Dirty Koala
SILVER Star
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This is going to be a more of a lightly documented build than my Cummins build thread, but I promise to include lots of pics. I have had this 97 LX450 for about 18 months now, and figured it’s time to document some of the changes I have made.
I bought the LX sight unseen from a Mud member up in Boise and had it delivered to my office in SLC while I was still living in NJ. I had to have it as it was bone stock with 170k miles, carefully maintained and documented, triple locked, clean body and frame...paint isn’t perfect though. But the primary driver in the sight unseen purchase was the freshly installed (less than 8k miles) supercharger.
Over the next year before actually moving to UT I Was travelling A LOT and spent some of my down time ordering parts $$$ and turning wrenches.
I will try to dig up some original pics from when I bought it...but you know bone stock.
The Champagne 1B1 color is my favorite 80 series color...followed up by the Desert Dune / Moonglow pearl that I used to have.
I started the mods by throwing a Stage 1 Slinky Suspension from @AutoCraft Aus under her as I have been very impressed with the stage 4 that I have on my Cummins 80. I went with 75mm HD springs whereas I have the EHD under the Cummins. At the time I was thinking this will be more if a daily driver the Super Tourer plans came later.
The 75mm Slinky setup gave plenty of room to toss a set of 17” Icon Alloy Compression wheels and 35” Toyo MT rubbers on....ah looking much better already.
The fresh supercharger makes driving this old beast so much more enjoyable than all my other 1FZ-FE and 3FE 80’s I have had. It obviously doesn’t have the axle snapping torque of the Cummins, but it’s good enough.
When I got bubbles, the front seats were rock hard as usual and mostly immobile. I decided I wanted to replace with something more modern and comfortable this go around, and settled on a set of seats from a 2012 WRX. With the help of my friends @bryson & @ilean we did some Backyard CAD work to design a bolt on set of brackets that to mount the seats in place....my butt appreciates this mod every time I get behind the wheel.
To handle castor correction and prevent bump steer I threw on a set of Radius arms and a rear panhard bracket from @Delta VS...great products and my intro to Dave and Patrick's work. I liked the engineering 1st designs they were putting out So much that I managed to score the 1st production Delta Vehicle Systems Rear bumper. When it was ready I took a drive up to Boise to meet the fellas and get this bad boy installed...this bumper is a game changer. I love it.
.
.
.
This is going to be a more of a lightly documented build than my Cummins build thread, but I promise to include lots of pics. I have had this 97 LX450 for about 18 months now, and figured it’s time to document some of the changes I have made.
I bought the LX sight unseen from a Mud member up in Boise and had it delivered to my office in SLC while I was still living in NJ. I had to have it as it was bone stock with 170k miles, carefully maintained and documented, triple locked, clean body and frame...paint isn’t perfect though. But the primary driver in the sight unseen purchase was the freshly installed (less than 8k miles) supercharger.
Over the next year before actually moving to UT I Was travelling A LOT and spent some of my down time ordering parts $$$ and turning wrenches.
I will try to dig up some original pics from when I bought it...but you know bone stock.
The Champagne 1B1 color is my favorite 80 series color...followed up by the Desert Dune / Moonglow pearl that I used to have.
I started the mods by throwing a Stage 1 Slinky Suspension from @AutoCraft Aus under her as I have been very impressed with the stage 4 that I have on my Cummins 80. I went with 75mm HD springs whereas I have the EHD under the Cummins. At the time I was thinking this will be more if a daily driver the Super Tourer plans came later.
The 75mm Slinky setup gave plenty of room to toss a set of 17” Icon Alloy Compression wheels and 35” Toyo MT rubbers on....ah looking much better already.
The fresh supercharger makes driving this old beast so much more enjoyable than all my other 1FZ-FE and 3FE 80’s I have had. It obviously doesn’t have the axle snapping torque of the Cummins, but it’s good enough.
When I got bubbles, the front seats were rock hard as usual and mostly immobile. I decided I wanted to replace with something more modern and comfortable this go around, and settled on a set of seats from a 2012 WRX. With the help of my friends @bryson & @ilean we did some Backyard CAD work to design a bolt on set of brackets that to mount the seats in place....my butt appreciates this mod every time I get behind the wheel.
To handle castor correction and prevent bump steer I threw on a set of Radius arms and a rear panhard bracket from @Delta VS...great products and my intro to Dave and Patrick's work. I liked the engineering 1st designs they were putting out So much that I managed to score the 1st production Delta Vehicle Systems Rear bumper. When it was ready I took a drive up to Boise to meet the fellas and get this bad boy installed...this bumper is a game changer. I love it.
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