NotoriousREV

I hate you. Just give me your address and I'll be round with a bag of spanners :D

10:1, hmm not huge scope there then ( couple of points maybe). The torque and power peaks are pretty close together, indicating an engine thats pretty highly tuned already, although interestingly, peak power is made at the redline. This leads me to think that any improvements in peak power would seriously impede drivability, as the sub-4500 rpm range is already very weak (I nearly got wasted by a Fiesta Zetec this morning until the VVTi woke up ) The gearing doesn't help matters, it's tall in the lower gears and short in the upper gears. 1-2 and 2-3 drop the car out of it's power band, then 4-5-6 only lose about 1000rpm total, the gears should have been better spaced. Not fitting a better engine certainly was a missed opportunity. I love everything else about the car, but the engine is pants. I feel lke going to Lexus and demanding they give me my mid-range back! :D

UV, comparing a 2.0 litre 4 cyl and a 2.0 litre 6 cyl engine for power wont make any difference. More cylinders doesn't always equal more power, especially in small motors where the advantages of more cylinders is negligable. For example, Mazda's Mx-3 (1.8L V6) puts out 128bhp@6500, compared to Mazda's MX-5 (1.8L I4) giving 128bhp@6500. However, as the IS is using an old design of motor versus Honda's very up to date motor, and let's be honest, 6500rpm isn't a very impressive redline considering the pistons are tiny. Possibly the way to go is some kind of modification to the VVTi system and raise the redline. The exhaust system up to the back box is considered excellent amongst tuners, better than most aftermarket items, with only the back box providing any restriction. I personally loaned my car to K&N (UK) to develop a Genration 3 57i Induction Kit. After 2 days, they gave it back saying they couldn't make a kit that worked well enough and was easily producable and fittable. Anyone know what the standard comp ratio is for the IS?

No age discrimination as long as you hand round the Werthers ;) Actually just got some quotes for my March renewal. First quote was Churchill through LloydsTSB on-line banking £907. I thought, yeah as if I'm going to pay that, and then it turned out to be the cheapest quote by about £100! Elephant wanted £1400!!!!

Aztec Fire is a great colour in brilliant sunshine, but not so nice the rest of the time, should've got the blue really :(

fluff, I don't use the boot much anyway, the most I ever carry is my mobile phone and occasionally my laptop. However, I did manage to go on holiday for a week, carrying 6 people and their luggage. You can store plenty of stuff in there ;) I do 100 miles a day and the space saver tank only holds 30 litres which at current consumption would need filling once a day, which would p**s me off more than the tank does :D You're right about the ram air thing, that is simply thier excuse, the fact is the conversion runs very lean and they restricted the intake to crrect the mixture, butchers. However, the updated kit should sort that out. MPG _should_ be around 20 -21 mpg on gas, unchanged on petrol, but at the moment it's nearer 14mpg, so it's cheaper to use petrol than gas Put it this way: I won't be converting another car :) I do 100 miles a day and the space saver tank only holds 30 litres which at current consumption would need filling once a day [Edited on 15-1-2002 by NotoriousREV] [Edited on 15-1-2002 by Administrator]

have you tried Saga insurance, Wallace :P [Edited on 15-1-2002 by NotoriousREV]

yup, 27 - 29 without fail, thats hammering up and down the M6 at a steady 90mph, or crwaling up and down the M6 at a steady 25mph (i.e. friday nights )

Date is fine, what about a location? Alton Towers is cool, will they let us drive our cars between rides? :D

Actually, the non-VTEC 2.0 Honda engine in the Prelude is 20bhp down on the Lexus engine, even the 2.3 non-VTEC motor only beats our 2 litre by 7bhp with a 300cc advantage. The problem with the IS motor isn't so much lack of power, it's lack of torque, the engine is just too peaky for the weight of car. The 0 - 60 and 1/4 mile times are much lower than you would normally expect from a car with over 150bhp. The JDM Altezza is fitted with a very good 2.0 turbo 4 cylinder motor, which probably wasn't deemed refined enough for a car that was intended to beat the 3 series at it's own game. A good way to measure an engine's efficiency is to compare specific output, BHP/litre. BMW's 320i has a Double VANOS equipped 6 cylinder 2171cc engine that makes 170bhp. Thats 78.3 bhp/litre, while our 1988cc engine makes 153bhp, which is 77bhp/litre. The average NA engine makes about 70 bhp/litre (in fact Honda's current Accord adverts boast that there 2.0 VTEC motor makes an "exceptionally high" 70 bhp/litre!). Still, Toyota/Lexus could have done us better, the Celica 190 makes 106.7bhp/litre, thats more than a McClaren F1 or a BMW M3. If our engines made that, we'd have 212bhp before any mods :o BTW, my bike makes 175bhp/litre ;) [Edited on 14-1-2002 by NotoriousREV]

For me, a Lexus shows that someone has confidence to seperate themselves from the herd. It's a luxury car without the yuppie image, it's a car for you, not a car to show your neighbours how well you're doing. I am a bad-***** pimp, BTW [Edited on 14-1-2002 by NotoriousREV]

OK, here's the pics I promised, click on the links for BIG images (could take a while if you're on a dial-up!) Full size Spot the differences? Full size The filler is the little black square at the bottom left of the bumper, an adaptor screws into there, and the pump clamps onto that, it gets very cold during the filling, and can (and has) freeze your skin off in cold weather. Full size The 5 LED's across the top indicate gas level, the four LED's on the right are green (all four lit means full) then when a fifth of a tank is left, the red LED comes on. And yes, I did wash my car after taking these pics, I didn't realise how filthy it was ;) [Edited on 14-1-2002 by NotoriousREV]

Actually, thats pretty good, I'm 27, 3 years no claims, 3 points for an unspecified speeding offence, class 1 business use, fully comp ~£800 with Budget insurance. I should have 4 years no claims, but Budget cocked things up royally for me the first year I had the car. My company pays my insurance by direct debit, I insured the car, gave them the company account details and left it at that. I come to renew, and Budget tell me my policy wa cancelled 14 days after it began, without notifying me. Because the money had never been taken from the company account, it wasn't noticed by anyone so I had driven my £20,000+ car around uninsured for a year :o Budget did say that it was a clerical error, and that in the event of a claim, they would have benn liable, but the only way to get my extra years no claims was to catch up the payments that had never been paid (over £1200) so I left it at that. Scary stuff though!

brn7y, when you say southerner, do you mean everyone south of Carlisle? :D

forgot to add: twice now the power steering has failed. What happens is: I start the engine, get no power assistance. Stop the engine, restart and it works fine. Booked in to be looked at, I suspect a rack seal has gone cauing an airlock.

Alloy wheels pitted - check CD Player replaced under warranty - check Squeaky seat - check disc corrosion - check One you missed: obstinate gearbox - check

The best rad people are Serck Marston, they manufacture a lot of OEM stuff and even custom stuff and are very reasonable.

RACHEL s*x? Dayum, I'm gonna phone her ;)

They must have spotted the 16" rims instead of 17's and felt pity :P

Whats your nick on Scoobynet, or are you a lurker?

Does this mean only for supercharged? Mine is tuned for 100 octane in Japan but i run on 95 oct... is this gonna kill my motor? :o Does your filler cap say something about Super Unleaded? If it does, you should be using higher octane stuff over here. I guess the Windom is an NA engine, so it'll be less sensitive to it's fuel grade. There some evidence to suggest that running your car on Euro Super Unleaded (Optimax is getting some good comments) will improve the performance and consumption enough to outweigh the cost implications (Optimax is 5p a litre more than UL)

On a Subaru website, people were talkig about improved consumtion more than making up for the higher price, but these are guys with modded Turbo motors. If my consumtion improves to 30 mpg that'll be enough to pay for the difference. It doesn't run any worse on Optimax, but I couldn't say if it any better as I've only done 45 miles ;)

yup, I'll get them at the weekend. I'll even do a "spot the difference" under bonnet shot ;)

I thought I'd share my experiences with my LPG conversion, in case anyone is thinkng of doing the same. Mine serves as a cautionary tale, but generally these conversions work OK, and mine will too soon ;) I believe only the GS300 qualifies for a Powershift grant at the moment, but take a look at their website as things change: www.powershift.org.uk My conversion was done by Snows Garage in Hanley, who are a franchisee of FuelTech www.fueltech.ltd.uk and I chose the 60 litre "big bugger" long range tank rather than the neater 30 litre space saver tank that fits in the spare wheel well. So, I have a huge tank in my boot, an ugly filler on my back bumper and a neat little switch bow with a row of LED's, what you want to know is: What's it go like? Generally not too bad. It feels a little sluggish, but only a little. On the motorway it's fine. Problems I've had: 1) Mixture incorrectly set, so terrible fuel consumption while on LPG (no difference when running on petrol) and cutting out problems and the ECU gets upset. 2) To stop the "ram air effect" they shoved a restrictor into the air intake, drilling holes to correct the intake area away from fast moving air. Unfortunately, they drilled the holes where they get blocked when the air intake is refitted to the vehicle, causing poor running on petrol (loses it's kick above 4500rpm) The company involved will put these problems right as soon as I can spare the car, so it'll be nice to drive on either fuel. The main reason for all my problems was the fact that mine was the first IS that FuelTech had done (many changes were made to the kit after my conversion) so I was a bit of a guinea-pig. Cost was £1150 plus VAT and took 2 days (due to problems with the kit not plugging into the loom without mods!) Hope this info helps some else in the future.

What fuel are you guys using? I'm going to try Shell Optimax from tomorrow, I've heard some good things about it, but only after the second tankful. Anyone here using Optimax, or do you just stick with standard 95RON?