2002 Lexus IS300 - Street Car

Some philosophical jackass once said the only sure things in life are death and taxes. And he's right, just a little shortsighted. We'd like to add Toyota's 2JZ-GE to the list.

The 2JZ-GE and its twin-turbocharged alter ego are some of the strongest engines ever engineered. Most recognized for powering the naturally aspirated Supra, over the years, the 2JZ-GE has pulled duty in a few other chassis. One of them is the Lexus IS300.

Back in 2000, Irvine, Calif., resident Jeremy Sakioka got tired of driving a Chevy extended cab. He wanted something compact, sporty and rear-wheel drive. He purchased a new IS300.

At the time, the platform was new and there were no manually equipped models available, so he settled for an automatic. Soon after the purchase, he took the car to a track event at the Streets of Willow hosted by SpeedTrialUSA. He says he had a blast, but it became evident the Lexus would need more power and a stiffer suspension to be truly competitive on the track. So he ordered a supercharger system from Swift Racing Technologies (SRT) in Maryland and started keeping an eye out for the UPS man.

Then disaster struck.

Sakioka was driving in a local canyon and became stuck behind a hostile motorist who was hell-bent on keeping the Lexus behind him.

"He kept speeding up and slowing down, wouldn't let me pass," he says. "I pulled around him on a bad curve and saw headlights coming at me. I decided to take it off the road rather than hit someone head-on."

He ended up at the bottom of a 40-foot ravine. Amazingly, Sakioka was unhurt, but the IS300 was totaled. With the insurance proceeds, Sakioka purchased a newer version of the same car, but this time he made sure he got the manual transmission he couldn't get the first time around.

When the blower kit arrived, comprising of a centrifugal-style blower, bigger injectors, front-mount intercooler and piping and a piggyback fuel management computer, Sakioka wasted no time installing the upgrades and ripping off dyno pulls. To his great disappointment, the kit was only good for about 60-70 hp more than the stock numbers. "On the dyno, the car pulled 240 hp," Sakioka recalls.

The next day he called SRT to ask why he was coming up roughly 60 horses short of his target number. SRT offered to upgrade the supercharger system from its current Stage 2 configuration to a Stage 3. It sent Sakioka a rebuilt blower unit, a smaller pulley to up the boost, a new intercooler core and another piggyback control unit.

With the Stage 3 kit installed, Sakioka put the car back on the dyno, where the wheels now turned 263 hp. Still disappointed, Sakioka got back on the phone. The technicians at SRT scratched their heads and recommended he go with a turbo for the big power gains he was seeking. And as luck would have it, they'd just finished R&D on a new turbo kit for the application. Once the turbo kit was installed, Sakioka says according to his butt-dyno, the car immediately felt more like the 300 hp he was hoping for.

But he still wasn't happy. Because of its location on the topside of the exhaust manifold, the turbo was cooking the ABS lines and battery under hard driving.

Again, Sakioka got on the phone and told SRT about his problems with the turbocharger. SRT stood behind its product, and sent him a new, redesigned manifold that placed the turbo lower in the engine bay, beneath the manifold itself and next to the catalytic converter. This is the setup Sakioka runs today.

Basic hardware includes the ductile iron cast manifold, a Turbonetics T04 turbocharger and Turbonetics Racegate wastegate (about the only thing you can see in the engine bay that tags this car as turbocharged), and 3-inch down- and midpipes crafted from T304 stainless. On the system's cool side, an AFE high-flow cone filter and velocity stack serves as the initial point of induction. Turbo accessories include a Blitz dual-drive blow-off valve and a porky front-mount Spearco intercooler core. Fuel enrichment is provided by GReddy's e-Manage piggyback fuel computer, 440cc RC injectors and a Walbro in-tank fuel pump.

During the course of the project, Sakioka became heavily involved with SRT, but also made some friends at Mackin Industries, a big North American distributor for Tanabe Racing Development. After he saw the Tanabe parts available for the IS300, Sakioka added Tanabe's Racing Medalion exhaust to complete the engine, as well as Tanabe's Pro SS coil-overs and front and rear anti-roll bars to bring the suspension up to spec. The brakes were improved with stock-sized, dimpled and slotted rotors and TRD pads. For wheels and tires, Sakioka chose 17-inch Kosei K1 alloys and Falken Azenis rubber, sized 225/50-17. Mods to the interior are limited to a carbon-fiber Cusco strut tower brace in the trunk and a TRD gauge pod filled with Dfi-Link gauges placed on top of the dashboard.

Today, Sakioka regularly drives the car at weekend track events, mainly road course and drift events hosted by SpeedTrial and Club 4AG, the tuned compact Toyota car club. While he continues to make adjustments to the engine in his quest for ever more power, the turbocharged engine runs as well as it did when he drove it off the dealer lot in naturally aspirated trim.

"It's kind of surprising," Sakioka says. "This car has got a lot of track miles on it. There's always something happening, like [intercooler] couplings coming loose or my cat melting, but the engine runs strong."

Like we said, death, taxes and the 2JZ-GE.

InteriorCusco carbon-fiber rear strut tower brace, TRD gauge pod, Dfi-Link gauges