kattanh3's W203 build-up thread

3 minute(s) of a 26 minute read

phister, you are absolutely right.  

Short answer, it's cheaper and I'm doing it for experimental reasons.


Long answer,
I am from a country that really makes it difficult to personalize vehicles. They've got many regulations against altering OEM look, specs, and group meetings. The roads conditions are only comparable to Mars. I've only modified one car so far, a 2nd generation Lexus IS300 (Asia specs excluding Japan). I fell in love with the hobby and decided that I would like to do it more often and to experiment with making it easier for everyone to customize/personalize their vehicles.

I had a great experience with this forum and the leading Lexus forum. But to me, the biggest point of pain with forums was difficulty of accessing data. I know that I am not alone by just looking at how many "noob" posts and "use the search button" responses that are out there. I'm currently working on a web platform that compliments automotive forums. It basically has none of the conversational text and pretty much just easily searchable data. My objective is to provide a tool that makes it easier, faster, and possibly cheaper for both the vendors to operate and the consumers to practice their hobby... especially for non-locals. Project is still under progress, hopefully I can get something up and running by end of summer. If it works, great! otherwise I'll just have fun while doing it

Back to the IS, I ended up investing roughly $16k in it  Just like with the w203, I was after a factory-like clean but somewhat aggressive look. But I went for brand new quality products and international shipment costed an arm and a leg. So right now I'm going about customizing the w203 the opposite way. Going as cheap as possible and used parts from forums... I'm just trying to experience everything I've been missing out and learn how that can be incorporated into my project.

Anyways, the ride with stretched wheels is actually not that bad. It's more comfortable than my OEM 17" wheels with snow tires.


Here are couple of pix of the 2Gen IS: