onto my personal car,

I bought a few months ago a unicorn here in Canada...
2002 5-Speed Manual
Black on Black
FULL Leather (No cloth)
Fully Loaded (PW/PS/Sunroof)
No mods

Lexus IS300

... a car I've wanted to build for a long, long time.

Here are some crappy photos of her, (shes been sitting for a few months now, just waiting on parts):








So obviously I had to step my game up.. I didn't want to be like all the other IS300's out there.. so I had to be unique, while still retaining my subtle nature.

I took my car straight to Jimmy, I let him drive it and get an idea of what i needed.

He came to me a few days later and suggested I go with some rims....at first I wasn't really hooked, he suggested Work Meisters and everybody in the fitment community knows how much the Meisters get used. BUT, I knew that people used them for a reason, the timeless style, high quality, great offset and sizing choices.

BUT, I still had the dilemma of being unique, so I did my research, I saw only one other IS300 in the world rocking the brand new S1R's... so naturally, I had to jump on Jimmy's suggestion.

I ordered through Jimmy my 18x10 and 18x11, Work Meister S1R's .. the colour and rim specifics will be kept secret for now, but as you all know... even on Rimtuck or anywhere else, theres nobody rocking 11's on a stock-body, IS300 right now... and if there is, I give them props and I cant wait to be part of the club. The key to this build, is proper fender work (all Jimmy) and carefully chosen parts, while not going way over budget. The S1R's are some of Work's newest rims, so I'm excited to get mine in.

I just turned 19 on the 19th of February, and mommy and daddy don't give me stacks of money, in fact I live with Hiebz, we work together.. so don't fool yourself into thinking our moms and dads helped us out, this is money sourced from hard work and a passion for cars. He's 22, I'm 19, we both work extremely hard and this isnt our first car to modify, together we've owned a collective 24 or so cars that we've modified together.

The coilover options for me were crazy, but I didn't want to go overboard and spend more than I truly had to, like I said, I wanted to showcase quality parts - but being my age, I felt I had an example to set that you can find quality but you don't have to spend an arm and a leg buying Zeals.

[403is300]

Jimmy threw a few options at me, but I wanted to keep things under $2,000CAD for the coils. I looked into TTE coilovers (Toyota Team Europe) but they didnt go low enough, I also looked into BC Coilovers, but some further research showed me that the production behind those coilovers was a little to low quality for me, and the reviews were bad.. so the search continued.

I eventually settled onto buying fully custom HSD Coilovers, a great brand, great reviews and other Lexus owners in our car club (PoorForm) were in love with them.. and they weren't some China garbage like (Megan/Stance/etc). Jimmy got in contact with HSD and they began doing dyno tests on coilover setups and getting my rates just perfect for this application.

The coilovers should be here Mid-March and the Work's should be here at the end of March (cross my fingers)... the rest of the modifications will follow closely. Here's a recap on the parts I've ordered, or already have for the IS300.

6000k HID's (Lows) -- Not Installed
6000k HID's (Fogs) -- Not Installed
Work Meister S1R's -- On The Way
HSD Coilovers -- On The Way
Misc other engine/suspension parts -- On The Way



I cant wait to share this build with you all and keep you updated on mine and my best friends journey with these cars.

Thank you for reading this and I look forward to being active on this forum once again.

-Dallas Owen
Red Deer, Alberta
Canada

[axela zoom]

Can't wait to see this build, and I love love love the finish on your friends wheels!

[Elvis]

Damn this thread is good. The finish of those Works is niceeeeeeee!

[403is300]

The pictures do those rims no justice, hopefully this summer after a cut polish on the car and a professional photo shoot you all might get a taste of what it's like to see those things in person. Its glorious rolling beside him, it's definitely a neck breaker!

Thanks again guys!

[HEcreated487]

Thread start to this build thread. Definitely watching these cars evolve.

[403is300]

Just got news that my rims will be shipping out today! Along with 4 other sets of Works that our car club ordered... stay tuned!

[Macaboo]

looking forward to this. the 350 looks really classy! nice work to you and your friend

[Ben Moak]

both of them look great, and your plans seem to be great, but no need to go bashing other peoples stuff.

[jzz30dk]

PF wheels specs stay secret forever The car is dope. Its gonna be fun rollin this year with all the PF cars.