IS300 - 86 diff swap and bushes. new front upper arms
Been a while so bunch of stuff to catch up with.
Car has been going good since the repairs to the front end but there was still lots of small things I wanted to change that I kept putting off.
The 3.56 factory IS300 LSD diff ratio was pretty abysmal with the W58 gearing so I sourced a Toyota Gt86 4.1 LSD and did the swap. Swap out the half shafts for your IS300 ones, the 86 front bolts and it goes right in. I got a bum steer trying to get diff bushes and was let to believe gt86 bushes also fit but they’re way too small. Didn’t want to pay the $$$ for the figs superpro’s so I pinched my mates KFD ones he hadn’t installed and we ordered a replacement set, as I was already helping to strengthen his spare subframe. Getting the old front bushes out of the diff was a massive pain but we got there with fire, a drill and a wire wheel. The rear bushes i ended up drilling out the center and then using a chisel to cut the outer ring until I could punch them out. I used whiteline poly front bushes which are put in by hand and then made a pulling tool to fit the KFD rear bushes.
For fluid I use the Nulon squeeze bag 75-85w gl5 with diff additive mostly because I kept having to top it up all the time, had no issues with it so far so will continue to use it.
When I was knocking the half shafts back in I must have knocked the spring off the inside of the axle seal so I had a pretty bad leak for a while. Did a few wetpans and a trackday before I went to the local Toyota dealership to get a replacement. Knocked it in and haven’t had any issue since.
Working on cars is always better when your mates are around to talk shit and mess around with.
Just before the end of 2020 I entered a drift weekend event up at Raleigh raceway up near coffs harbour. Was a super wet weekend which scared off a lot of the other people so we bascially had the track to ourselves. Still didn’t stop me from crashing into a wall and flexing the front end, but I got it mostly straight and drove the 2nd day and then home. Sorted out new panels and got it all painted for Meltdown in feb.
Another thing I didn’t get sorted for ages was my bent rear hub which I did a number on mid 2020. Got a pair of rears off a mate for a good price and swapped it out the same night I replaced the front end.
Another mate of mine who works at Just Jap was able to help me out with some ZSS upper camber arms which ticked another item off the list. Was pretty easy to drop the old oems out and slap these in.
