Performance Chip +20bhp ?

[MacRS200]

This is the problem with my above advice,and i suppose thats why so many IS200's are being modded.Now for the other side of the argument,the IS200 is a great car and although ive just sold my supercharger,after thinking long and hard ive decided not to sell the car,ill keep it std as it's a beautiful car with every single convenience in a luxurious environment.If you are talking about keeping an IS200 as well as spending £6k on a performance car then thats a smart idea in my book,but to sell the IS200 for a performance car could be argued as a foolish idea,considering that with a budget of £6k you'll be looking at subaru impreza's/old evo's,which isnt bad in the performance dept,but in the looks and class dept the subaru impreza has one of the worst interiors on the road today,and it defo aint a beautiful car like the IS200,so there are two major reasons not to do a swap like that.On the other hand if you stretched your buget to an extra £1k there are Civic Type R's available at £7k and they arent too bad on the looks front and the car is a fast hot hatch with great handling and a smart interior.Its certainly not easy deciding on what to do,cos there are quite a few peformance cars to choose from,but they arent the most luxurious places to be on a daily basis.If you go German you can get an awesome machine like an Audi S4 on a 2000 plate with 70k on the clock those are 270hp std,very quick or earlier S3's can be picked up at your budget price,both these cars can be easyily modded especially the S4 cos its a V6 Bi-Turbo,there are folks on PH running these cars with 350hp after spending £3/4k.Modding an IS200 to 270hp,will cost about the same or more than buying the Audi S4 at £7k.The only other reason to be cautious when modding an IS200 is insurance costs,as some of us know modding a car can have a serious effect on your premium and can work out extremely expensive if youre young and or have points/claims etc.BTW are you thinkin of buying a car and running it alongside the IS,or are you looking to sell the IS for a performance car?

Don't want to be rude, I am sure there is a load of good info in the above..............but it's like aperitifs, starters, soup, fish course, main course, dessert, coffee, after eights and brandy all in the one bucket.

[Dan_]

Thanks for the informative reply. In response to your question i am thinking of selling the is200 but i dunno sometimes i think nah then other times i do think yeah i wana get rid of it. Another thing is i don't want to get too fast a car that i cant get insured on as im 24 just now, so even if i do get a fast performance car i might wait till next year when i turn 25 perhaps. Was just wanting to see what i could get for that budget anyway as nothing much will change by then. I dont think i will ever get insured on a 270bhp car like that audi s4 u mentioned. But you are right abt the is200 the interior an everything is nice, even the standard stereo is really gud everyone asks me if ive got a system fitted in the car?! an im like nah standard. The only thing i dont like abt the is200 is the lack of just that extra lil bit of performance it cud do but then again im not going to go thru the hassle of all the induction kits etc coz i wudnt want problems again as u sed i wud rather buy something that came out the factory already preset for that xtra lil touch. Hate subaru's im sure they r fast but they look stinking. Old evo's hmm im not too sure wot they look like, will need to chek out autotrader an see. Rsarin, i really appreciate ur advice and info, thanks. U had the supercharger , can i ask why did u sell that? isnt that supposed to be less problems or was it the turbo charger that was less problems, i cant even remember now :-P

[Rsarin]

Hi Dan,mac is right in a way,my advice is fairly non committal,and im jumping from one point to another,so it isnt really conclusive in any way for your particular situation.I think mods like zorst/induction/anti roll bars/coilovers etc are safe to do and are the best mods a person can and should do to any car,i still have two of the above mods on my IS presently,the plus sides are they obviously make it handle better and give you a better throttle response,but going back to my original point it isnt gonna make it a different animal,it will still be a luxury car that just handles a bit better.Adding a S/C to the car is probably the right mod for you though, as it seems you just want a little extra power, and it would certainly give it a nice kick, a 50hp kick to be exact,without the hassles of turbo's which are unquestionably very expensive.Id buy a used S/C approx £1.7-2k.

In answer to your question the reason i sold the S/C was cos the IS wasnt being used all that much these last few months and cos id got bored with the power,i just started driving my M3 everywhere.The reason i was advising not to do turbo's or superchargers was basically cos id learnt over time with my S/C IS that although it was now a lot nippier it still didnt have what it takes to realistically handle like a car that has been built with performance in mind.me and a friend did a few tests with a few cars on a peice of private land his father owns,we had a seat cupra,IS200 S/c,Sti PPP,E46 M3,/renault sport 225 cup and a tvr sagaris,but that was just in a different leauge,so we left that guy well alone,did you know thats a 0-60 3.4 secs?we were basically doing lots of different tests on the cars,we could only do them with two cars at a time cos we only had three drivers that were willing to actually do the driving(one camera car) and only about a mile and half of narrow road with about 2/3 of a mile being straight with a sharp long right hand bend which turns into a straight again and then on to the end of the road,where a driveway abruptly starts.We did acceleration tests up the 2/3 of a mile straight,braking tests from 80mph,races to and from the start of the road, through the sweeping right bend and onto the end of his driveway.There were measurements being made by a driftbox which circulated between the cars,other than that no other measurements just direct comparisons.I wont bother talking about the Sti/m3 as they are neither here nor there .The cars that i was pitching against were the cupra and the 225,there was a GTI there but it was brand new and the owner didnt fancy abusing it on its 1st birthday.Basically on the acceleration test the IS was caned,only by a car length and a half,but still out accelerated.On the test between the cupra and the sweeping bend,the IS just didnt feel good at all and i was backing off when the cupra was accelerating and he never had to touch his brakes,i did.On the brake test the IS did better than the cupra although the renault caned us both,the IS has uprated pads/hoses etc so thats probably why it faired ok.Basically after drving all the cars quite hard and my friend and his father testing the IS also,we concluded that it wasnt really up to the job,the cupra and 225 handled perfectly,lots of info when driving and you can feel where the limits of the car are and play safely within them,in the IS all the people who drove it hard upto the right bend and in(doing about 70ish)described that the car just felt as if it was telling you nothing,no info etc and thats why the driver had to back off, where the other cars were still accelerating (and before anyone goes on about the fact its an auto box)RS6's have auto's and the new EVO is being fitted with one,and those cars are the most informative drive of your life,you could do 120mph in those cars through that bend.So to cut a long story short the IS just didnt seem to have what the other cars did,even though id spent alot of money on mods trying to get it to be at least a good match to those above cars,but it just performed below average.Thats why i got the M3 cos i was left dissapointed with the real performance options on the IS.Through that right hander the M3,just absorbs the bend as if it doesnt exist and the STi,OMG talk about "on rails" that thing just defies the laws of physics,thats why i wont bother modding luxury cars anymore,id rather mod an RS6 from 450hp to 650hp after spending £6k rather than modding an IS from 150hp to 200hp for £4k(thats what i paid for my charger brand new).I feel that modding luxury cars is one one of the most expensive hobbies a person can have,however modding a performance car is fairly cheap to do and will always reflect better value for money.I respect the fact that many people mod their car,cos they love their car and they dont want anything else,but i was modding my car with performance in mind and after throwing a total of £11K at the Lexus my dreams never came true.Good luck with whatever you decide.

[Dan_]

sounds like your right into your stuff, you will like my mate hes always buying an modding an selling cars , he is well into his stuff. He just got hold of a limited edition celica GT in red, looks hot, 190bhp. I know not as fast as you have had ur cars as u mentioned but it handles well.

Well i am not sure if spending 2-4k on a mod is worth it or not, im prob thinking of considering changing the car an perhaps even get a manual. M3 sounds nice but doesnt that have any problems on bends as its a rear wheel drive?

[sparkystav]

M3 sounds nice but doesnt that have any problems on bends as its a rear wheel drive?

Well the DSL doesn't like going round the carousel on the ring LOL just ask Raj.

[Rsarin]

thats right Stav,you were in the passenger seat when i was cursing dsc(BTW i normally keep dsc off on the road,but on the nurburgring that would just have been lunacy for a novice like myself).Yes the M3 is not as easy to drive as a 4wd scoobie or evo and is naturally a little harder to keep on the road/track because alot of power is running through the rear wheels,but its appreciated by enthusiasts for its NA engine and on a track a pro will always opt for an M3 over a scoobie,purely because its a more rewarding drive and the power is linear which is obviously better for track work,due to the fact the power is available on tap at all times.Just to give you an idea about the M3,there are much quicker cars out there like big Hp EVO's and Rs4s,Rs6s.All the aforementioned cars are AWD and are extremely fast,infact they are the kinda cars that can sit next to supercars like lambo's/Porsche Turbo/F430 all the way to 200mph.The vid below shows an M3 which was created in 1999 and an RS4 that was created in 2005,there is a 6 year gap between the two cars,if you were on a track to win then the RS4 is the obvious choice because its faster no doubt,if fun is the reason you are at a track then the M3 is the obvious choice.check out the vid below and youll see what i mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68N9ZNSiOj4

[MacRS200]

This is the problem with my above advice,and i suppose thats why so many IS200's are being modded.Now for the other side of the argument,the IS200 is a great car and although ive just sold my supercharger,after thinking long and hard ive decided not to sell the car,ill keep it std as it's a beautiful car with every single convenience in a luxurious environment.If you are talking about keeping an IS200 as well as spending £6k on a performance car then thats a smart idea in my book,but to sell the IS200 for a performance car could be argued as a foolish idea,considering that with a budget of £6k you'll be looking at subaru impreza's/old evo's,which isnt bad in the performance dept,but in the looks and class dept the subaru impreza has one of the worst interiors on the road today,and it defo aint a beautiful car like the IS200,so there are two major reasons not to do a swap like that.On the other hand if you stretched your buget to an extra £1k there are Civic Type R's available at £7k and they arent too bad on the looks front and the car is a fast hot hatch with great handling and a smart interior.Its certainly not easy deciding on what to do,cos there are quite a few peformance cars to choose from,but they arent the most luxurious places to be on a daily basis.If you go German you can get an awesome machine like an Audi S4 on a 2000 plate with 70k on the clock those are 270hp std,very quick or earlier S3's can be picked up at your budget price,both these cars can be easyily modded especially the S4 cos its a V6 Bi-Turbo,there are folks on PH running these cars with 350hp after spending £3/4k.Modding an IS200 to 270hp,will cost about the same or more than buying the Audi S4 at £7k.The only other reason to be cautious when modding an IS200 is insurance costs,as some of us know modding a car can have a serious effect on your premium and can work out extremely expensive if youre young and or have points/claims etc.BTW are you thinkin of buying a car and running it alongside the IS,or are you looking to sell the IS for a performance car?

Thanks for the informative reply. In response to your question i am thinking of selling the is200 but i dunno sometimes i think nah then other times i do think yeah i wana get rid of it. Another thing is i don't want to get too fast a car that i cant get insured on as im 24 just now, so even if i do get a fast performance car i might wait till next year when i turn 25 perhaps. Was just wanting to see what i could get for that budget anyway as nothing much will change by then. I dont think i will ever get insured on a 270bhp car like that audi s4 u mentioned. But you are right abt the is200 the interior an everything is nice, even the standard stereo is really gud everyone asks me if ive got a system fitted in the car?! an im like nah standard. The only thing i dont like abt the is200 is the lack of just that extra lil bit of performance it cud do but then again im not going to go thru the hassle of all the induction kits etc coz i wudnt want problems again as u sed i wud rather buy something that came out the factory already preset for that xtra lil touch. Hate subaru's im sure they r fast but they look stinking. Old evo's hmm im not too sure wot they look like, will need to chek out autotrader an see. Rsarin, i really appreciate ur advice and info, thanks. U had the supercharger , can i ask why did u sell that? isnt that supposed to be less problems or was it the turbo charger that was less problems, i cant even remember now :-P

Hi Dan,mac is right in a way,my advice is fairly non committal,and im jumping from one point to another,so it isnt really conclusive in any way for your particular situation.I think mods like zorst/induction/anti roll bars/coilovers etc are safe to do and are the best mods a person can and should do to any car,i still have two of the above mods on my IS presently,the plus sides are they obviously make it handle better and give you a better throttle response,but going back to my original point it isnt gonna make it a different animal,it will still be a luxury car that just handles a bit better.Adding a S/C to the car is probably the right mod for you though, as it seems you just want a little extra power, and it would certainly give it a nice kick, a 50hp kick to be exact,without the hassles of turbo's which are unquestionably very expensive.Id buy a used S/C approx £1.7-2k.

In answer to your question the reason i sold the S/C was cos the IS wasnt being used all that much these last few months and cos id got bored with the power,i just started driving my M3 everywhere.The reason i was advising not to do turbo's or superchargers was basically cos id learnt over time with my S/C IS that although it was now a lot nippier it still didnt have what it takes to realistically handle like a car that has been built with performance in mind.me and a friend did a few tests with a few cars on a peice of private land his father owns,we had a seat cupra,IS200 S/c,Sti PPP,E46 M3,/renault sport 225 cup and a tvr sagaris,but that was just in a different leauge,so we left that guy well alone,did you know thats a 0-60 3.4 secs?we were basically doing lots of different tests on the cars,we could only do them with two cars at a time cos we only had three drivers that were willing to actually do the driving(one camera car) and only about a mile and half of narrow road with about 2/3 of a mile being straight with a sharp long right hand bend which turns into a straight again and then on to the end of the road,where a driveway abruptly starts.We did acceleration tests up the 2/3 of a mile straight,braking tests from 80mph,races to and from the start of the road, through the sweeping right bend and onto the end of his driveway.There were measurements being made by a driftbox which circulated between the cars,other than that no other measurements just direct comparisons.I wont bother talking about the Sti/m3 as they are neither here nor there .The cars that i was pitching against were the cupra and the 225,there was a GTI there but it was brand new and the owner didnt fancy abusing it on its 1st birthday.Basically on the acceleration test the IS was caned,only by a car length and a half,but still out accelerated.On the test between the cupra and the sweeping bend,the IS just didnt feel good at all and i was backing off when the cupra was accelerating and he never had to touch his brakes,i did.On the brake test the IS did better than the cupra although the renault caned us both,the IS has uprated pads/hoses etc so thats probably why it faired ok.Basically after drving all the cars quite hard and my friend and his father testing the IS also,we concluded that it wasnt really up to the job,the cupra and 225 handled perfectly,lots of info when driving and you can feel where the limits of the car are and play safely within them,in the IS all the people who drove it hard upto the right bend and in(doing about 70ish)described that the car just felt as if it was telling you nothing,no info etc and thats why the driver had to back off, where the other cars were still accelerating (and before anyone goes on about the fact its an auto box)RS6's have auto's and the new EVO is being fitted with one,and those cars are the most informative drive of your life,you could do 120mph in those cars through that bend.So to cut a long story short the IS just didnt seem to have what the other cars did,even though id spent alot of money on mods trying to get it to be at least a good match to those above cars,but it just performed below average.Thats why i got the M3 cos i was left dissapointed with the real performance options on the IS.Through that right hander the M3,just absorbs the bend as if it doesnt exist and the STi,OMG talk about "on rails" that thing just defies the laws of physics,thats why i wont bother modding luxury cars anymore,id rather mod an RS6 from 450hp to 650hp after spending £6k rather than modding an IS from 150hp to 200hp for £4k(thats what i paid for my charger brand new).I feel that modding luxury cars is one one of the most expensive hobbies a person can have,however modding a performance car is fairly cheap to do and will always reflect better value for money.I respect the fact that many people mod their car,cos they love their car and they dont want anything else,but i was modding my car with performance in mind and after throwing a total of £11K at the Lexus my dreams never came true.Good luck with whatever you decide.

thats right Stav,you were in the passenger seat when i was cursing dsc(BTW i normally keep dsc off on the road,but on the nurburgring that would just have been lunacy for a novice like myself).Yes the M3 is not as easy to drive as a 4wd scoobie or evo and is naturally a little harder to keep on the road/track because alot of power is running through the rear wheels,but its appreciated by enthusiasts for its NA engine and on a track a pro will always opt for an M3 over a scoobie,purely because its a more rewarding drive and the power is linear which is obviously better for track work,due to the fact the power is available on tap at all times.Just to give you an idea about the M3,there are much quicker cars out there like big Hp EVO's and Rs4s,Rs6s.All the aforementioned cars are AWD and are extremely fast,infact they are the kinda cars that can sit next to supercars like lambo's/Porsche Turbo/F430 all the way to 200mph.The vid below shows an M3 which was created in 1999 and an RS4 that was created in 2005,there is a 6 year gap between the two cars,if you were on a track to win then the RS4 is the obvious choice because its faster no doubt,if fun is the reason you are at a track then the M3 is the obvious choice.check out the vid below and youll see what i mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68N9ZNSiOj4

That about sum it up in a few words?

[Rsarin]

just trying to get my point across

[MacRS200]

just trying to get my point across

:D OK Raj, are you a lawyer by any chance? Just saying break it up a bit, it's like reading the small print in a contract :D

[Rsarin]

sorry,looking back at my posts ,it is quite intense.No Mac I don't practice Law,but wish i did.

[Dan_]

nice video