scion

FS: 2014 Scion FR-S – Own The Black Swan

/ jasonhoang / Leave a comment

My first post of 2019 and it’s to sell my 2014 Scion FR-S…

39,285 KM
Asking price: $31,000. Pretty firm but willing to negotiate if you’re serious. No part out – I am selling as a whole with everything you see and that’s listed – including all stock parts if you ever wanted to revert it back.

Reason for selling: Another kid is on the way and as much as I love what this car has become, it’s not something I can enjoy enough to make it worth keeping and it would be a waste to just have it sit in my garage rather than let someone else enjoy it as I have.

Mod List:

Wheels/Suspension
ST Coilovers
Cusco Rear Control Arms
Volk TE37SL powder coated in gloss black with OG TE37 stickers
Brembo GT Big Brake kit painted yellow
Brembo Slotted Discs
Brembo Front Brake Pads
Endless RF-650 Brake Fluid
Project Mu rear brake pads
TiBurnt Titanium Valve Stem Caps
Project Mu Lug Nuts
Michelin Pilot Super Sport Tires

Engine
T1R Power Header
T1R Dual Sparrow 70mm
T1R Overpipe

Interior
Recaro RS-G bucket seat with black Kamui fabric
Bride Rails
WC Lathewerks Titanium Sphere Shiftknob
WORKS Bell Short Hub
Vertex USA KING of VERTEX Steering Wheel
Gold Vertex Horn Button
TiBurnt Titanium Steering wheel bolts
OEM Black Toyota button set
OEM JDM frameless rear view mirror

Exterior
Voltex Type 7 Swan Neck GT Wing – 1700mm
Titanium bolts for GT wing
Arise Sport Body Kit (Bumper and Side Skirts)
AJRC OEM-type Rear Diffuser
Craft Square Carbon GT Mirrors
TiBurnt Titanium Washer and Bolts for Craft Square Mirrors
TRD Carbon Fiber Fender Fins
TOM’S USDM LED Tail Lights (All Red)
RS1.0/GT86 Headlight conversion with DRL mod and OEM HID’s
OEM JDM Toyota Badges
OEM JDM Clear sidemarkers
Beat Sonic Shark Fin Antenna
TiBurnt License Plate Bolts
Philips License Plate LED’s
Philips Interior LED’s
Reverse Cree LED’s

Some basic info: I bought the car new from South Pointe Toyota and I am the only owner. The car has been babied it’s whole life and only ever driven in the summer. It’s never been on the track (sadly) but that’s where you come in! The engine bay has pretty much been left alone with the exception of the exhaust components. The interior is more or less mint – the carpets are in pristine condition and is shampooed and vacuumed at least once a month during the summer.

The paint condition of the car has been kept up in the best way that I know how – polished, sealed and waxed several times during summer. You won’t see swirls on this black paint if I had anything to do with it. The car gets an oil change every 5000km at Balance Auto Garage with OEM Toyota Synthetic Oil and if it doesn’t hit 5000km before I park it for winter, it gets one after I wake it up the next summer. Both keys are in good working order.

The car – in my opinion – is extremely fun to drive. It’s balanced and feels planted – there’s no rubbing and has almost the perfect setup to drive aggressively without breaking or scraping anything.

The cons: The passenger side sidemarker is loose – a common issue on the first gen FR-S/BR-Z and I’ve done my best to keep it intact. The trunk is the OEM trunk – this is the only piece that you’d either have to get new or re-weld and re-paint if you decide to take the wing off. The sideskirts have some spider-webbing cracks along the bottom but generally not too noticeable.

As stated above – the price is pretty firm and I’m generally open for serious buyers to come see it. No test drives during the winter though for obvious reasons. I know you will have seen/heard this a lot but please only reach out if you’re serious about buying this as a whole and truly want to own a car like this. I will not part the car out and you will need another car to bring all the stock parts home. This includes stock wheels/tires, bumper, headlights, exhaust components, seat, brakes, etc. If you have all the cash in hand, you can drive it or trailer it home whenever you want. I’ve thought about the price for a long time and I think it’s fair given the quality and the price of these parts if you were to build it all from scratch using a used, stock FR-S. I’m not looking to make extra coin on this – simply wanting a good deal for both the buyer and myself. Drive away with a car you literally need to do nothing on or make it better than what I’ve done.

Sunset Shenanigans

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A few days ago, Mike messaged me and said he wanted to do some video. I’d be crazy to turn down the opportunity to get my car shot – mainly because I’m tired of shooting my own car and I’m always the one doing the shooting…

But of course, as soon as Mike started shooting that night, I couldn’t help but bust my camera out and start shooting too LOL. I just ended up getting some behind the scenes shots and random shots here and there for some content… We still have another session planned for more video so hopefully we’ll start to see some video teasers sooner or later. He had the stills he took from his drone done the same night – that’s my kind of man. Puts in work and works quick!

Anyway – when Mike is done the video, I’ll be posting it up here for sure! I know Ricky is also working on video footage of my car so I’ll have 2 videos in 1 year! I have cool friends.

We headed out to the industrial area in Balzac again because that was one of the areas where Mike could fly his drone and not be in the ‘no fly zone’.

Mike working his magic with the gimbal. I want one so bad after seeing him use his…

We were chatting most of the time about how he puts it to use but I was turned off by the idea that something like that was over $1000 LOL. I just want it for rollers!!!

While Mike was setting up for other angles, I took some quick snaps…

I just find myself so unmotivated lately – especially when I look at my car through the lens. Don’t get me wrong, I love my car… I’m just tired of taking pictures of it and I can’t seem to find an angle that I haven’t shot before or one that I haven’t seen…

Mike busted out his skateboard as well for some shots… lol cool

Just more random shots of Mike taking random shots LOL

By the time we ended, the sun had gone down a fair bit in a short amount of time, but on the way out – there was a nice spot next to a  big body of water that looked amazing with this light. The water reflecting off the water made for a great backdrop.

Too much vignetting? Maybe. I’m trying different things… Oh well…

Out for a Quick Run

/ jasonhoang / 2 Comments

On Saturday, I decided to take the FRS out for a quick leg stretch and to also break in the Brembo brakes. (See how I spelled the two words properly? Lots of people don’t lol). I initially didn’t want to take it out until I gave it a full detail and cleaned up some minor things but the weather was perfect and I couldn’t wait! I still have to a full detail and clean up the paint, put the TiBurnt valve stem caps on, replace the worn out level one sticker, and clean the tires and remove the browning. Right now the car is a mess – it’s just dusty and looks like it sat in a garage for 6 months lol.

Forgive me – I “think” I’m having some technical issues with my camera, or colour profiles and I have yet to figure out how to calibrate it all. When I edit these photos on my computer, they look perfect. However, when I get them onto my phone or a different monitor, they’re really dark and unpleasing to look at – or at least that’s what I see. I’m betting that you’re also seeing a fairly dark photo as well – and I promise you, that’s not how I intended it to be. I just didn’t want to hold off on the photos because then it just gets to be old news. Anyway, aside from the technical issue – it was just a quick drive off to some warehouses to get some sunset pics and show off the new set up as best I could. I’ve pretty much gotten comfortable with shooting people with the new camera set up, but shooting cars is a whole new ball game for me right now. I’m rusty as hell and at the time of shooting this, I couldn’t even figure out exposure lock – something I took for granted on my Canon 7D. It wasn’t until later that night after getting home that I finally figured it out… So I’ll go back out and try again sometime soon.

Anyway – just a few quick pics!

What wheels are those? Steelies?! damn it.

It helped a bit more when I was facing the sunset – but barely…

One thing I am finding is that the 35 f1.4 is an AMAZING portrait lens. This thing is a beast when taking pictures of people and things. But it’s a little more difficult with cars. I’m used to either using my 10-20 to get a nice wide perspective or my 135 f2.0 to get a nice distant shot. But with the 35, I’m trying to find the sweet spot and I’m not sure I’ve found it yet…

One last shot before going back home and after working the brakes for a bit. I’m lucky that I’ve got dead roads near home where I can just test the brakes and break them in properly with no issue. God, they just bite like crazy compared to stock brakes – to be expected – but when you actually use them, they’re amazing. They’re also loud as hell though cause of the pads that came with them – everyone around me thinks my car is broken haha.

Here’s where the 35mm shines. Close quarters where you want details of one main thing and everything else around it to be blurred out.

I miss this view… Thank god summer is finally here.

The Death of the Black Swan; Enter Bumblebee

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The day I’ve been waiting for months finally came. If you recall my previous post about actually getting the Brembo’s, you’ll know that I ordered it at the end of January and didn’t end up getting them for almost 2 months after. Even after getting them, I couldn’t put them on because of the shitty weather we’re having. As I type this, we are under a snowfall warning and expecting 10-20cm of snow – WTF – it’s the middle of April for Pete’s sake!

Whatever, I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about our century-long winter so let’s just talk about the exciting stuff. This last weekend ended up showing us a bit of mercy and we had +10C weather – nice enough for us to stay in the garage and wrench on the cars. Punit and JC came over and helped me swap out the brakes and flush the lines. You know when you have those projects/installs that should really only take an hour but one small thing goes wrong and it takes you like 3? It happens to us every time…

Anyway, I’ll talk about it as we go… On to the pics!


The Brembos all ready to go.


You (background) vs the guy she told you not to worry about (foreground). lol


We got started right away by removing the original brake line. This was the first part that really should’ve taken like 1 minute. The brake line was caked in gunk and seized a bit so when we took the 10mm wrench to it, it sort of rounded off the nut. We ended up taking two vice grips to latch on and turn. Cue the “That Was Easy” button press.


The weapons…


Removing the brake line bracket


Punit installing the Brembo caliper bracket to allow the caliper to mount properly.


Shot of the bracket on!



The dust shields were removed – they’re not needed nor will they fit with the new brakes. You can see the new rotor to the right as well.


The stock rotor came off with a bit of hammering and the new one slid on like a glove. We put some lug nuts on to keep it in place while we installed the caliper.


Shot of it all complete!


Another shot of the finished product.


The stock calipers and rotors

Next problem was that the TE’s didn’t clear the calipers. It rubbed just barely on a part of the brakes. So who you gonna call? Zokusha Tuning!

As soon as we realized spacers were needed, I slid into Eric’s DM and he met me within half an hour to give me these 5mm spacers. The one good thing about this over shops or online sites is that if they want to be, they could be open all day, every day. Where would I get parts on a Sunday afternoon otherwise? Thanks to Eric @ Zokusha Tuning for the quick service! Life saver!


We popped the spacers on and then the wheel – perfect! The next hard part was getting the car back on the ground without getting the jack stuck or wrecking the bumper on the wood lol.


I am SO digging the look though.


The next few shots are just of the car outside. I didn’t think I’d hate it as much as I have been saying it, but I really hate taking pictures of black cars with black wheels. I did a quick edit on this because I had no polarizer and it was just bright as hell outside so everything was either overexposed or underexposed.


And another…



One more…

Front quarter shot you might have seen on the Gram…

A bit closer…

Unfortunately, back in the garage. 😦

One last one before closing the garage and heading in. I suppose it’s OK – I’ve still got a little work to do before taking out. It’s been a while since I’ve done a full detail on the car, so I think I’m going to take a full day and give it a spa day.

I need to clay bar it, give it a 2-stage polish, seal and wax it up. I want to give the front bumper a little TLC – the grill is all chipped up from last year and I need to touch it up. I’m hoping some polish will get rid of a lot of the spots from a lot of the grime it’s picked up from driving. I’m going to be a bit more patient this year and wait until most of the rocks are gone. The combination of being a black car and being low is terrible for catching everything off the road. More pics soon!