IS300 - New car, first mods and disabling the VSC
After the recent death of my 98 Honda integra at Sydney Motorsport park I was left between a rock and a hard place, with less than a week until I started my new job, I started hunting for something a little more reliable but still fun enough to keep me satisfied.
Enter the IS300. Picked up for $4500 Aud with 178k km from a school teacher in Sydney and powered by a naturally aspirated 2jzge it was the perfect mix of fun and daily drive. It wasn’t the cleanest but its mostly just small cosmetic things you would usually expect, for a now 16 year old car. Being a Platinum trim level it has all the interior goods like heated seats, sunroof and GPS, Xenon headlights and sports muffler were also included in the package.Sadly the AUDM IS300 only came with the auto box but for mostly work travel that was fine with me.
Quickly I learned both how much fun RWD could be and was frustrated with the factory Vehicle Skid Control (VSC) which was optional on these models. The oem radio was also less than desirable so one week into its ownership I had installed my old pioneer nav unit with an Aerpro facia kit and wired up a switch for the VSC to toggle, it as the TRC off button only did half the job,
As seen above is the result when the button is pressed. VSC and TRC lights are illuminated on the dash cluster, from what I’ve found the switch can be thrown while driving without issue but requires the line to be restored or switch turned off and the ignition cycled to reset the VSC and TRC lights. Normally I just flick the switch and park the car up so next time the lights are off.
RHD Drive is300 Drivers side fuse box in the kickpanel
From a bit of internet snooping I found a kinda helpful forum post detailing the method for LHD cars. The problem is the wiring is different from LHD to RHD. Someone had figured out the wiring for RHD on another forum post but had lost the images I needed and provided conflicting info without confirmation of what worked. I ended up snipping a few wires but from what I found is that the 12pin plug on on the drivers side for RHD closest to the drivers door was the correct plug. The post mentioned white with black trace but there were multiple wires. It ended up being the 3rd from the right in the bottom row as pictured above. I found that unplugging this plug did not trigger any codes or cause any issues however it did take power away from the head unit and the car made an audible buzzing sound like the security had come on but nothing further happened I guess do so at your own risk. I simply chopped this wire and crimped on a bullet connector onto each side, then ran each side to the switch. Open circuit the vsc is off, closed circuit and then cycling ignition returns the vsc and trc.