Sunday Funday is Back!

EDIT: This is my 500th post! Woohoo

I’m still alive! I think this is the longest I’ve ever left the blog alone and had no content. We have been getting the shittiest weather the last few weeks up until this weekend – yesterday was about +9C and today got up to +13C I think… It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it was practically summer and it was time to work on cars. I’ve been itching to install my exhaust ever since I got it, originally I was going to wait until I moved to the new place and do it there, but I couldn’t wait any longer. JC and Punit came over to lend a hand and we got it done in no time.

With that said – let’s just get to the good stuff!

You can see it’s a nice, sunny day and the LS got to wake up a little bit to get some goodies on.

Oh man it’s been so long since it’s moved from it’s sleeping spot…

Punit meant business and brought the business today. His tool box to work on getting an exhaust on. Good stuff though hahaha

That new new. Joe Z/PTS exhaust

Up and ready to go.

A shot of the old clunky system.

Within a few minutes we had the left side out and the new one was good to go. Super simple and easy – no broken bolts, no stripped nuts.

The best shot I could take with the new system in. Shiny!

Another shot of the driver side.

The two old clunkers. I bet these cost a fortune too… lol

Next up was JC’s car – we decided to slap on the Mode Luxe pinstripe on as well!

Dirty dirty dirty

The first time the LS has seen the sun in over 6 months. It was actually nice to see it back out again.

Punit’s GS – lots of good things in store for Punit’s GS in the next few months… Can’t wait!

The pinstripe all on. Looks great… It’ll look even better with his wheels on.

The other side. Slick!

The mean girls together for the first time in 2014. Gonna be a good year! I can feel it!

I know a bunch of others were working on their cars too… Rightfully so, because it was a beautiful day. Hopefully just a few more weeks and the roads will clear up a bit and I can stretch the LS’s legs.

Mode Luxe Pinstripe

Well, it happened. I couldn’t wait to get the decal on to see what it looked like so I ended up applying one side once I got home from work. I decided that it was “warm enough” and I could get one side done in no time. It was about -15C outside and just barely 0C in the garage so it wasn’t too bad. I know that it’s kind of difficult to apply decals when it’s cold cause it doesn’t stick well, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

Because Bill had cut the decals into 4 separate pieces – fender, front door, rear door, and quarter panel – I had been trying to think of a way to line it all up properly without it looking like there was a break in the pinstripe. In hindsight, it’s a pretty simple idea but at the time, I couldn’t think of anything until I was in my car on the way home. I ended up using masking tape all the way from the fender to the rear tail light and lining it up just below where the decal would be placed…

Here’s a look at what I mean. Helped a ton… Without this, I’m sure it would’ve been a disaster.

Didn’t take too long to line it up. I basically taped it, pulled it straight and placed it down. I stepped to the side, made sure it looked good and made adjustments if needed. My car is a little different because my side mirror is on the body line so the pinstripe can’t follow that line like I had originally planned. Instead, it had to sit a little lower. Not a huge issue…

I started at the fender and made my way down. Bill cut it so that we would have some extra vinyl if we needed it which helped a lot.

A shot of the main piece on the rear quarter. By this point, I was pretty anxious to see what it was going to look like. Little did I know… this was the longest part of the whole install.

Here it is peeled off and it looks AMAZING. In this case, pictures don’t do it justice because the chrome/mirror finish is awesome and matches the chrome trim and the SSR’s perfectly.

A side shot of the decal – looks great! It ties in all of the chrome nicely. The most difficult part of all this is peeling it off and getting it to stick onto a cold surface. That, and when the vinyl is cold – it tends to start to crinkle up so you have to work quick. I ended up getting one tiny bubble but it’s no big deal and barely noticeable.

Shot of the fender – super clean.

And one more shot of the main piece – which is quite the eye catcher. Love it or hate it, it’s another one of my favourite little additions to the car this year that is rather inexpensive.

Thanks again to Bill for putting these together for us! Can’t wait to see it on JC and Punit’s cars!

Techstreaming the LS

Finally a somewhat relevant post. One thing that you’ll notice is that as spring approaches, everybody is getting really tired of not scratching that itch of modding their cars. People will start putting on little pieces here and there or playing around with something just to alleviate it a bit, and that’s when I usually have something to post because I am also guilty of it.

A few weeks ago, JC was telling me about this techstream tool that is used as a diagnostic tool and to change certain things with the onboard ECU’s… I was stoked to try because I wanted to try and get rid of the warning lights from removing my stock air suspension. It was pretty damn cold yesterday but we did it anyway… -30C with the windchill and all of us were just wearing sweaters. Must be a Canadian thing…

JC and Punit showed up

Here is a clusterfuck of warning lights. Note: not all of them are always on… This was just cause I didn’t start the car fully. However, you can see the top 3 orange/yellow lights on the left. Those are the annoying ones…

Plugged the USB in and started up the comp. “Danger to manifold!!!” haha

Here is the software all started up. Detecting the car.

You choose your model and such…

All the different types of ECU’s in the LS. There was about 60 altogether.

And a shot of changing some of the options. This is kind of the post-killer mainly because we didn’t really solve anything other than disable the warning beep for driving without your seatbelt. We did try to clear the codes for the air suspension and TPMS but to no avail. I was hoping it could just clear and go away, but I suppose the car is smarter than our way of thinking…

We didn’t care to spend anymore time to figure out what else it could do cause it was freezing in the car… Ah well, back to warning lights I guess.

Lexus Super LS – Black Pearl

This deserves a repost just cause it’s so effing crazy. Most of you probably aren’t following the VIP scene if you aren’t really into it and if you aren’t really into it, you probably won’t care much for this. Japan is just stepping it up and just going all out. This particular style probably won’t satisfy everyone’s taste, but you have to give Black Pearl props for doing something like this on the new gen LS. Their bodykits are pretty wild, but creating kits that incorporate the just about every piece of the car is insane.

I personally LOVE the look of this and would rock the F out of this. The only thing I would change are the wheels, but everything else is awesome… What do you guys think?

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The familiar Black Pearl front end with some minor adjustments. Front fascia just looks like an angry bulldog almost. I love that they’ve kept the spindle grill look… I don’t get why people hate it so much.
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Crazy rear quarter – all molded.. no bolt on.1010979_508471389269546_368007385_n

Again, the familiar rear bumper with the quarters molded in.1601023_508469292603089_1683052038_n

Probably the craziest part of this LS is the whole molded door and quarter. Reminiscent of the Audi R8… But retains the Black Pearl side skirts.1618644_508063795976972_498325161_n

Check out that hood. Loving the incorporation of hood vents with the VIP style lately. Some are even adding subtle hood modifications like the “M3 hump”.1619181_508459119270773_731391005_n

Wild fender also flowing onto the door.1780807_508469325936419_999605101_n

The best thing about all of this is how well this all fits. 1907612_508470255936326_1756898991_n

My favourite shot is the side profile. It completely changes the look of the LS – from a subtle, elegant luxury sedan to an almost GT-inspired big body race car.

Too good. Also too much money. Which reminds me… I don’t have money for my car anymore. OR EVER. T_T