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Hi there, I'm not so happy or even certain how it should work properly, but my intuition is telling me something is not right, or could at least be improved. 1. Sport/Normal mode I feel absolutely no difference. Do you notice anything? I would expect the ride to be a bit stiffer and less body roll and better handling when cornering. 2. Height High/Normal Visibly she sits an inch or two higher when the High mode is on, but in my opinion it takes quit a bit to pump it up - a minute or two? What is a normal healthy pump-up/down time? I just happened to see a Range Rover adjusting its height and it does it in a couple of seconds... Has anyone done an overhaul of the air susp. pump valves and elements related to this? Any thoughts welcome.

About a week after I bought my LS430 I was so happy to discover one of the previous owners had installed this: https://www.amazon.com/SL3B-L-SoundLinQ3-Bluetooth-streaming-charge/dp/B00BTMSPBY It seamlessly connects with the audio unit (all the controlls on the radio panel and steering wheel work with it) and sets itself up in the MD emulation mode.

Welcome George, funny enough, mine also blew the (pre-cat) bank2 sensor 1 heater about 1 month after I bought it! I got an original Denso lambda replacement from RockAuto (US) for about £50-60 incl. postage if I remember well - fitted myself. UK prices (forget Lexus dealer...) were a joke. I also suggest you double-check your exhaust for leaks or clogs, I mean if the blow of gasses has equal strength from both pipes. Suggest you look up my post "bug in the exhaust". What else... folks here recommend changing the radiator (which I'll be doing soon when we get a bit warmer weather) to avoid ATF glycol contamination and in effect killing the tranny. Enjoy!

Glad to see you guys getting on well with that. Since I changed mine and created the post about the "bug in the exhaust" everything is fine. The new Polish exhaust on my LS will be 1yr old in June. The actual boxes are made on request and welded in Poland from sheets of alluminum coated steel imported from Germany. I do actually know the owner. I didn't have to cut anything, it all fitted perfectly straight from the box, and nothing is sticking out. What might have helped though, was that I measured the old boxes best as I could and sent that to them with a ton of pictures. Just a note that my LS has the end pipe straight, as opposed to the pre 2004 that is slightly bent downwards. Btw, I will have a few more questions about other stuff such as air suspension, so I'll start a separate topic soon. Hope I could get some more info/help.

That's it, if you can have a gas cooker at home and don't get poisoned, have no problem with patricles of soot, etc, why the bunch of crooks in our governments do not priviledge LPG. It looks so much as bull**** and a blatant lie If they say, they are so worried about our health, pollution of diesel, etc. On the other hand they do everything to promote and shove down my throat hybrid and electric (by lowering road tax for EVs etc). What's all about this "green" EV hype, if most of Europe's power plants are coal or nuclear. The only exeption seems to be Norway, where allegedly 90% or more of their energy comes from renewable sources. Now think about what lithium is and other nasty chemistry batterries are made of. Lithium is commonly sourced from brine, a water and energy intensive process. According to www.foeeurope.org, 0.05-1 mg of lithium requires 1 liter of brine/mineral water. Areas rich in lithium are often arid, increasing the cost of mining. Dry and salty conditions can also take a toll on human health. Seawater extraction is a more expensive way to mine lithium. How much energy is needed to make these? What happens when batteries end their life, how much of it can we recycle, how much is just thrown away. If all cars we have today were replaced by EVs, think how much of this crap (from batteries) will endup in a landfill piling up like you see these days monstrous mountains of plastics near every recycling centre. For a fact, our EV promoting crooks are selling you EVs, (or rathter trying to shove down your throat by lobbying the governments) prior to having figured out how to recycle the waste coming from the batteries. Source here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214993714000037 and here http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/recycling_batteries What's so green and eco-friendly about that???

For those with Android I recommend FillLPG and myLPG.eu apps. Works for me great, database of the stations updated including prices, both the UK and the continent. Saved me huge amount of time of running like a headless chicken. Automatically searches LPG and petrol stations near you and if you pick one, it forwards its destination to google maps or if you wish sends gps coordinates to whatever satnav app you may have installed on your phone.

For example, here you can buy a whole fleet from Toyota, already gassed... http://www.toyotadobrygowski.pl/flota/sprawdz-ile-zaoszczedzisz-na-lpg.html

Well, I can only talk about Poland. LPG there is very popular, so much that the dealers (not only Lexus, but many other brands) team up with solid and trustworthy LPG installers. The result is that you walk in to buy a brand new, say Toyota, Mazda or Lexus, and tell them to deliver it with an LPG - and there you have it. Doesn't affect your rights, warranty, insurance, etc.

Possibly you meant Prins ? Anyway, mine at the time was the latest BRC Sequent Plug&Drive, installed in Poland (Warsaw) , under Lexus main dealer approved workshop. Details here:

+1, oh yes! I converted mine last summer (June), and already 5k+ miles on LPG. On the 8th of Jan. did a 2000km road trip from east of Poland -> Colchester. I'm not a speed junkie, but do drive fast, Polish motorways limit is 140km/h (about 90mph), but it's perfectly safe crusing at 100mph, however, Germany is a different story, I drove off-peak traffic (evening and night) most of the time I had 180-220km/h. I love the V8 on the LS430, 200km/h and around 3200rpm ! Avg LPG consumption for the whole trip turned 17.5L/100km, or if you prefer 16mpg of LPG My drivvo app (btw I recommend it) reported avg £0.166 per mile cost, but have to account that LPG in Poland is dirt cheap (compared to the UK, around 45p/l), also mainland Europe slightly cheaper too. What is your urban LPG consumption on your LS430? Mine doesn't look that good any more, I just had a couple or more full tanks, driving only in Colchester for the past 2-3 weeks, and it works out 13mpg of LPG (22L/100km), from which the drivvo app computes a £0.25 per mile with LPG priced at £0.68 at a local station here. I compare that to 18-19mpg (15L/100km) of extra-urban (when I drive 60-70mph). Fact is that, I do have a bit of a heavy foot, and the car weight is over 2 tons, so taking this mass off the traffic lights must cost energy. I don't think there is anything wrong with the engine or the LPG install.

Hi, Definitely the car is more quiet than it was. To make an honest comparison you'd need another LS430 with a genuine and PROPERLY working Lexus exhaust - which may now be difficult to find. IMHO the car is silent as a mouse, I can only hear a short gentle growl on harder accelerations and that's it. The fitting was straight and easy, no mods required. The only difference is that on the new one, the end pipe ( finishing with the chrome piece) is straight, whereas in the original it is slightly bent - but that still is within the tolerance¸ so it all comes out nicely through the cut-outs in the rear bumper. Aesthetically, IMO, the original exhaust with the elliptical spouts looks nicer. I got mine, as you see on the pictures, with those round chrome bits, so I had to forget about the spouts, or cut off the chrome pieces and attach the old spouts. I didn't have time to bother, and wanted the car on road asap.

The manufacturer says the material is aluminium-coated steel. On average, mufflers from that factory have good opinion on Polish forums. I'm guessing it all depends on the quality of the coating and its thickness. Also makes me think if the coating is applied inside and outside, or just outside... Time will tell. I'll definitely report if I see any problems. I almost bought genuine Lexus ones, but some intuition told me to think critically and open the old box. Now I know that the Lexus design is screwed up, so I wouldn't buy that exhaust (made by Lexus) unless they start making it from gold! To be honest their price is such as if it was made out of gold... Otherwise the spring flap will corrode and you end-up backwards - what's the point?

500 PLN for the two incl delivery. That should be a bit more than 100 GBP, but it was in Poland, domestic delivery. I found they do ship to the UK and the EU https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Exhaust-Rear-Silencer-Muffler-LEXUS-LS-430-4-3-V8-32V-00-06r-PAIR-L-R-Black-/112440134007?hash=item1a2df44977

Yes, I believe the original was factory fitted exhaust. Also, the car is full dealer service history, and there is nowhere mentioned that the boxes were replaced. Mine is 2004 so 13 years+ not bad, but I think if it wasn't for that stupid flap it would have lasted much longer.

Hi there, Last summer, just after I bought my LS, I discovered that one of the exhaust pipes didn't blow as strong as the other. The difference was quite significant. At first I panicked a bit, but a quick inspection led me to discover a leak in the right back box, precisely its bottom wall, centrally located around half way length-wise. It was big enough. The corrosion was pretty bad, so I decided to get a new one. I wanted the best solution, and thought that I should get it from Lexus, (a ton of money) or if from any other shop, it should be as close as possible to the original. The search was long an painful, and I was giving up when found a small (home business) manufacturer in Poland. They are making all kinds of custom-made muffler replacements. I pre-ordered and in less than two weeks I had both of my boxes delivered - brand spanking new as shown on the picture. I also had a chat about my problem with the engineer from that company, who said that LS430 back box has a built-in design flaw, and that's why they all corrode and screw you up always in the same way. Not waiting any longer I grabbed an angle grinder and the results you see on the pictures. As it turns out, the mid-section wall has a flap on a metal spring. This spring gets exposed to pretty corrosive environment (water, and temperature), and you don't have to wait very long (I wonder how long) before it's so corroded that the flap cannot open any more. This leads ( you can guess) to excessive exhaust gass back-pressure build up, which is not very nice for the engine nor it is good for the performance. My flap was quite badly stuck closed, which also leads to excess water accumulation in the compartment before the flat, which in turns causes the bottom of the box corrode all the way through. On the finishing note, I am happy the new boxes do not have that annoying flap, the car runs nice and quiet, so far no problems. What I discovered in this case is to me an example of typical blind over-engineering, without thinking through about materials, the environment they are working in and the consequences. Had I gotten my brand new boxes from Lexus (for an astronomical price) , I would have had the same problem back in a few years soon.... Regards

Hi, If I may chip in my answer, here is what I have learned doing my own research and working with a friend with over 25 years experience servicing medium and enterprise range inverters and backup power supply systems. Get your capacitors from a supplier that can guarantee/ tell you how long these have been sitting on a shelf before you buy. Electrolytic capacitors are known to have rather short shelf life (2-3yrs) and deteriorate their parameters randomly when not in use. Also if you need to replace more than one piece of a kind, say 100 uF, make sure ALL these 100 uF for your PCB come from the same batch, have the same manufacturing date, come from the same factory of a top notch producer. Maybe look for NIPPON, PANASONIC, EPCOS... Check maybe if UK Farnell can get you some, rather than eBay... If you have an LCR meter check them for C and ESR. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/8794/do-electrolytic-capacitors-have-a-limited-shelf-life I wouldn't waste too much time, but if interested, here may be a good start for a further reading: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3191479_Shelf-Life_Evaluation_of_Aluminum_Electrolytic_Capacitors http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/products/alumi/pdf/Performances.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague Hope this helps, and you get your car sorted. Btw, your subject just made me think that I maybe should do some prev. cap change on my 2004 ls430...

Thanks for sharing your experience John. I think there are significant technical differences here, and therefore our experience is different, no doubt. Your engines are fairly big compared to my 1.6 primera - not the main point but it has to be sad that if you have a 200 - 300 horsepower at your disposal, you won't really notice let's say 10 or 20 missing because of low fuel quality, to be precise because of low octane and/or caloric value. It's a different story on an old or better put very simple engine running on a carburettor with fixed ignition timing (i.e. my primera), compared to a more modern engine where the ECU software is quite flexible and can re-map the fuel/air proportions, fuel dosage and ignition timing dynamically in order to give you consistent and good ride without sacrificing performance. What you will notice though, is that if you fill with low octane petrol or low quality of LPG, the fuel consumption will go up. I've heard some mechanics saying that you have to burn a tank or two of good high octane petrol for the engine to re-learn and adjust - not sure how much practical truth is in that, but sounds plausible. Most cars are typical daily rides, and will accept a wide variety of octane value, but these cars are rather tuned towards the lower numbers (around 90 and higher). You can still put 100+ in them but you may not notice that much improvement, maybe a few % better mpg, and a smoother running engine. Tuning for low end of octane is simply a safety margin, i.e. if you happen to drive through Ukraine, or Poland and fill up on a shady station you won't blow your engine. But if you decide to take things in your own hands and re-map the ECU for higher octane petrol 98 or 100+ or a better LPG, you will definitely enjoy sharper acceleration and better mpg, there's no doubt about that, especially if your engine is turbo-charged. The problem I see here, however, is too much risk. Especially for LPG, as there are no standards of octane or "quality" of LPG as there are for petrol. Believe me or not, there is excellent, average and, awful LPG out there. I think that my old primera is a good testing platform for fuel. The engine has got at all times one stiff base setting for fuel/air proportions, does not try to compensate, re-learn for one or another octane number, and has one fixed ignition timing that you can set yourself on the ignition distributor - which is currently lightly over-advanced. This is why I can better feel the quality of fuel, as it is the only one parameter that changes in the whole experiment. In modern engines there are so many parameters adjusted dynamically + quality of fuel comes into play, so I agree you may have trouble figuring out the cause from the effect or any difference at all. On the quality of fuels my impression is that outside Germany everywhere else is worse, especially for LPG, and the more to the east or south you go it gets worse and inconsistent. In Poland alone, throughout say last 10 years there were a few nation-wide petrol related scandals uncovered. Stations selling 98-100 octane on the label and after lab tests turned out it hardly had 95. The 95 labelled one had barely 90, and so on. And much worse things like unusually high water amount in fuel, etc. LPG contaminated by shreds of metal particles and scum. Many people got engines damaged and tried to claim that from the petrol stations. And in some cases that was not necessarily the stations creating the scam, it was also corrupt one level above, the fuel was already like that when arrived from our national refinery, that's why I've said nationwide scandals. One last note - I have no personal reasons to praise Germany, or complain about Poland, just telling the reality from my perspective. **** sometimes happens no matter the country, but where big money and politics/govt/regulators mix. Look no further than the last VW emissions scandal...

Those who know the subject will recognise some parts. The LPG ECU hidden away under one of the covers on the RHS.

No, I did it in Warsaw, Energy Gaz Polska, or Energy Gas Poland. They specialise in challenging projects, and have been auhtorised by many dealers, including Toyota/Lexus. They've done dozens of LS 430s, and showed me some of their clients have covered 700k+ km on LPG fitted LS430s and still running no problems at all. So, I had to look no further. I wanted an experienced garage and engineers that know this particular V8 (3UZ), and they know what they are doing, so I end up with the best gas conversion kit possible for this car and get the best work done, the price did not matter. By the way I've seen some very impressive LPG conversion projects made by them: Audi RS6 V8 4.2 bi-turbo 511 bhp, Subaru WRX, and lately Ddodge RAM SRT10 with Viper V10 8.3L 517 bhp

Yes if the installation is done right, on the right engine there should be no concern. However, on some poor quality engines they (valves) happen to burn, even running solely on petrol !!! - some new 4.0L grand cherokees love it - so forget an LPG on that, or find out for yourselves. My neighbour just killed one cherokee like that. Another example is when an LPG installation is not fine-tuned and running the engine too lean - for many reasons - carelessness, clogged gas filters, worn gas injectors, or because the customer wanted to skimp on LPG fuel consumption and/or the shop wanted to brag the customer that they will fit an LPG and the MPG will be as good as on petrol... Yes, so to compensate for the lower caloric value, a typical LPG will consume about 10-20% more fuel, but again, a decent LPG has easily an octane value above 100, so if the fuel maps of the engine are tuned well, or if the software of the engine can learn and adjust to this octane dynamically, the results can be astonishing, especially power-wise. Most of the LPG is composed of butane and propane. Butane has higher caloric value, and burns hotter, but not so good in freezing conditions, propane is the one less caloric, but burns better when cold (much lower freezing temp) - that's why the LPG for winter has (or should have) different proportions propane/butane than LPG for summer - on some engines in extreme temperatures you can feel the summer/winter difference. Now about LPG quality. I'm from Poland, do a lot of driving back and forth from the UK, and sadly must say that LPG quality (and the power your car can get from it) is not consistent across the countries, and even filling stations. In relative terms, Polish gas is ranges from poor to average, sadly, BP in Poland IMHO is not impressive at all. Belgium and Netherlands have consistent quality, but not impressive, UK the same. What stands out is Germany, and only specific stations: I can trust any ARAL - I have tried many of them, and all of them have 100+ octane petrol too. Last trip I filled on a German Total, pricey, 72 cents/litre of LPG, but my nearly 25yr old primera 1.6, 16v on carburettor (!) started flying. Engine got so responsive and eager like never. 190 km/h top speed on that LPG, while usually struggled to top 160-170. Note - it's got a lightly advanced timing to account for higher octane petrol or LPG. Just before Dunkirk I stopped on Belgian Texaco to re-fuel, 42 cents/litre, and... so disappointed - acceleration was like driving through wet cement. Just converted an LS430, and testing, so the time will tell, but so far I'm very happy - running last BRC Sequent Plug&Drive conversion kit. I did the conversion in a Lexus approved garage, with 2yrs warranty etc. I was also surprised to hear that now in Poland many dealers (if you request) will outsource an LPG conversion and sell you a brand new LPG powered car, and this will not affect warranty, your rights, etc.

Depends, and not necessarily, For example the new Prins installations for engines with direct injections of liquid phase gas don't need that, in fact the LPG in liquid phase helps to cool off the valves. My personal feeling is that the old Jap engines, like on my primera P10, 1994 were made much robust and designed with a high margin tolerances for temperatures and such. I've been running this Nissan for over 15yrs on LPG with no valve lube, and compression testing it - no change whatsoever.

Yes, totally agree. The LPG oil looks pristine at around 10k miles. Just got the LS, but also have a 1994 Nissan primera at 330k on the clock, LPG on it for over 15 years, running on fully synth Mobil 1 5w/50.

Sorry, by mistake I sent it to GS forum, Can an admin move it over to the LS 430 section please? Or, shall I copy this content there myself?

Interesting topic. I would like to hear arguments supporting using 5/30. However what I hear from experienced mechanics - some working for the dealers, the x/30, be it 0/30 or 5/30 are very thin / low viscosity oils. They tend to burn off, combust, get consumed, whatever.... much more easily than x/40 or x/50 due to lower resistance to high combustion temperatures. The good (and probably the only one) side of x/30 is that due to low visc. there is less resistance to moving parts of the engine and lower fuel consumption, you may get a bit more power, or you may think you will... and we are more "eco-friendly…". As the eco-histeria gets pushed further, the dealers of course will recommend 0/30 or 5/30. However, because the oil film of x/30 is much thinner, you get more engine wear - and this is what our lovely car dealers want: you scrap your car at around 150-200k miles and go and get a new one. I have lived it myself, used to get 5/40 full-synthetic from asda for my mazda 323f 2.0, Wasn't too bad, but once I tried mobil 1 5w50 (not recommended by the dealer by the way), the car stopped consuming oil, engine and valves got much quieter and I have no soot deposit on the chrome end of the tailpipe anymore! So what is this eco-histeria about... By the way I did not notice an increase in fuel consumption. Now onto the LPG. The combustion temperature of LPG-air mixture is higher than petrol (I'm guessing 20-30%), moreover, if an LPG installation is fitted/tuned by an amateur, or someone who doesn't know your engine inside-out, you'll soon get the valves burnt out, and plus if running too lean, in some extreme cases holes burnt through the piston... (yes, I've seen it too). So I see no reason why anyone would get a thin, low viscosity oil for an LPG engine - quite the opposite if you think from the point of the running conditions of the engine. Get at least 0w40, or even 5/50 fully synth. I'm currently on 0w/40 Mobil 1 (full-synth) on my LS430, and the car is LPG powered and happy. I want to test Mobil 1 5/50, the same as on the mazda at some point, and I don't think it would hurt the LS V8.

Hi all, Just converted my 430 to use LPG fuel. Runs beautifully, on BRC plug&drive hardware/software. Seamless and automatic switchover from petrol->LPG. Done in Poland in a Lexus approved installer, 2yrs warranty. Can share pics and experience further. Happy to answer any questions.