Ray Ramirez just might be the most unusual tuner in the game. And sure, a 35-year-old New York City transplant living in Orlando, FL, who once analyzed The Fast and the Furious to the point of memorizing the script, is left of center. But the father, husband and owner of this Lexus IS300 fits in perfectly with a new generation of enthusiasts who are discovering that modifying cars is more than just buying random parts-it's a form of art, a vehicular sculpture. Ray embodies import tuning's "everyman." Do a cross-reference of tuners today, and chances are you'll find someone who has no dreams of purchasing discount parts, strives to be more original than the next guy, and lusts after the next freshest thing to come out of Japan.
It took Ray quite awhile to get to this point, however. It all started in high school, when his friends began street racing their Toyota Corollas and Datsun 510s. He enjoyed the competition and was impressed by his friends' passions for racing, but he wasn't hooked just yet. It was several years later, when PlayStation launched Gran Turismo, that Ray was bit with the tuning bug, and it all culminated into an all-out fixation when he set his eyes on the first Fast and the Furious movie.
He was driving a Mitsubishi Galant at the time and decided he would invest into the little four-cylinder. He started modifying the Galant with whatever was available for it and was inspired to finish the car by his older brother, who was modifying his Toyota Supra. A sibling rivalry began and Ray was forced to watch his brother compete at Supra meets. It was at these meets that Ray began developing a respect for Toyota's signature engine, the 2JZGTE.
When Lexus came out with the IS300, and Ray learned it would come with a version of the 2JZ, it became a match made in heaven. He didn't want to get the same car as his brother, and fell in love with the IS300 as soon as he saw it. He scrapped the Galant, went to a Lexus dealership and purchased an IS300.
Naturally, he didn't want to heavily modify the car because it was intended to be his daily driver. But once he started with the minor mods, went to a few shows and saw some friends roll out heavily modified IS300s, Ray couldn't help but start molding his. The only condition was to make it original and treat it like a piece of artwork. It was important for Ray to modify with only the best parts; he didn't want to make the same mistakes he did with the Galant, and wanted to treat the IS300 with the utmost respect.
"I always loved the look of the Lexus IS300 body style. The shape of the headlights and hood just looked mean in a JDM way," he explained.
Reshaping the body was one of his first major modifications. He couldn't decide on one specific component manufacturer to go with, so he did the next best thing: he incorporated the best of the kits he liked and put them together to make a seamless and original work. The front bumper is from Vertex, the side skirts are from Wald, and he added an L-Tuned skirt to the OEM rear bumper. To top it off, a Rod Millen wing was added, making the already mean-looking IS300 downright sinister.
Under the hood, Ray didn't want to leave the 2JZ naturally aspirated, so he installed a Garrett T67 turbocharger with a Tial 50mm blow-off valve and custom mandrel-bent intercooler pipes. During his first testdrive with the newly modded car, he was so overwhelmed by its power that he almost slid it into a ditch. He soon added a Blitz SBCi-D to control the boost and modified the rest of the internals to compensate for the sudden change in output-verified to be an estimated 454 hp at the rear wheels.