gsportcars

Just live with it. Complete nightmare of a job to fix and no real need to do so.

Yes Mat is correct. It is useful for cold starts as it aids slightly in getting the engine to operating temp quicker. the fuel from your injectors will struggle to atomise in colder temps so the extra heat early on helps the fuel atomise. this in turn helps fuel economy as less fuel is required on cold starts to achieve the desired A/F ratio to operate the engine as it mixes with the air more freely when atomised.

They will be in and out of banks without notice unless the coins are all checked.

I work with vending and gaming machines so I have hundreds/thousands of 20p's being counted each month. Don't really want to search through them all but maybe just a few lol.

A friend of mine is selling a front and rear lip. £80 for both but the front is damaged although repairable. PM me for his number.

As already said it does sound like it's only firing a couple of cylinders but i assume that is down to the fact it only has a manifold on and the sound probably isn't that good on the vid.

Nevertheless it is always a good day when you start and engine for the first time. Looking forward to seeing/hearing it with the tubbie mate.

Get the vids up man!!!

Been waiting to see this thing come to life. Like I said before it is a very nice project.

Just make sure that the wheels you choose will fit over the LS400 brake calipers. I have the LS400 calipers on my IS and the choice of wheels is limited.

For average driving budget tyres are fine but certain brands should be avoided completely for eg Nankangs etc etc.

A good quality remap will do wonders for fuel consumption and performance. I am getting between 35-40mpg now with the supra engine running nearly 500bhp. this is only when the car is driven as described above though. The main reason being that the fuel is being used more efficiently. Car manufacturers have to allow for different grades of fuel and operating conditions so the maps have more fuel added to be safe. This can be sorted with a re-map.

Of course when I put the foot down the needle literally drops immediately LOL.

Cheap soarer stripped out with manual box for the track and a reasonably nice everyday car. That way you won't be so worried about giving the track car so much abuse seeing as you have another car for the road.

Brakes will get warm almost immediately under normal driving condition when in use obviously. Unless there are other additional symptoms like pulling to one side when braking or the car not rolling freely when in neutral with the brakes off then I would guess that there is no problem at all. I am assuming you only noticed the heat because you were close to the wheel to check the tyre pressure???

Yeah I forgot to mention the torque. Apparently quite a good torque figure for my spec.

Just got the car on the dyno'd.

Running only 1.2bar boost and with a bad missfire due to I think dodgy coil packs it made 473BHP......woo hoo.

The missfire is visible on the printout so it will be sorted and then more boost to come and I should hope to be around the 550BHP mark at least.

Overall very happy with the result so far but still got some to go.

Use a bike rack but I never put the rack on the lex. It leaves marks on the pain where the foam pads sit on the boot. I have an astra estate daily driver now so it gets used.

Sorry to hear the bad news, thoughts with Steve and family.

I was reading through the last post about the anti-lag. I had anti-lag when Mine was originally turbo'd. It was only set up as mild anti-lag but give generally the same effect. Yes it can be quite hard on the turbo and exhaust valves but if set up correctly will not cause any real damage etc. I have a few vids of it but they are on another PC. I'll see if I can find them and post them up.

I have the Ls400 4 pot calipers fitted to my IS with supra discs a

I have the Ls400 4 pot calipers fitted to my IS with supra discs and although there was a small issue with bleeding them initially (just needed some persistence), they do work 100% now. I got them from Mat and the calipers were fully rebuilt when I got them.

On the other hand I have just sold an s14a and as any 200sx owner will know, the 4 pot on the s14a are prone to seizing which mine did....badly. I would literally have to jump on the brakes to get any sort of response at all in that car.

I would suggest you get the calipers checked to see if they have seized.

Also does the pedal feel spongy indicating air in the lines or is it solid but just not having much effect indicating possible seized calipers? I am assuming the discs and pads are in good condition as Lexus checked them?

My LS430 brakes work fine for a big heavy car.

You have to realise that the LS has next to no engine braking, so all the stopping power comes from the brakes themselves.

This is why a lot of LS`s have had replacement discs fitted, because they have to do so much work they warp quickly. Mine had a set of discs fitted before I bought it, and it had done just 69000 miles. I replaced the discs on my old LS400 while I had it, and again, that had only done about 80000.

The most common reason for warped discs on autos is due to the fact that the brakes are held on after the car has come to a stop. When braking from speed to a complete stop (for example motorway slip roads etc) te discs get very hot and want to expand. When an auto car is stopped the brakes tend to be held on to stop the car pushing forward naturally. This means that the discs expand unevenly due to the clamping force of the pads causing the disc to warp.

Although it can be a pain in the *** you should always put the car in neutral and if possible leave the handbrake off. This will leave the discs free to expand and contract evenly.

Have a good search around the boot for gremlins and other small pests. They prob hide when you open the boot making them hard to find.......

sorry....

That looks like a really nice setup. The turbo won't suffer any amount of noticable extra lag the way it is. Lag is much more noticable with longer intercooler piping than with longer headers because the engine creates the air pressure for the exhaust side instantaneously so to speak from the combustion. Lag comes more from the time it takes the turbo comperssor to fill the intercooler piping with enough air to create positive boost.

Looking forward to seeing this car if possible in the future, should be very nice when done.

Thanks again man, Looks like Lexus it is then.

I am looking to buy a set of the later spec darker headlights as my current ones have been split about 3 times an simply won't seal properly again. Open to all suggestions but I expect Lexus dealership is probably the only stockist.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Woo foopin hoo....

Finally on the road so to speak.

I have just got the car MOT'd as of yesterday. Failed the first time but only on ball joints so popped new lower ball joints in and job done. I have to get my insurance sorted tomorrow as i got a nice quote from greenlight and I can then tax it. I did some light throttle mapping on the way to a from MOT and the car seems to be driving so much better than it ever did. The engine still needs run in so it will be light throttle stuff for 1000 miles or so then I'll go for some proper mapping.

Over all very happy now to see some light at the end of the tunnel. still some bits and pieces need sorted for eg; I need a new T4 turbo/manifold gasket as I have a steel one which is useless so a cometic one is on its way from the states. My cam covers and spark plug cover are still to be painted and some other tidying in the engine bay needs done. I need to do some work in my boot to propery fit the Battery and tidy some wiring and finally when I figure out the best way to go about it I will sort my diff out as the car is now way way undergeared which is making it extra bad on the fuel and it is also ruining the drivability of the car.

I'll try and get some more pics and hopefully a couple of vids eventually.

Yeah Steve made a nice one for his own car which I still have fitted. Nice HKS boost gauge in a custom made pod in place of the factory tweeter in the door. sits in perfect view and very subtle. He did come on here a few weeks back so might be worth dropping him a PM incase he has anything lying about.

I don't wanna speak to soon but I am fairly sure I have the problem solved. Bolted everything up with the new bigger oil return line etc etc. Started the car and there was a tiny bit of smoke which is to be expected as there would be some oil left over in the exhaust. Took the car a small trip up a private lane way just driving slow and I did get some more smoke but when I returned and let the car idle the smoke dissapeared completely!! That was all i tried as I had other stuff to do but I am happy with the result. I need to do some more minor testing along with a bit of light load mapping and get it booked for MOT. I will be back with some more good results....hopefully...

Got some more bad news followed by some not so bad news. The turbo seals blew again.....twice lol. I re-fitted the turbo after getting the seals and bearings fitted and the turbo fully cleaned up etc and as I said above it was still smokey. I initially thought this was left over oil in the exhaust but upon further inspection I noticed the oil dripping from the exhaust housing again onto the manifold. So off came the turbo and the down pipe had cleared the old oil build up already but exhaust housing for the turbo had a puddle of oil in it. Back to the drawing board again.

This time I took my oil return line to GP turbos to let Robert look at it and he immediately said the return line inner bore was to small. This was stopping the oil from draining away from the turbo quick enough and it was backing up into the turbo and escaping through the seals. I now have a new (bigger) return line made up and the turbo rebuilt again. Problem is that I still have the old fitting in my sump from before which needs to be changed to a bigger one. That means the sump has to come off which means the engine has to come out or the subframe dropped to gain access. Oh how pleased I am at that lol. Anyway pics below of the turbo when I removed it the second time.

On a more positive note I did get my grill fitted. It was not a proper fit by any means as the bumper is custom and the grill is for the standard bumper but itis a vast improvement on what I had previously. Not overly happy with it but it will do for now.

As for the oil return line I will get the sump off this week and i also want to slightly modify my oil feed line to be sure I am not getting too much pressure in the first place. Then it's back to guessing what the next drama will be.....

Going by some info that I kindly recieved regarding my fuel gauge issue, it seems that you have a problem with your sender unit. It states that if the gauge reads empty and the light flashes then it isn't getting a signal from the sender unit in the tank. I am sure if you speak to lexus or an auto-electrician they could pin-point the cause for you.