The quest continues to shed as much weight off our Lexus project as possible. In this episode the trunk section does battle with a Sawzall. In the end the Sawzall won, removing over 32 lbs of excess. Although a lot of the removed sheet metal will be replaced with new lightweight pieces, we will still come out ahead at the final weigh-in.
Race season is just around the corner. What are you running this year? 
With this setup, fuel is pulled from the main tank and swirls it displacing all of the air to the top of the swirl pot or surge tank. This way the fuel lines have 100% fuel at all times. This unit will insure all of the air will not make it to the injectors preventing a potentially dangerous lean condition.
It was a cold night for a car meet, but a pretty good turn out. Were you there?
This IS has been completely gutted to make room for a full cage and an interesting drive train. Straying away from the norm, our shop foreman Justin has decided to go with an 4G63 mated to a T56. The motor an trans have been positioned much further back than the stock setup for better weight distribution. This Lexus will feature a dry sump setup with a 3 gallon oil tank for increased cooling. At this stage the motor and mock up trans are now in place to begin the motor mount fabrication. 
Since no one makes 1 7/8″ headers for an LS1 IS300, we had to take matters into our own hands and make some. The passenger side header was pretty straight forward. Meanwhile, the driver side header had to wrap around the steering rack. After making sure the headers fit perfectly, the exhaust was fabricated. We used twin 3″ pipes going to an x-pipe and then through magnaflow cans. The muffler selection was made to keep the car a little bit quiet, but so the engine will still be heard over the spinning tires. After the mufflers the exhaust dumps just past the rear axle. The car was then put on the dyno and made a healthy 414 whp, and 378 ftlbs of torque. That is an improvement of 21whp over the old manifold/exhaust setup.
In order to prevent fuel sloshing issues with a saddlebag gas tank in the LS1 IS300, the customer decided to have his gas tank cut in half. Then a plate was welded in place of the new large hole on the side of the tank. The only drawback is the estimated 7 gallon holding capacity. This is an inexpensive solution to the problem in comparison to a fuel cell.
Unfortunately due to Formula D rules, our 350z is getting a new skin. The rules state that a car must have body, not just a chassis like our 350z has been for a while now. Some of us like the new look of the car, but others like how it looked like a big go-cart. As you can see the car is getting more than just a body, it is getting a bunch of little things that are needed to pass tech as well. Obviously we can’t drop working on customer cars to just finish this car, so it is being worked on between projects as well as after hours. The car needs to be ready for a Pro-am drift event on July 9th in Charlotte NC. That means a few more late nights to get this car competition ready.
Here are some action shots from the Clear To Drift event last weekend. The car did well and the only issue was the mazda3 power steering pump not working, due to data turn on signal. Our shop 350z even made an appearance, but I have no pictures of that at this time. Now the car is back at the shop so we can complete this project with no huge rush. That means proper headers and exhaust, as well as making the engine bay not look like a 5 year old wired up the car.
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