I'll post more on the museum itself on my R33 GT-R page later, but wanted to include some photos that just came out right!
Yamanashi and Nagano Prefectures are VERY green this time of year, and with a bit of rainfall the scenery was even more interesting (check out the clouds) and pretty. Bonus was all the fresh air...
Found a neat bridge with red railings. Had to stop and take some photos!
Found a look out point a few kms later...
Here was the view... the kind of green I don't see in Yokohama!
Another nice bridge
Still think the carbon lip really balances the car...
Towards the end of the day, found this road...
Had some fun on a gravel road....
Got out to check it out and what a great picture here
Of course this will need a wash....
Anyway it's been a while since I drove this car so much (over 450km in one day) and this blog also needed an update.
Thanks to both sources for the photos of the OEM parking lights - I forgot to take photos of my own car, so have to borrow these photos.
Anyway, as the mechanics replaced the burnt out turn signal bulb, they went ahead and installed these:
So 5000K whiteness, and 110LM.
I chose these bulbs because of their high lumen capacity, and also because 5000K is probably similar to the kind of whiteness we now see on modern car's lighting.
The result:
At the dealership, I couldn't contain my excitement. Excuse the lens flare!
Because of the flare, I decided to try again at home:
This time better. Amazing how bright those little LEDs are, except in this photo it's hard to tell anything other than the whiteness
The actual brightness, compared to the other bulbs on the car, is as above. I guess here the brightness of the foglights serve as the primary lightsource for the iPhone camera. Because:
With the foglights off. No, the LEDs aren't any brighter, it's just the way the light affects the iPhone camera.
In any case - the white parking light, adds a modern touch to the car. The only thing left to finish it off would be LED foglights. And of course, I'm already planning for this. Except, I wonder if there is a way to deal with the orange-ish high beams first?
So I was really eager to pick the car up! And not just because of the "new" wheels...
So in addition to getting "clean new" wheels put onto the car, I decided to use this opportunity to resolve another issue, one that had been bothering me ever since I bought the car.
WHAT IS THIS BLANK SWITCH??
Why did Lexus do this? I mean, since this car was equipped with all of the options, should they not design cars to use up all available switch space?
So I found on eBay this "Rupse TPMS for Toyota." I was naive in that I thought that all Toyota switches were standardized, but more on that later.
First, I had Ninomiya-san contact a tire fitter who took the tires off the wheels, and install the sensors. He then hooked up the display unit in the car.
I'm happy to report that, for about $100, the electronics appear to work perfectly. Not only do I get fairly accurate tire pressure readings (off by 0.1 bar according to Ninomiya-san), but also the temperature in Celsius! Very cool.
The problem, as I alluded to above, and you can see in this photo, was that the display size is 34mm x 23.5mm. The blank switch, however, if 40mm x 22mm. So while it holds itself in place, there is a noticeable gap on top and bottom.
After some research it appears that these dimensions are the size for Honda switches. Figured it was too good to be true. But not all is lost. I've already figured out a way to, at very least, make this look better... I think.
In any case, and more importantly, the car looks fantastic now with the "new" wheels.
Amazing how NO curb rash improves the looks!
Even two Italians (Dino and Ennio) thought so:
Ennio was in town, helping Dino get his BNR34 ready for the annual GT-R Magazine meeting
In any case, I also had Ninomiya-san install ONE MORE ITEM. And this one is AMAZING. Check back for my report on that!
When the car was delivered to me, the salesman, Aoki-san, mentioned in a soft voice to me that "for a small fee we can do the Navi/TV workaround..." He explained of course that, as the OEM Navigation and digital TV do not allow for inputs/TV viewing while the car is in motion, that there are aftermarket kits available to handle this. The installation of this kit, however, falls into a "grey zone"- that is, a Lexus dealership shouldn't really be advocating such a work around for obvious reasons.
Of course, the solution is to say that, this aftermarket convenience feature was being added in order to allow the front seat PASSENGER to make such adjustments while the driver remains focused on driving. Of course.
In any case, I did some Internet research and found that there are several kits available, with various pricing, all purporting to do the same thing. However, some kits apparently worked better than others, based on reviews by users and purchasers. Beat-Sonic sells than, and even Toyota tuner TOM's has a product. To be honest, it rapidly became too confusing to determine which brand would work without any problems.
So, at this point I gave up and decided to go the dealership route, as presumably they had installed a bunch and would know which ones work best with the IS F.
By sheer coincidence, when closely inspecting my car a few days before visiting the dealership, I found this on the plastic next to the driver's left knee:
My first clue that the previous owners had aftermarket items on the car!
Remember the shape of the curved portion next to the white tape residue...
Given its location, my guess was that there was something, likely a switch, attached by double sided tape to this area. It would likely be a switch because it is too low for anything visual to be mounted, and so far in my research on popular add-ons to this car in Japan, I've only seen the electronic throttle controller, radar detectors, and yes the OEM navigation/TV "jumper" kits.
So when I visited the dealership on Saturday, they showed me which kit they use for the navi/TV jumper kit:
Interestingly, this is not a brand that I found during my searches, so I'm hoping this works better than the others out there which had mediocre reviews. Ishikawa-san explained to me that essentially all these kits work the same (which results in the GPS signal being temporarily lost while the Navi is used), however what is good about this kit is that it has two buttons (versus the one button for the TOM's kit) which allows separate overriding of the Navi and TV, versus having to scroll through options that a single button setup requires).
Now when, after the fact, I researched this product, I found that they actually had a model which used an OEM type switch, which eliminates the need for this kind of button switch, and of course looks OEM.
Initially I was annoyed, but then when I viewed the videos on its use, I realized that the two type, red and green button was much easier to use, even though yes the OEM type switch looks better.
So, I guess I'll have to figure out another use for this blanked off switch (and yes, the "blankness" really bothers me, especially given that this car had all the JDM options):
Center switch is to heat the windshield to melt any snow on the wipers (Part of the cold climate region package)
Any ideas? Something that looks OEM...Actually I don't really need that coin tray either, huh.
And by the way here is where I ended up having them install the two button switch.
Surprise surprise almost in the same identical spot...
So given its location, and the shape of the switch (as extrapolated from the first photo) I'm guessing the prior owner also had the same kit installed...(and this means that Lexus just made a few more bucks off me...lol)
Incidentally as I said my good-byes after having ordered a few optional extras, Ishikawa-san slipped me the TRD ISF parts catalog....
