RB Powered Lexus

Hey guys, my name is travis, im from SW ontario canada, i own a small repair shop and id like to share some of our current and past projects!

some quick specs of the car in its CURRENT setup (2020 season)

Car: 1998 Lexus IS200

Engine specs:

RB25 s2

Weisco Forged Pistons (87.5mm) (almost 2600 CC now)

H Beam Connecting Rods

ACL Main and Rod Bearings

ARP Headstuds

N1 Oil Pump

N1 Water Pump

Freddy Intake Manifold

SEIMENS 740CC Injectors

CinderTrackFab Custom T3 Twinscroll manifold

GTX3076R Gen 2 .83 AR T3 Divided Turbo

Tial 38mm wastegates x2

Turbosmart Racing BOV

Tomei 256 Poncams

Titanium Retainers

Springs and Valves

Custom Cometic HG

ISR Oil Cooler

ISR V2 FPR

Q45 Throttle Body

Haltech TPS Sensor

Franklin Engineering Oil Drain Kit

Vibrant Catch Can

Vibrant HD Clamps

ALL AN Lines

Platinum Racing Products Trigger Kit

ATI Crank Pulley (RB26)

Astra Electric Powersteering Pump

HKS Timing Belt

HKS Exhaust Cam Gear

Splitfire Coil Packs

Mishimoto Intercooler

Electronics:

Link G4 ECU (PnP)

Link+Aim 1.2 Strada Dash

Bosch 2-in-1 Temp / Pressure Sensors (Water/fuel/oil)

WHP Boost Controller

WHP AIT

GEP Fuse Boxes

MIL SPEC Connectors from ProWireUsa

AEM Wideband 4.9

Fuel:

10GAL Fuel Cell

AEM 400LPH Fuel Pumps x2

-8 Feed

-6 Return

Brakes:

Z32 BMC

Grassroots Performance BBK

SerialNine Dual Caliper Setup

StimTech Remote Hydro

Suspension:

BC Racing Coilovers BR

Megan Rear Control Arms

FDF Front Angle Kit

Modded Subframe

LEXIBREAK Solid Subframe and Diff Mounts

Cooling:

Mishimoto dual Pass radiator

Rear Rad Setup

Davies Graig 150GPH Water Pump

-16 Water Lines

Drivetrain:

Stock Rb25 trans

ACT 6 Puck Unsprung Clutch

1PC Driveshaft

Toyota Landcruiser 3/4 bore CMC

Welded Diff

back in summer of 2018 i had a gent reach out with a pretty unique car, he had a fire in the engine bay and melted all of his wiring, he heard from through the grape vine that i was the guy to come see! so i took on the job not really knowing what i was in for haha, needless to say its been a hell of a roller coaster but its been amazing!

the car arrived one late night and i honestly couldnt understand a lick of english from this fellow as he was fresh from ireland hahahahaa

i quickly whipped up a generic fuse box and got the car back running again, car was down for about a month as i had other jobs to do but nothing too crazy

upon finishing the car in late july the customer "forgot" to mention to me that he wanted me to check out the engine as he thinks 1 or 2 of the cylinders is low on compression (Probably why i couldnt get it running 100% hahaha)

so i hooked up the compression tester and sure enough 2 cylinders were around 25 psi, so out comes the engine and i start tearing into it to find this:

and while it was out, i found the source of his fire lol:

no wonder this thing went up in flames, he had some local kid work on his car when it landed, put a fresh 5858 turbo on it and left the manifold like that... some people man,

so i got on the horn with my local supplier and ordered up a bunch of new parts for the engine, its a shame too cause the engine was recently rebuilt back in ireland and had maybe 150 hours of drive time on it...

so out with the broken CP Pistons and in with the new wisefab, also ordered up a CXRacing turbo manifold, wasnt the best on the market but it was enough to get the car back running again,

we had some fitment issues with the turbo being way too close to the manifold, so we had to modify it just enough to clear the valve covers (you get what you pay for haha)

Got the engine back in and had it fired up, we got it running and off to the tuners for a last minute dyno, car only made 325 WHP at 18 PSI, at the time it had a ebay external, a really OLD JDM boost controller and well, just wasnt a overly proper built setup but we did what we could with the parts we had, it was enough to get the car out for one solid last event of the year, and we did!

we made it back from the first event, it didnt do too bad! tho it kept getting a bit hot, but non the less we were happy,

winter of 2018 the car was sent off to a local fab shop for a roll cage, we were told if we get it to him before christmas then my customer can fly back to ireland for the holidays and wed have the car back done second week of january...welll...that wasnt the case,

during the break our local fabricator ended up getting REALLY big over the winter brake with his angle kits (FDF) and he started mass producing angle kits as they do pay ALOT more, and i DO get that, but the car got pushed off and we didnt get it back till almost the end of February, which wasnt cool as we were already behind schdule... i had TONS to do and lined up for this car. as it was basically being stripped whole and rebuilt properly (there was too much sketchy stuff to continue building without starting over)

if any of you guys have ever worked on a IS300 youll know the transmission tunnel is INCREDIBLY narrow, and DOES NOT give you room even for a stock transmission, and if youre aware of the size of a stock RB25 trans, theyre not exactly small, so i had planned i wanted to made a FD legal (just a standard i try to work up to) trans tunnel to allow EASE of servicing the car at the shop and or race track,

so once the car came back i started cutting away at the chassis

and i got a LITTLE too friendly with the grinder when it decided to kick back at me xD

we had also noticed the car had incredible blow by, if your familiar with the RB designs they kinda suck with oiling issues, with the lack of oil returns in the head, all the oil shoots up into the head and when youre on throttle the oil gets pushed to the back of the head and instead of flowing back to the block it finds the fastest way out which is through the breathers on the valve cover, it sucks and makes a mess,

so we ordered up a head drain kit, RB26 Valve Covers (they have a WAY better breather design and they also look WAY better, and a vibrant catch can.

the car was also fitted with a home made angle kit by some guy up in ottawa, issue we had with the kit was at full lock the car would almost slow right down, it wasnt biting right, FDF had JUST released their IS/JZX angle kit so we grabbed the second kit made,

Old Kit:

FDF Kit:

so were at the beginning of april and stuff gets tough, we had 48 hours to find a new shop to move in as our landlord was a dick and him and us didnt get along, so that put a good 3 weeks onto our missed deadline, car was moved to friends house till we could move into our new shop and get it set up,

once the car was back we started to work again, already missed the first event, and we were not going to make the second event, we still worked away,

we wanted to tackle a manifold, we have an inhouse fabricator and since the engine bay on a IS is so small (strut to strut) there wasnt going to be a off the shelf manifold for this application, so we decided to make it ourselves, and looking back now, i really dont wanna make manifold agains haha

we ordered a bunch of 1.5 SCH10 pipe and bends and a 6-1 merge from Hypertune and started making the manifold (YES im aware now that 1.5 is WAY too big , all part of the learning curve haha)

looked rad, but it wasnt great at all haha....

i also took my first wiring course from HPA around this time so i decided to tackle the wiring harness as well!

have to admit, working wit tefzel is SO nice. first harness was a success, even got the kudos from the tuner (when we get there...haha...)

upgraded to electric PS

got the exhaust fabricated

at this point were in the middle of august..

some stuff came up, there was some pretty bad lows i was dealing with and i lost most of my motivation to work, it sucked.

i took some time off and went down to GRIDLIFE South in atlanta and hungout with my american friends, this is his HKS Superchaged Z!

had a pretty rad time but now it was time to get back to work and get this car done!

this is pretty much how we got the car finished this year, we didnt get to a single event except the final, which he ended up breaking a diff, it was a shitty year but this year is GOING to pay off,

this was taken at the last event:

so coming into winter of 2019, we decide to go Rear rad for this application, the front end is fitted with a V mount and the clearance to the crank is just toooooo close com comfort, so i recieved the car beginning of december and the build continues!

first up, chop it up. brought the car in and started cutting away at the rear end, ive never done this before but after hours and hours researching, a rear rad isnt that bad after all,

also ordered up some MUSK Customs rear overs

once all the cutting and welding was done, the car was off to paint!

car arrived back from paint early march, it took a bit longer than anticipated, but it is what it is,

-16 an welded to mishimoto rad

water necks modified for the -16 bungs

new cindertrackfab manifold arrived

PRP Trigger kit

Tial wastegates

new GTX3076R Gen 2

started the engine harness. watching zac and his concentric twist, i decided i wanted to give it a swing, time consuming, VERY, is it fun? YES. plus the satisfaction is so worth it!

got the engine all planted,

Z32 BMC on the IS booster,

with the front rad gone, theres TONS of room for the oil cooler and the Catch can!

AN fittings for the EBC, no more popping lines or melting!

currently due to COVID-19 this build has basically hit a wall and is no longer moving, due to really delayed shipping, some companies closed down, it sucks, it reallllyy does, so once i get some more work done i will be posting up the results!

thanks guys!

Some very nice work there - Andre should steal your piston pictures to illustrate insufficient ring gap ;-)

Did the owner mention why he went the RB rather than the JZ route, as some LEXUS variations actually come with them - not sure about that chassis, though?

I was quite surprised to see the dual circuit master cylinder, rather than an adjustable pedal box - I know the hand brake is normally used for unsettling the car, but with the weight distribution, and I expect brake changes, I would have expected some sort of adjustment would be in order?

Oh, how do you like working with the steering wheel, pedals, etc. on the right (correct) side of the car?

Haha yeah!

last season we ran a chase bays booster delete kit and the master had a defect within the first track day, wasn’t cool, so I opted out of that and decided to run a z32 master ( was contributed by a friend who wanted to help out )

we initially wanted to go pedal box but the budget this season needed to be spent on the rear rad / engine upgrades to keep reliability as best as possible,

if all goes well this season ( if we actually get a season lol ) we will be upgrading to a pedal box next season!

as for the origin of the RB, I too was a bit confused as I’m a Nissan guy who was converted over to the JZ world haha,

back in Ireland these cars came with a NA 2.0L6 that is suppppeeeerrrrr gutless , he ended up picking up a r33 for 1500€ and parted the whole car out and doubled his money and he still had the drivetrain so he asked a local race shop to cram it in, and now we’re left with a RB in it,

ive told him if the engine for some reasons pops again, he’ll either be going 1uz or 2jz

Thought it might be something like that - use what you've got at the time, but sometimes in hindsight...

Anyway, hope the new season is to the satisfaction of you all, when it eventually starts.

And on that, keep safe and take this damned virus seriously - it's going to be affecting us all for the rest of the year, or more, if a vaccine isn't found.