DT_Racing

Something I've not seen on this forum yet is a pics thread where everyone can post their favorite pics without starting a new thread each time. Might make for a nice little collection. This crossed my mind this morning as a parked up and took a quick snap... Wonder is we could sticky/pin it to the first page moderators? Here she is looking all moody and urban in the glorious Liverpool morning light

Congratulations, and welcome to ISF ownership and the LOC. You know what we need.... PICS! I think there are a fair few Northern owners but those i know of are on the west side.

Lovely feeling isnt it? Its also good to know I've got at least another 80k in her before before i even need to start worrying about anything serious. Was it not a Lexus philosophy that the car should feel the same at 200k as it did when new... or was that just something I made up in my head?

I have no idea on Kwik fit. I still have friends with stupendously expensive nitrogen purge systems to hand

This is all going to sound very contrary and as with everything its a personal preferance so bare with me. I know a bit about this (not all but some) having worked for 3 top flight motorsport and manufacturer race teams over 8 years as a chassis dynamicist tyres were basically my focus. All F1 teams run nitrogen in the tyres but to acheive any benefit at all from this the fill has to be at almost 100% purity and completely dry, this is very important. To cycle a set of 4 F1 tyres to 100% purity takes about 1 hour with a stupendously expensive rig and a twin valve system on each wheel. Now this of course is largely irrelevent to us as we dont have this sort of tech at our local kwik fit, however a proper setup should pull air from the sealed tyre first to purge as much atmospheric gas a possible before filling, if this is not the system used then its not worth it. At best you will see a dispacement of about 25% atmospheric gases through a standard nitrogen fill process. This is maybe sounding like I'm on the negatvie side of the fence when applied to a road car but this is where the contrary part comes in. I use Nitrogen. There are other benefits to nitrogen filling, the first is mentioned in previous posts, its dry and wont support moisture, moisture is the worst enemy when it comes to consistant tyre pressure and wheel bead corrosion, the second is that tyre pressure loss will be less, it doesnt stop the defaltion over time but does reduce the rate of loss to the tune of about a 1/3rd less loss over the same time period. My personal synopsis, I buy expensive tyres, £6 for Nitrogen is nothing, you have nothing to lose and 'maybe' something to gain. I cant feel any difference but knowing its there somehow makes me feel better.

@Peter P18 superb, top work thank you very much for taking the time to photo that. Looks easy enough to replicate. I'll get on it next week.

Pete, you are a legend. You're not heading over to the states any time soon are you? I think there are at least 3 of us that would put money down for some today, if not others I certainly would. I was close to placing the order early this week but then I heard a few others may be interested so held off. I'm keen to get my hands on some in the very near future.

Managed to get away from the office early tonight and with the wife and kids with the grandparents for the afternoon I actually set about mocking up my intake. 1st stop was to fit the HPS just to get an idea of what the fit and finish of a well regarded intake pipe is like. It was so easy to fit and was finished nicely. Next up was my mock up. Trial fit throttle body inlet elbow Spec a length for the air box end and fit connector piece Check for internal diameter, make sure there's no impedance to flow and she's a perfect match final connect up and add in the breather filter (think I will re-site this when I finalise things) be interested to know where RR-Racing run their's All things considered I think it's pretty good, ideally I would like it similar to the HPS design in full silicone but without the inlets for the breathers, I could get this made but it's to expensive as a one off. I did very quickly take her for a spin, couldn't feel anything of course but certainly has a little extra intake noise over the 3700rpm switchover. Could just be the K&N though. So anyway mk1 complete and I've reverted her back to standard straight away to make sure I don't fox the ecu so close to base line dyno day. So that's it, just have to wait now, will plan a way to re-route the head breather and filter in due course.

Some great clips of the RR-Racing SC kit testing on their youtube channel. Chases down a GT3 RS on a straight away. Impressive!

Thanks Pete, i will take that advice. I am covering about 1300 miles a month at the moment so I will leave it for a month and then re-dyno. THis way as you say whould give them most accurate readings. Still really none the wiser on what to expect, could be anything, a loss a gain or just the same I really dont know but I guess thats why I am doing it. I have been reading a fair bit from RR-Racing of late on thier project and they really are the front runners in ISF development. I read quite interestingly that the standard intake with high flow panel and their intake elbow is good to 410whp after which their newly developed high flow system is required. All useful info, cant imagine there are many pushing past 410whp in teh UK at the moment, except maybe you Pete. Anyway I'm happy to finally be in the flow of this.

and weights up the steering a little... or is that just my imagination?

Update to the project, Now have all parts I need for the intake system will upload a picture at some point over the weekend all being well so you can see what I'm up to. Most improtantly I have my baseline dyno finally booked in ats RGS motorsport for the morning of the 8th June, they run a dyno dynamics system so should be about as consistant as I can get. After this I'll mock up the intake and run it for a little while then return for a second dyno session. Lets see how we go...

Beauty Tom, aren't we all lucky boys

@GibletPH Yes alignment done, checked and spot on, not even towards the outside of tolerances it sat square in the middle. Doing a little more reading it does appear to be common and watching the video on RR-Racing website you can see what everyone is talking about, the lower wishbone rear bush is soft as you like and under braking and cornering toes out the front wheels and scrubs the inside. I wonder if @Peter P18has taken any measurements across his tyres since the install of the USRS to see if they do indeed stop or reduce this scrub. @emjay82 Fitting would be a relatively quick affair, estimate an hour or so for a decent garage (£65) plus you would need an alignment and again a decent one on a Hunter is around £70. So a little over the price of a pair of front tyres all in.

Ideal, this is looking very positive. I think Pete has a line into whifbits but I could be wrong. Pete our LOC oracle enlighten us

Thanks Arqum I know what you mean, pricing them up it comes in at about £292 delivered to UK. I actually thought about that in comparison to say having to replace tyres once instead of twice in the same time period they might be worth it. Maybe a group buy, even if its only the two of us we might knock off something in shipping costs could make them more attractive. edit: £270.50 each if we ordered two sets, only a £22 saving but it is something

So an unfortunate incident lead to a discovery, some interesting findings and a pleasant surprise. Firstly coming out of work I noted I had a rear that was looking rather flat, after the shock of thinking I was about to have to pay out for a pair of rear tyres I came to my senses checked the pressure and limped it round the corner about a mile to the kwikfit in Bromborough. I mention these by name as it was these guys that excelled. So had a puncture, they fixed it (relief).... in the process they measured up my tread depth and noted all good apart from the inside edges of the fronts, outside measured up at 5.5mm, centre 5.0mm and inside edges 3mm . Bearing in mind at this point it 5:55pm and they shut at 6pm they said better just throw it on the Hunter alignment and check, said if its fine there will be no charge so I'm happy. Anyways all loaded up and she's absolutely on the money, square as you like. So after all this the manager said 'we've had a good day the repair is free off you go' well chuffed with that so handed them £20 to get the lads a few beers, its not often you see this sort of care and cosideration anywhere so I was totally made up with the whole thing and thought it worthy of sharing. So back to the post title, it appears this may be common due to the soft lower control arm bushings has anyone else experience of this? I have started looking at replacements for this and strongly considering the RR-Racing USRS (ultimate steering reponse system) over the superpro push in option. I had a similar setup on my old S3 which was pretty much the same thing although called the ALK (Anti Lift Kit, it added caster and changed the front suspension kinematics) and made a world of difference to the steering feel. Anyone on here have experience of this setup on an ISF at all? Thanks team LOC RR-Racing link to the USRS http://www.rr-racing.com/Lexus-Lower-Control-Arm-LCA-Bushing-p/isfxlca001.htm

Just had a quick look on RS Tuning website and they use a dynodynamics dyno which is good news for me. I'm booked in for my baseline dyno at RGS motorsport on June 8th. RGS also use a dynodynamics. Now I dont want to start the whole different dyno different day discussion but dynodynamics are the closest matched, calibrated and operated dyno's I've come across so should at least allow for basic comparison. I can feel a dyno graph thread coming on, be great to start a small database to collate all this info on different mods.

So all booked in at cybox but I'm going a little left field with this (as is my style generally). As I'm not chasing power in this area at the moment AND to keep things as standard as possible AND to keep costs down i've opted to hack out the internals of the standard back boxes and have some straight through perforated baffle pipes put in. This should give me what I am after which is just a little more V8ness in the sound track but no more than this. Lets see how she sounds after the 14th June.

Dave (Warrington guy) the following is your fault...just so you know Heading to see Jerry at cybox at lunch time today to spec up an axle back, been speaking with them and as you say Dave they appear to know their stuff, just want to go see the quality of their work and work out a few datails, all being well i'll get the process underway end of the day.

Morning Team LOC. Just thought I would share a couple of damp, drizzly pictures taken last night over at Oulton Park on our ISF mini mini meet. Dave (Warrington Guy) took the time to come over to the circuit and meet me. Its not ofter you see another ISF at all so to have two parked together is actually very rare. Its always nice to meet like minded Lexus and general car enthusiasts and Dave is certainly that, his car is immaculate (although I am sure he would say it isnt) and sounds incredible, It has just that right tone, a sort of muted woofly aggression, very tasty and certainly has me thinking about something similar. Anyways..a thank you to Dave for making the trip and making for an enjoyable evening. I do hope at some point over the summer period we can get a few more of us together, I can certainly imagine a drive out of 10 or so ISF's. Would be a wonderful sight. A few shots from last night.

Still time to tag along... Wow multi post dont know how that happened...sorry, anyone know how to delete them?

Still time to tag along...

Still time to tag along...

Depending on mileage you should be able to knock a fair bit off the price off the 2011 from Bristol. I paid about your budget for my 2011 at the start of this year and she had 32k on the clock. Might be worth a punt if thats the one you want. Always worth a try...