I have a lot of plans for this car so I figured I'd document my progress.

This is the car pre modification. 157k miles of Central California commuting (and it shows).

 

I changed my brakes and rotors last night and put in Brembo rotors and TRD brake pads.



Those pads were toast!



I didn't get a picture with the calipers on since it's not all that impressive like my LS400 was.

 

My Koni shocks & Struts and Tein S-Tech lowering springs came in today! My preferred suspension setup is a Tein coilover kit but I've been told by multiple vendors that they have no clue when more Street Basis Z coilovers will be available for our platform. I don't normally settle but my suspension needed an overhaul and this should be a great holdover while I wait for some Tein stuff to become available and save up for my dream wheels!



Fronts assembled. My daughter said it looked like I was putting carrots in my car!



Fronts installed. It took forever because I forgot to detach the sway bar lol.



There rear took 15 minutes in contrast.



Looks pretty nice back there!

 

Stock front wheel gap



Stock rear wheel gap



Lowered Front



Lowered Rear



The Tein springs lowered as advertised and took off just over 1.5in of wheel gap front and back. My last two cars were lowered over 3in
but I'm going for more function over form this time around. I'm hopeful my next pics will be with the new wheels installed!

 

Car is off to a decent start. It's so tiny lol.

My $0.02 on your build so far:

Wouldn't say those old pads were toast at all, they probably still had another 20k in them (unless they were squealing already). That said, it's never a bad time for a brake upgrade and the TRD pads are pretty nice.

The S-tech + STR.T combo looks super comfortable, though I hear mixed reviews on the longevity of those shocks. Still thinking about putting this setup on a buddies MS3 who does not like coilovers.

It's not a huge deal if you don't disconnect the sways, just make sure you have both sides of the car in the air so it's unloaded and do the same steps on both sides at the same time if you go that route. Generally easier and faster to disconnect them though, lol.

Also FWIW I had the Basis Z and the noise from them drove me absolutely nuts due to reusing the stock top hats (tried 3 sets of top hats, additional nylon shims, greasing, etc). Definitely spring for the Flex line if you can. That was my first and last time running coils that require reusing of the stock hats. Granted I have a tC2, but it's the same suspension type. The Flex also rides considerably better and the camber adjustment is nice to dial in fitment.

 

It really is amazingly small. It's been a big transition from my LS400 to this. Even my Toyota Matrix dwarfed this thing.

The rotors were pretty badly surface rusted and together with the worn pads they made some gnarly grinding noises on harder stops. I'm sure replacing/resurfacing the rotors would have been just enough...but I love putting new parts on my cars!

This suspension set up is just here until I'm able to snag a Tein coilover kit. I love the ride but I haven't tested it on the foothill roads, yet.

Dude, I couldn't get the knuckle to line up with the shocks to save my life until I disconnected the sway bar. I said a large number of curse words while dealing with it lol.

I loved the Street Basis Z on my Matrix and didn't personally have any issue with squeaks or noise but I did see that as an issue an alarmingly large amount of people wrote about in reviews across the various applications.

Thanks for the feedback! I could see people are looking at the thread but I was wondering if anyone would comment haha.

 

Replaced my destroyed sway bar bushings last night.



I used the Energy Suspension Sway Bar Bushing kit for xA/xB (8.5130R).

 

I forgot to post a pic of how the car sits as of now. This is how it should have looked out of the factory!

 

My wheels came in Monday and I finally had time to get tires mounted and to put them on my car. As you can see, I opted for a set of Enkei RPF1 in a 15x7 +35 and wrapped them in 205/55 Yokohama Advan Fleva tires.

Front View



Rear View

 

Looking good on those wheels, actually.

Now to buff those headlights (BLHM) and remove those pinstripes

 

Thank you! I'm actually going to replace the headlights completely. They have a ton of moisture in them and a couple of cracks. As for the pinstripes, I just need to find the charger to my drill and pickup one of those rubber wheels and I'll take care of it myself.

 

Doing a sweet retrofit on the new lights?

 

That would be pretty cool. I probably won't with this set but they're cheap enough that I may snag a second set to mess around with later.

 

Last mod for the year is done! I went with Depo black headlights.



This is what I was dealing with!



Finished product (I'll get better pictures later)

 

Looks good. I installed the same Energy Suspension Sway Bar Bushings (except I used black instead of red) and the same Koni shocks and struts on my car recently (just put the struts on this week). I'm running my original stock shocks. I have a set of TRD lowering springs which I bought when I first purchased the car new, but decided not to install them just because, while I think lowering the car an inch would look better, I'm afraid the lower ground clearance will result in trashing the front lip on a curb at some point. I also have the TRD Rear Sway Bar and it did make a noticeable difference (at least I feel it did) in the handling. I don't know if those are still available (bought mine when I first purchased the car and got around to installing it 10 years or so later). I am pretty sure those Enkei rims are ones I looked at when I first bought the car. I ended up going with 16 inch Borbet Type S wheels.

I hope you like the car. I think they are very fun. They don't have a ton of power, but they are really fun to drive since they are so light and they handle well. It feels like driving a go kart to me. I have a manual transmission, and I think that adds to the fun.

 

Thank you! I have enjoyed it immensely since I picked it up. Having a manual again has been so much fun. When I was doing research on what suspension set up to get I looked at the TRD springs but I wanted to be lower than an inch. My front bumper does catch when leaving steeper driveways but that's because the plastic bit that bolted to the bottom of the bumper is ripped from the previous owner lol. As for the strut bars, it seems there are a few listed on different sites but I don't know if they're actually in stock. The Enkei RPF1 came out back in 2002 so they probably were! They're such amazing and lightweight wheels! I'll probably end up moving to a bigger size later on but for now I enjoy all of the sidewall of the tires I have mounted.

 

After a busy (and rainy) December I finally got a sunny day to take some pics of the car! It looks so much better without the pinstripes. It needs a wash and some care of the paint badly, though.

 

I installed some DEPO LED parking and turn lights today! Part numbers are BL-SM-LX-IS300-00-F-LED-SA and SM-SC-XB-03-C-BLK-LED-A respectively. Don't mind that it says XB if you decide to get them since they use the same lights.

OEM



DEPO



I don't normally like "murdered out" styling but since the lights are obscured by a black tint I don't mind it!

 

Decided to grab an axle-back exhaust. I went DC Sports rather than Magnaflow because I don't plan to turbo or supercharge the car and so I don't feel like I need a full catback exhaust system.



Comparing new and old. Looks a whole lot nicer, for sure.



Installed and ready to make some noise! Don't worry, I wiped it down before I started the car!



YouTube video of install with sound clip at 5:20.

 

Hey just wanted to say I love watching the progress you're making! I've got a '06 Xa I've had for 7 years and have just started doing small things to pep her up. I really like the headlights you got for your car but it seems like its harder to find '06 compatible ones. Did you end up removing the plate above the old muffler? You mentioned it might rattle later on, wondering if you can update since you've been driving for a bit now. Do you plan to window tint in the future? It'd complement your headlights really well!