Chip1380

Remember how much difference tread depth makes. If you wheel is 30" overall diameter with 8mm of tread, then when the tyres are down to 2mm its only 29.5", thats a 2mph difference at the top end. Tyre pressure can effect it even more than that, its easy for a wheels radius to be out by 5% cause of different tyre pressures (although less true on low profile tyres) Chip

I spoke to a thatcham approved alarm installer and they said that ANY modifications/additions to a thatcham alarm invaliadate the warranty unless the additions/mods are themselves thatcham approved and installed by a thatcham approved installer. Have you thought about running this total closure totally seperate to the alarm, you can buy a key fob transmitter from maplins, which would give you an extra couple of buttons to play with, so you could do something like put the headlights on another button as well. I live in the country and am often round at friends farms etc and i find it useful to be able to press a button on my remote on my honda and turn the headlights on so i can see where im walking. Obviously would put the cost up a touch, but could be a good solution for those people who are nervous about the alarm situation?? Im not trying to p1ss on anyones fireworks, was just trying to make people aware of the *possible* impliciations cause i know how hard insurance companies will try and get out of a claim. Chip

Its REALLY hard to guess without having lots of details like for exmaple if you have lots of valve overlap on your cams it might be a really bad idea etc. But assuming your spec is suitable for turboing as it is, i would say as a ROUGH guess you will pick up about 40-50bhp. But its a real " how long is a piece of string" question TBH. Chip

All i know is if it was a thatcham approved alarm and you did that to it (even with diodes etc so any sensible person knows for a fact it cant effect the alarm itself) it would STILL invalidate the approval. Chip

The paint on james's car looks TOTALLY green in some lights, bronze in others and purple in some as well. So you would need to pick a few very different colours to get the effect to work, not just navy blue. If you just want navy blue though there are other effects that can look good other than flips though like a VERY mettalic addition you can put in (this car has that too), in normal light you dont really notice it but in bright sunlight its very sparkly. Chip

I put it in quotes meaning that was how others might see it, perosonally i like playing around with stuff like that though. I was under the impression that the standard alarm was insurance approved, but if you do this to it then it will NOT be anymore, so that could effect a payout if the car was stolen and recovered?

Sadly only one way to find out how much pressure they can take and that tends to be exensive, LOL As far as the rods go though, a lot of the time rod failures on tuned engines come more from stretching at high revs than from being compressed with lots of power and obviously a turbo is only going to increase power in the middle of the rev range not make you use more revs. Dodgy ground though with it being an expensive engine to rebuild, but i would have thought that 250bhp was pretty safe. Piston failure is most often due to temperatures, so providing you throw enough fuel in a the same time to cool the crown, again i dont think it will be an issue for relatively low power outputs like 250bhp or so. (and probably around 300lbft of torque maximum) Chip

Ive got thicker than normal driveshafts on mine so it tends to light up both wheels at once and just go straight (wether you are trying to or not!) rather than torque steer, but yeah it is a real handful when it comes on boost. Fidgits, i know james who has the lexus in question quite well, and know the amount of work thats gone into it, so i think its a shame when other lexus owners cant appreciate it even when its not to their taste (not all of you of course) The car fits the purpose for which it was built perfectly, it REALLY turns heads, but obviously some people arent going to like it, i didnt mean to seem like i was going off on one but when people start commenting who havent seen it in the flesh they are doing it an injustice ( i know this for a fact cause i did the same before i saw it in real life, LOL). Personally i would never have that sort of paint on one of my cars, i'd be having nightmares about it getting scratched etc, but as a show car it looks fantastic. I think that the lexus will start to become an increasingly popular car to modify now that second hand prices are falling on the early ones (as they are now getting on a bit) so i think that its nice to see a modded one that is at least done properly, tacky stick on mods and awful bodykits will no doubt be appearing on a lexus in an issue of some awful tacky mag like max-power real soon, at least with James he has done the job properly. Chip

Yeah thats me. Thats going up through the gears, 0-60 i havent got an accurate time for, we were trying it but kept getting wheel spin creep in at 50mph or so when i came on boost which meant timing off the speedo was impossible as it was whipping the speedo round to 60 with the wheelspin, gave impressive times like that though, about 4 seconds, LOL In reality i think nearer to 6 is about right though. As a guy i know has slightly modded wrx that does it in 5.1 (timed properly with timing gear not just off the speedo) and i dont catch him till after 60mph when we race from a standing start so it must be slower than 5.1 I havent had a chance to take it up the quarter mile yet, but im guessing its going to run a 13 or so due to the problems with traction, what i really need is to put the engine in the back, 300bhp+ in a fwd car weighing naff all is always going to be hard to put down onto the road. Chip

An intercooler isnt going to give you "too much boost" at all, in fact its even MORE essential in many ways on a car with such high compression. The biggest risk that you have on a turbo charged motor is detonation and a hotter inlet charge increase the risk of that happening. The more boost you run the more this is an issue. All comes back to good old boyles law: pv=nrt My own personal recomendation would be to get the kit with the T25, but to then get cometic to make you up a decent multi layer steel head gastket, this way you can drop the CR down cheaply and easily and run a little more boost. Chip

I would have thought that most people with a lexus wouldnt object to paying a few quid for something that is a bit less of a "bodge". But fair enough, i certainly have a lot of respect for anyone prepared to get stuck in and do things for themsleves rather than just sign a cheque. Chip

Having worked for toyota/lexus i can confirm that yes i have driven plenty of them. Like i said there is NO denying they are good cars. I wasnt sayin otherwise, i was just getting at the fact that they are hardly a rare or special car that should be kept in pristine standard condition like you might with something like an MGB or whatever. Personally they dont interest me a massive amount cause im still young/foolish enough to want a car that is stupidly quick rather than appreciate the refinement of a lexus, in fact i would go so far as to say that i find refined cars rather boring to drive to be honest. As far as what car i drive goes, ive got 12 cars at the moment none of which you would like probably, the funniest by far though is this one: Its a nova, so id love to here all your stereotypes etc based on that. It may or may not interest you though that it takes 5.8 seconds to go from 60-100 (time your lexus and see how it compares to that, i think you will be shocked! a wrx imprezza for example takes 10.3) Chip

The streetworkz lexus (the one iwth he paint everyone is chatting about) has window fold in, total closure (front and rear) complete with window roll down off the remote as well, might be worth popping down there if you are local. Thats all based on a clifford G4 alarm. Chip

I cant understand peoples view on the car having seen it only in a picture, the paint job looks like some dodgy girly colour and nothing more. However, if you see it in real life its a totally different story, it looks pretty crappy in pictures, but when you are stood next to it its awesome, it really is amazing, first time i saw the car in direct sunlight i spent about ten minutes just wandering round and round it watching it flip colour and admiring the paint. I HATE flip paint jobs and girly colours normally, but its done to such perfection on this car that you have no choice but to appreciate it when seen in real life. Any of you that live near to streetworkz should pop down there on a sunny day and see what the fuss is all about. I do think though that in general you lexus boys need to chill out, there is nothing that spectacular about owning a lexus, its a good car there is NO denying that, but its only a re-badged toyota at the end of the day, the way you bang on (or should that be bang one off? ) about lexi you would think that you were talking about something with heritage like a classic bentley or a sixties mini. Havent you heard, alan partridge drives a lexus! :P Chip