IS300 LS1/T56 Daily Driver Build by eng1nerd

4 minute(s) of a 118 minute read

7-3-2013

While the car doesn't look much different I got several things done today. After work I dropped off the drive shaft to be lengthened (as it turns out you can lengthen a drive shaft). It should be ready tomorrow even though I am leaving town for the holiday and can't pick it up until next week.

Here are the Trans Am (aluminum) driveshaft, and the Lexus (2 piece) driveshaft).

I was also able to get my adapter for the master cylinder made at work today. I am incredibly spoiled and I know it! One of our machinists at work had some open time on the CNC mill so he helped me out a bit.

Instead of using studs or long set screws we decided to counter bore and locktite bolts into the adapter.

Here is a shot of the old and the new.

Once I got home from the driveshaft shop I started in on installing the master cylinder.

Once the MC was in an hooked up to the pedal I figured I should finally get the steering knuckle back in. With it living inside the driver side header this was a challenge. I ended up having to drop the steering column to get enough clearance. While I was able to pull this off on my own I would really recommend getting a second set of hands to put this together.

You can kind of see how little room there is to work in there.

On to the third and final task of the night...make the shifter fit the tunnel. We had pulled the top of the shifter assembly when the motor and trans went in. I marked roughly where I was going to notch.

And here is how it looks now.

7-10-2013

One of my buddies at work lives just around the corner from the drive shaft shop so he picked it up for me last night and brought it to work. Here you can see the difference between the stock IS300 drive shaft and the "new" aluminum one.

It fit perfect and was actually really easy to get in.