A while back I picked up a salvage title Lexus IS300 with a quarter of a million miles on it for pretty cheap. It runs good and it's all there for the most part. I've been slowly gathering up parts, buying things and selling things to get it set up the way I want. The car was lowered, which is pretty much the wrong direction for off road use.
I recruited a friend to help and we got working on the car. We took off the coil overs and cranked them up as high as we could. Then I cut a 1" HDPE plastic cutting board into some spacers for the top mounts of them. This gave us a few inches of clearance for $15. Then we went to town with the Sawzall and the grinder and removed a bit of the fenders front and rear. The front wheel well needed some gentle massaging with a BFH in order to get full lock to lock turning.
I had decided on running 14" rims because there was a decent off road tire available and it would keep overall tire diameter lower. This meant that we needed wheel spacers to clear the calipers, which also gave the car a wider stance which looks pretty cool but will likely be hard on all the suspension components. Compromise is a requirement! We installed some cheap fender flares, the rears had to be partially mounted to the rear doors but it looks ok. I got a roof rack at the local Pick-A-Part off an SUV, it needed some modifications to work but it's mounted very solidly.
The front bumper was cut down a bit, I think it makes the car look quite aggressive. I want a roof basket, I had the plastic tub laying around so that's what's going on it for now. The car still needs a skid plate to protect the oil pan. Other than that, it's about ready to go. I have lots of other things I'd like to do, but mostly just fun/cosmetic stuff like paint and lights, etc.
Let me know what you think. There might be a local event soon, I'm looking forward to having fun, meeting cool people and helping clean the environment.