RX-Men-8

I think the stagger is not the issue, the IS250 came with either a non-staggered 7J16 ET45 inch wheels F+R with 205/55R16 tyres, 8J17 ET45 F+R with 225/45R17 front and 245/45R17 rear tyres, or 18x8 ET45 with 225/40R18 front and 18x8.5 ET50 with 255/40R18 rear.

https://www.wheel-size.com/size/lexus/is/2007/

The thing I would look at first is the tyres themselves, you would be surprised at the sensitivity to the right tyres to road camber and tramlining.  Then vehicle alignment, and possibly your aftermarket wheels are a low offset ET40 or less making the track wider affecting the steering geometry. Best to stay close to the stock ET45.

The point is that when cornering at the grip limits, not necessarily drifitng, it may even be in the wet or snow, that you don't want the transmission to shift up or down unexpectedly. The change in torque to the rear wheels may cause sudden oversteer. Turbo lag is another trickster in this case.

Suppose you're on a track carving enthousiastially at the edge of grip/traction, or even in full drift /powerslide controlling the drift angle with the throttle, you don't want the transmission to go shift on its own, even if you're at the redline.

In reaction to the hill descending above, brake parts being cheaper than an engine/transmission: you'll burn up your brakes on a long descent and have an accident which is even more expensive. You should slow down to the range of the gear that holds the downhill speed and descend without braking as much as possible. It's the way to do it and it won't cause extra wear to your engine or transmission.

One major difference: The OEM Hids have a shield below the dippped beam bulb, whereas the Non-hids have not. This prevents light from reflecting up from the bottom side of the reflector, that would be too blinding.

German pics here ;)

I do believe the IS200 handles very well. And if it does well on the skid pad compared to other cars (50:50 weight distribution and front+rear double wishbone suspension) it must do well on roundabouts.

ONLY: any RWD car it isn't as foolproof as a FWD car, especially without VSC/ESP. Give it too much welly and a FWD car will just plough straight ahead, a RWD car steps out with the back end.

So if you know how to control your car , you're going to be fast on that roundabout ;)

Cheers mate - one day too late but I hope you had a good one!

Ehhh.. I'm not going to unbolt it for that ;) But I won't contest that's the best way to check.

It will go to a max speed of 215kp/h (GPS) @the rev limiter in 6th line like before. And 3,909/4,100 * 215 would only be 204.

Greetz

Rx-Men-8

Strange..... My IS200 has an RS200 LSD fitted,, no difference in final drive with IS200 LSD. There were two differences though: no cooling fins on the Altezza diff-housing, and I had to use the old axle stubs as they are 6-bolt on the Tezza instead of 4-bolt on the IS200.

From the pics above there must have been quite some variations, only you wouldn't get to 146 mph with a manual RS200 and a 4.3 final drive, with a 3,909 you would.

Maybe someone can complete the gaps in this story

Cheers,

RX-Men-8

Anto,

I cant send it abraod I'm afraid.....at 35kgs its too heavy to send

What's the ratio of that differential? It depends on its origin, it's from altezza has ratio 4,100, it's from European IS200 has ratio 3,909 (LSD type).

I said to you that it interested one to me.

4.100:1 is for Lexus IS200/ Altezza AS200 with automatic transmission, and never an LSD afaik

3,909:1 is for Lexus IS200/ Altezza AS200/RS200 with manual Aisin AZ-6 Gearbox.

Cheers,

RX-Men-8

I was probably the author of the info as I thought they were different widths....but when I took them off my 250 and put them on the 200 I noticed all four were the same width...just the tyre width that was different. I posted the info at the time I noticed it. The 8JJ rub on the control arms at the front..that's the 'bump' I referred to on the other post.

You must have had a set of four front rims. Maybe you can go to Lexus and ask for the 18,5J as it is hard to misss on first glance and the staggered look is much nicer.

18x8J ET45

18,5x18 ET50

They can go straight on the IS200. If you leave the 255/40R18 rear tyres of the 250 on, you'd need to roll the rear arches. IMHO 235/40R18 looks better (same "stretch" of the tyre on the back as on the front) and no modifications are needed.

Cheers,

RX-men-8

Rear: 18,5Jx18 Offset 50

Front: 18Jx8 Offset 45

Have you actually checked the cast marks in the rim? Think you'll find all four say 8 JJ. Only the tyres differ. Well, on the 17"OEM's anyway..

Believe me ;)

Or search the forums :D

Cheers,

RX-Men-8

I've got them on my IS200 for 2 Years now ;)

To state some facts: The rear rims are wider, and do not fit up front! (would rub control arm, not that you'd want to put the wider ones up front)

Rear: 18,5Jx18 Offset 50

Front: 18Jx8 Offset 45

You can run 225/40R18 up front and 235/40R18 Rear without any arch mods, even with 30mm lowering.

The rims are flush with the bodywork, ideal imho.

Come to think of it, the only time you'll need spanner 13 is when installing the TTE Supercharger (top bolts). I hope they're not bad luck ;)

Didn't they include the spare in the tyre rotation scheme? Like back to front, one front as spare and the spare and one front to back?

Don't forget the IS250 AWD (Seen them in NL as a US import

And the Altezza Gita AWD (You guys could import it from Japan)

And the LS600h !!!

Cheers,

RX-Men-8

I was only able to locate the purple / green cable and not the purple / white cable.

This still removed the light out warning on the dash and has not caused any other adverse problems at all.

Excellent, as I remember, the two wires were next to eachother in the plug, one was for the brake light sensor, one for the tail light sensor. Maybe your car is slightly different, I don't know.

For the ones who had difficulty getting the contacts out of the connector, I'm pretty sure I remember you have to move a plastic locking mechanism on the wire side of the connector. Once that's unlocked it's not hard to pull them out. It's either that or you have to push in the locking tab on the metal contact to move it back.

Cheers,

RX-Men-8

I will do but it will be a long time because I am back in the UK tomorrow for a few weeks so I will get a puller while I am there.

I had a scan of the merc forums and someone there has replaced the bearing with some pics and the drive pulley is exactly the same as ours - except instead of the clutch plate being riveted to the plastic cover, the rivets have been removed and the whole lot is bolted together.

so you are relying on 3 tiny screws and a bit of plastic to transfer the load - crap design in my opinion. My plans will be to replace the plastic cover with a thicker aluminium cover but its a fair bit of work to get everything right or you will have balance problems.

The "Plastic Cover" is a flexible disc, with "Uni-Damp" written on it.

That suggests it's a vibration-damper. It may mean that if you bolt on something more rigid, comfort may suffer.

On mine it's fastened with 3 Torx screws, and they're still tight (30.000km).

Hi all,

Just a quick heads up on a possible problem that all supercharger owners should be aware of.

The supercharger drive pulley front cover has 3 small bolts and a central shaft bolt. The 3 small bolts act as link pins to transfer drive from the pulley to the central shaft( Or so it appears - I have not had time to strip the pulley assy fully) On mine the 3 small bolts worked loose with the result that the bolt holes and threads have been damaged and of course the bolts have been lost - this also means no pressure from the supercharger.

So have a check of the 3 bolts and the central larger bolt to see if they have been installed with thread lock!

When I replace mine i will wirelock the bolts so there is no possibility of them working loose.

The three little bolts are to permanently lock the magnetic clutch in the charger pulley. On other cars where tis type of charger is mounted, the clutch is engaged by the 3 wires on the side (clipped off by TTE).

Where's Koenigsegg ?!?!?! For me, the CCR & CCX beat the ones in the list ;)

of course :)

Mine makes that noise, I just had my s/c fitted a few weeks back and it is brand new and bypass valve snaps shut fine. Could it be something else, I have to say thought that at times I seem to get a lag before the charger kicks in when in 1st any ideas anyone?

The lag - if it is below 3000 rpm, is probably due to running lean going from no boost to boost, until the ECU corrects it (well, almost) reading the O2 sensors at the exhaust manifold. The (non-boost-aware) closed loop fuelling control is just trying to follow the (crude) mechanical boost control. It can be made better with custom fuel mapping.

Ideally (imho) tyres 225/40R18, rims with offset 45, and not wider than 8J on the front or it will touch the upper control arm. No modifications needed.

With lower offsets the rims+tyres will stick out more, likely requiring you to roll the rear wheel arches. Rolling the rear arches will give you +/- 10mm extra room on the outside, i.e. you can go down to offset 35.

Moreover, offset 35 will make room for 8,5J wide rims on the front. You will likely need to warm (with blowdryer) and push outwards the plastic front wheel well liners as the tyre may touch it at fiull lock. No big job.

Success!

Altezza is just fine for me - I ordered one :)

With the old spring, the bypass may not open quick enough when lifting the throttle. This makes the charger run into a pressure buildup, making the belt slip. Inside the cabin this may sound as a blowoff sound, at least I thought so until I heard a camera recording of me driving by with a squeaking belt.

I installed a BOV since which sounds nice and releases some stress on the supercharger when lifting the throttle ;)

Cheers,

RX-Men-8