SC430 project

[dougie175]

7 minutes ago, Farqui said:

So glad that you didn't drop it too much, looks about spot on that

 

I fitted those coilovers to my Honda and they were...firm, handling was fantastic tho. Robb has them on his IS and rates them, so maybe the spring/dampers are a better setup for Lexus. They're rebuildable and you get good customer service from the manufacturer, all of which bodes well.

Agreed the drop looks good, I'm never a fan of silly low cars

I don't think it mattered what setup you had on the Honda mate it was hard I went for the most comfortable setup possible the Koni FSD's and Eibach springs and it was still far from what I would call comfortable just nice a suspension setup designed to absorb all the lumps and bumps, it was 1 of my main reasons for selling.

The Meisters on a Lexus are a totally different ball game though, comfortable but also sharp for cornering, its a great setup and nothing like the bumpty skitty feeling of the civic on them

[Farqui]

Its good to hear that IS and SC owners rate the Meister coil overs, as it gives us alternatives from OEM.

The double wishbone / multi-link suspension design on my GS rides/handles far better than MacPherson /beam on the Honda. Which is remarkable considering how big the GS is in comparison.

I'll have to familiarise myself with the IS and SC suspension setups

*update: SC uses double wishbones fr/re and IS/GS double wishbone front / multi-link rear..

[Neil E]

21 minutes ago, dougie175 said:

Glad you like the Mesiter R's as much as I do they are a fantastic mod for the IS too, ideal for comfort and sporty looks with better handling too, what more can you ask for!

...........AIR..........but it's £3k and I only spend that kind of money on car hifi 

The car gets used and abused properly. The previous picture was taken in Scotland just off the route of the NC500. I couldn't go too low otherwise it wouldn't cope with daily life. I wouldn't go this low but it would be very cool, comfortable and so practical.

 

[dougie175]

Never experienced air suspension on anything other than Range Rovers and Q7's and such at work, does seem like the ideal for modified cars but yeah its silly expensive and uses up too much boot space!

I personally think the ride height of yours is far better than that video, but I don't really get the "stance" thing, I appreciate a very good fitment but going lower with silly camber for the sake of it I don't get personally.

[Neil E]

8 minutes ago, Farqui said:

Its good to hear that IS and SC owners rate the Meister coilovers, as it gives us alternatives from OEM.

The double wishbone / multilink suspension design on my GS rides/handles far better than McPhearson /beam on the Honda. Which is remarkable considering how big the GS is in comparison.

I'll have to familiarise myself with the IS and SC suspension setups.

 

 

 

 

I found the later GS430 ride handling compromise very good.

The wheelbase varies but the IS, earlier GS and the SC share a similar chassis/suspension set up.

[Neil E]

2 minutes ago, dougie175 said:

Never experienced air suspension on anything other than Range Rovers and Q7's and such at work, does seem like the ideal for modified cars but yeah its silly expensive and uses up too much boot space!

I personally think the ride height of yours is far better than that video, but I don't really get the "stance" thing, I appreciate a very good fitment but going lower with silly camber for the sake of it I don't get personally.

I agree, I don't really get the how low can you go competition but I have a huge respect for the lengths they go to to make it work. Stretched tyres and strange camber angles just seems to be dangerous in principal but if it's all low speed then I suppose there's no great risk.

[dougie175]

The problem is most of the "VAG" guys in my area go for the whole how low can you go thing and then still drive like lunatics which would be ok if they were just slowly driving around but they have about 5% of the tyre touching the ground and have the rear quarters hitting the tyres over every lump and bump.

1 of the lads at work thought it was very "cool" when his stretched tyre popped off the rim at 70mph when his rear quarter came crashing down onto the edge of the tyre!

Like you say if they drove steady with these setups it wouldn't be too bad but the days of saxos and such being the boy racer cars seem to have gone in my area anyway they are al driving around in A3's and Mk4 golfs with silly stance and drive like idiots

[Neil E]

Okay so if we're on page 2 then we better change the brake discs for some fancy drilled and slotted one's from the land down-under.

 

Nice shiny discs and the first bit of minor paintwork damage to the rear bumper so it was back to the paint shop to have the whole rear bumper sprayed again. 

Space-saver wheel added for long trips. Note the little cut outs in the boot trim to access the adjustable coil-overs. I must get around to making some neat little covers for them.

[Neil E]

28 minutes ago, dougie175 said:

The problem is most of the "VAG" guys in my area go for the whole how low can you go thing and then still drive like lunatics which would be ok if they were just slowly driving around but they have about 5% of the tyre touching the ground and have the rear quarters hitting the tyres over every lump and bump.

1 of the lads at work thought it was very "cool" when his stretched tyre popped off the rim at 70mph when his rear quarter came crashing down onto the edge of the tyre!

Like you say if they drove steady with these setups it wouldn't be too bad but the days of saxos and such being the boy racer cars seem to have gone in my area anyway they are al driving around in A3's and Mk4 golfs with silly stance and drive like idiots

Seems I've only seen the sensible ones on you-tube. 

I dare not say too much about the youth, I recall having a 4 carb XJ12 at the age of 21 or 22 in the early 80s.  

[dougie175]

21 hours ago, Neil E said:

Seems I've only seen the sensible ones on you-tube. 

I dare not say too much about the youth, I recall having a 4 carb XJ12 at the age of 21 or 22 in the early 80s.  

Oh I totally agree I was a maniac but at least I had 4 full tyres touching the road surface

[Neil E]

Lifting the pictures straight from the SC section, here we have just about the only means to improve the performance of an SC without using forced induction. More aggressive cams would be nice but where would you find some?

PPE make a set of short pipe 4-1 headers to replace the inefficient exhaust manifolds. Dyno test results show a 20 whp gain when combined with a 3rd cat delete and a free flowing exhaust. The problem is they are expensive to make and ship to the UK and they are only designed to fit the US spec left hand drive SC430. 

I was reluctant to try this at first but in the end I just had to have a go. After a lot of research I emailed PPE who confirmed what I already knew, that the original near side header is a direct fit for the rhd car but the offside header would need to be modified to avoid the steering shaft knuckle. PPE said it would be difficult to do, they had been looking for 3D CAD drawings of the rhd model in order to design the solution but none were available. I asked if anyone else had done it using their headers and they replied confirming no one else in Europe had to their knowledge even tried, the only one they knew of was a chap in Australia using a GS430.

So I did a bit more research and took the plunge. I must say PPE were very helpful and shipped one complete nearside header and all of the components to make up a custom offside header at reasonable cost, I had to pay the import duty. 

I approached MIJ in Walsall as they built the exhaust system. They make headers from scratch and thought with 2 technicians working on it the job could be done in a day but might take an extra day if problems arose.

Here are some pictures of the headers and the components sent.

 

Here is the car on the ramp 

 

It took four long days to get both headers done as they were having issues with other customers' cars at the same time. I hired a car to get home on the first day, dropped it back on the third day and stayed overnight in a local hotel. On the fourth day, I was the last customer in the garage at 6 p.m. and by 7.00 p.m. was under the ramp helping out get it back together but with a lot of effort, late into the evening of that fourth day I drove it off the ramp and headed for the M40. 

 

Very little room to work in here, difficult even to take a clear pic of the header. The exhaust wrap is very necessary to restrict the heat.

Because of the extent of the works carried out, I was a very long way into the journey home before feeling confident about opening it up but when I did, what a difference! There was a subtle change in the exhaust note higher in the rev range but the car suddenly had overtaking power that it didn't have before. Hats off to the young engineer Sean for completing it, he did receive a nice tip. It had been an epic adventure and the final result appeared to be very good I did have one regret and that was simply the fact that despite the feeling of extra power it still sounded very tame. 

[lockeyboy]

Did you sell the original wheels ?

[Farqui]

That sounds like an epic job on the header.

Thank gawd work wasn't needed on both sides!

I doff my hat to the chaps that worked in that tight space.

[dougie175]

1 hour ago, Neil E said:

Lifting the pictures straight from the SC section, here we have just about the only means to improve the performance of an SC without using forced induction. More aggressive cams would be nice but where would you find some?

PPE make a set of short pipe 4-1 headers to replace the inefficient exhaust manifolds. Dyno test results show a 20 whp gain when combined with a 3rd cat delete and a free flowing exhaust. The problem is they are expensive to make and ship to the UK and they are only designed to fit the US spec left hand drive SC430. 

I was reluctant to try this at first but in the end I just had to have a go. After a lot of research I emailed PPE who confirmed what I already knew, that the original near side header is a direct fit for the rhd car but the offside header would need to be modified to avoid the steering shaft knuckle. PPE said it would be difficult to do, they had been looking for 3D CAD drawings of the rhd model in order to design the solution but none were available. I asked if anyone else had done it using their headers and they replied confirming no one else in Europe had to their knowledge even tried, the only one they knew of was a chap in Australia using a GS430.

So I did a bit more research and took the plunge. I must say PPE were very helpful and shipped one complete nearside header and all of the components to make up a custom offside header at reasonable cost, I had to pay the import duty. 

I approached MIJ in Walsall as they built the exhaust system. They make headers from scratch and thought with 2 technicians working on it the job could be done in a day but might take an extra day if problems arose.

Here are some pictures of the headers and the components sent.

 

Here is the car on the ramp 

 

It took four long days to get both headers done as they were having issues with other customers' cars at the same time. I hired a car to get home on the first day, dropped it back on the third day and stayed overnight in a local hotel. On the fourth day, I was the last customer in the garage at 6 p.m. and by 7.00 p.m. was under the ramp helping out get it back together but with a lot of effort, late into the evening of that fourth day I drove it off the ramp and headed for the M40. 

 

Very little room to work in here, difficult even to take a clear pic of the header. The exhaust wrap is very necessary to restrict the heat.

Because of the extent of the works carried out, I was a very long way into the journey home before feeling confident about opening it up but when I did, what a difference! There was a subtle change in the exhaust note higher in the rev range but the car suddenly had overtaking power that it didn't have before. Hats off to the young engineer Sean for completing it, he did receive a nice tip. It had been an epic adventure and the final result appeared to be very good I did have one regret and that was simply the fact that despite the feeling of extra power it still sounded very tame. 

That is 1 epic little story, glad it had a happy ending, sounds like you are very pleased with the headers, that's a serious amount of work to create custom ones is such a confined area, and I'm guessing still to this day the only set oh headers on an SC430 RHD though!

[Neil E]

13 minutes ago, lockeyboy said:

Did you sell the original wheels ?

No, I've kept all of the original equipment so that the next owner can put anything back if they so desire. If I replace much more, there will be a whole spare SC430 distributed to the four corners and roof of the garage. 

12 minutes ago, Farqui said:

That sounds like an epic job on the header.

 

Thank gawd work wasn't needed on both sides!

 

I doff my hat to the chaps that worked in that tight space.

The engine had to be lifted off its mounts, the nearside header was fairly straight-forward but making up the offside was a hell of trial and error task. You can't see it but it's a work of art underneath all of the exhaust wrap. The young technician that built and fitted it was quite exceptional. I did explain to him afterwards that although it had been a long process he is the only one to have done it.

Much later the car had a few more runs on another Dyno Dynamics rolling road. I couldn't return to the original testers as they had gone out of business but at least it was the same type of machine. I wish I had taken the original dyno sheets as it might have helped the tester match the settings but after a few runs he was happy that the results were consistent at an estimated 307 bhp at the flywheel. It's also consistent with the figures achieved in the US so I'm content but again stress that it's only an indication. 

The tester said it's the only SC he's ever seen on the dyno, the last Lexus he tested on the rollers was an LFA and it was quite a bit below the claimed power output.

[Neil E]

34 minutes ago, dougie175 said:

That is 1 epic little story, glad it had a happy ending, sounds like you are very pleased with the headers, that's a serious amount of work to create custom ones is such a confined area, and I'm guessing still to this day the only set oh headers on an SC430 RHD though!

Yes as far as I know they are the only PPE headers on a RHD SC430. PPE said they had not sold any to anyone else in the UK or Europe. They were aware of guy in Belgium who was struggling with a set for a LHD car. There's an earlier model 5 speed SC with Sikky made headers in the UK, that's a very nice car. Most of the US owners report good gains and usually fit them in a day.

Shortly after the dyno run, I had the mid section silencers removed in favour of straight pipes to the rear silencer and the twin quad tails replaced with bigger twin ovals. It's still a nice refined low V8 sound but has a little more attitude when floored.

 

[Neil E]

I must find a tunnel, attach the number plate properly and remake this clip.

[dougie175]

Just gets better and better this project!

Great gains from the headers, I would be interested myself but just cant justify the cost to be honest

[Big Rat]

@Neil E Only just discovered this great work and shall look at in in more detail.

Ive skimmed through quickly and can I ask what are they and where you got the discs from in Aus.

Secondly if it helps reading through where you'd  like to up the engine power but where to get different cams I believe this outfit in Sout Africa do different cams and as you can see they know a thing or two about Lexus V8's.

http://www.lexusv8.co.za/

I guess this is where you say I know all about them 😂

Big Rat

Edited July 21, 2017 by Big Rat

[Neil E]

@Big Rat Oh very interesting. Thanks for that, yes I thought I knew all about Lextreme from the early days (V8 Soarers) but it looks as though I may need to catch up on where they are now. I used to be on the Australia Soarer site too, most of the really good stuff came from there and we copied them.

Discs from OZ - Disc Brakes Australia    http://www.dba.com.au/ 

As for the build thread, this is the shortened version. If you really can't sleep there are 33 pages elsewhere.

On ‎21‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 8:19 AM, dougie175 said:

Just gets better and better this project!

Great gains from the headers, I would be interested myself but just cant justify the cost to be honest

@dougie175 thanks Robb. If you can get them supplied and fitted at reasonable cost, equal length scavenging headers are a good way to increase power. In my case it wasn't cheap and I can't stress enough that Dyno results are only really useful when you can compare before and after with the same machine and similar conditions. I'm well aware that often it's all a matter of smoke and mirrors and how the Dyno is set up. It would be interesting to see what a standard car in good order would measure on the same machine at the same time. If it read 279 (or 282 for the earlier model) then that would provide some evidence of accuracy in line with how Lexus recorded the power output.

IF it really has increased from 279 to 307 at the flywheel then I would say that's a pretty good result and perhaps a shade more than I expected. The Dyno tester (another Sean) said with better fuelling at the top end it would easily make 10 more. Those 28 bhp probably cost £100 each in parts, labour, shipping, overnight accommodation, etc so it wasn't good value but I did it for the challenge, not for the track times, I said before.... 307 isn't going to keep up with ISF coffee and cake club.

 

[Big Rat]

@Neil E Thanx for the info glad I was able to help in some small way, as regards the isF coffee and cake club always remember 'If you can't beat them you are most welcome to join em ! '

Big Rat

[Neil E]

5 hours ago, Big Rat said:

@Neil E Thanx for the info glad I was able to help in some small way, as regards the isF coffee and cake club always remember 'If you can't beat them you are most welcome to join em ! '

Big Rat

@Big Rat Thanks already searching through Lextreme. Yes I really need to catch up with the ISF team again and add a few more calories but I fear it will lead to another bout of 5 litre envy. 

 

[Big Rat]

7 minutes ago, Neil E said:

@Big Rat Thanks already searching through Lextreme. Yes I really need to catch up with the ISF team again and add a few more calories but I fear it will lead to another bout of 5 litre envy. 

 

@Neil E No probs at all matey welcome anytime we're up the old RAF Kemble in August for a mini meet if you can make it, as an aside there is a isF engine for sale on the bay guy in London it's only done 300 miles apparently loads of other stuff with it, you could shoehorn it in yours. 😏

🐀

 

[TigerFish]

great work on the car so far Neil. There are a lot of folk that seem to take offense at beefing up the exhaust note on the V8 Lexus models, but I loved the burble on the custom exhaust I had on my GS430 Sport.

[Big Rat]

16 minutes ago, TigerFish said:

great work on the car so far Neil. There are a lot of folk that seem to take offense at beefing up the exhaust note on the V8 Lexus models, but I loved the burble on the custom exhaust I had on my GS430 Sport.

@TigerFish There is some 'opposition ' that's true just can't seem to find someone to fit a valved system to my spare exhaust.

Big Rat