K&N indiction kit upgrade

[Las Palmas]

There are many ways to waste money.

Have too much; buy a car that meets you wishes.

[Linas.P]

Some cars are easy to tune and very rewarding, so it is possible to find car which let's say has "conservative" tune from the factory and with little bit of tinkering add 30% of power. BMW B58 engine good example - it is turbocharged petrol which could be found in various different power levels from something like 280hp all the way to 376hp from factory. As such if you get model with 280hp (say BMW M240i) it is easy just to get it chip tuned to nearly 400hp without making any other changes. And there are loads of such examples of TD and turbo petrol German cars...

But Lexus is not such car where gains can be made easily or cheaply. So whereas on BMW or Golf £300 can buy you 100 more hp, on Lexus £1000 will get you 20 more! It is absolutely not worth tuning Lexus, just not the car which is "tuner friendly". 

Now I would fully agree with John - if you want more power just get IS350... but wait... they never sold one in UK 😞

[H3XME]

52 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

it is 100% illegal and immoral to do that on road car. 

Having a de-cat is not illegal as such. You can still pass MOT with only one lot of cats if the car is hot before testing. If it passes MOT, it's road legal.

[H3XME]

9 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Some cars are easy to tune and very rewarding, so it is possible to find car which let's say has "conservative" tune from the factory and with little bit of tinkering add 30% of power. BMW B58 engine good example - it is turbocharged petrol which could be found in various different power levels from something like 280hp all the way to 376hp from factory. As such if you get model with 280hp (say BMW M240i) it is easy just to get it chip tuned to nearly 400hp without making any other changes. And there are loads of such examples of TD and turbo petrol German cars...

But Lexus is not such car where gains can be made easily or cheaply. So whereas on BMW or Golf £300 can buy you 100 more hp, on Lexus £1000 will get you 20 more! It is absolutely not worth tuning Lexus, just not the car which is "tuner friendly". 

Now I would fully agree with John - if you want more power just get IS350... but wait... they never sold one in UK 😞

You absolutely cannot compare a turbo car to N/A car. 20% power increase is a general figure with no supporting mods on a turbo car. If you want more, de-cat and better intake (if OEM is restrictive) is the way to go. With N/A car you have nothing to tune unless you go straight for a de-cat and that give you roughly only 10% increase in general.

I'd be all over IS350 if it was manual, but sadly, never was, and it never even made it to UK. This doesn't mean you shouldn't modify or do anything to a car that isn't the "performance" version of your car, which in this case would be IS-F. The best way to get power out of IS250 or any other N/A car for that matter is Supercharger/Turbo. SC is better in this case due to high compression on these engines.

There is a couple Lexus cars you can tune. RC200t and the IS200t. 4 banger turbo, get over 300hp easy, but I wouldn't go that way because in a car like that, it just seems wrong to have only 4 cylinders. 

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, H3XME said:

Having a de-cat is not illegal as such. You can still pass MOT with only one lot of cats if the car is hot before testing. If it passes MOT, it's road legal.

I can pass mot by giving £50 to the questionable tester or just taking car to questionable garage where they simply not bothered to test the car and just give passes for everyone... So yes - technically car with valid MOT is road legal - the way you pass the MOT is question of your own morale.  

[Mr Vlad]

Ok. I think enough is enough on this futile argument on whether you can or can't tune a car or not.

This is John's thread about an aftermarket air inlet tube mod. 

Leave the next post to him when he's ready to report anything if at all when he fits his new pipe.

Cheers 🍻 

[ColinBarber]

4 hours ago, H3XME said:

If it passes MOT, it's road legal.

Passing an MOT isn't the full story. You could still move the CO2 tax bracket to drop a EURO emissions level by making modifications that aren't tested on an MOT.

 

The law

Under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations (Regulations 61(7) and 61A(3)) and the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Section 42) it is an offence to use on a road a vehicle which has been modified in such a way that it no longer complies with the air pollutant emissions standards it was designed to meet.

The potential penalties are £1,000 for a car and £2,500 for a van, lorry or bus.

Under the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Section 75) it is an offence to alter a vehicle in such a way that the use of the vehicle on a road would be unlawful. A person altering the vehicle (if they knew or believed that the vehicle would be used on the road) could be found guilty of an offence under the Act.

Potential penalties are unlimited fines.

[H3XME]

16 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

Passing an MOT isn't the full story. You could still move the CO2 tax bracket to drop a EURO emissions level by making modifications that aren't tested on an MOT.

 

The law

Under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations (Regulations 61(7) and 61A(3)) and the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Section 42) it is an offence to use on a road a vehicle which has been modified in such a way that it no longer complies with the air pollutant emissions standards it was designed to meet.

The potential penalties are £1,000 for a car and £2,500 for a van, lorry or bus.

Under the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Section 75) it is an offence to alter a vehicle in such a way that the use of the vehicle on a road would be unlawful. A person altering the vehicle (if they knew or believed that the vehicle would be used on the road) could be found guilty of an offence under the Act.

Potential penalties are unlimited fines.

Sure there is a law for everything. You would have to seriously ***** someone off for them to go to such extent. It's a virtually invisible mod until you start digging for stuff under the car. Most modifications are to owner's discretion. Something as stupid as wrong size/format number plates is probably the most common thing I see, but there's not much of an enforcement when it comes to stuff like that. 

[Linas.P]

46 minutes ago, H3XME said:

wrong size/format number plate

I agree that cosmetic mods could be done at the owners discretion, even performance mods to some degree, but not mods which pollutes more. Number plates do not unnecessary poison people around you for 10hp gain. Although some plates fitted on motorbikes are definitely very illegal and fitted for single purpose of avoiding responsibility.

 As I said previously - for track car that is fine, for road car it isn't. If you can't modify the car to keep it road legal, or without a need to cheat during MOT, then I don't think such modification should be considered.

[DanATR]

omg, I honestly cant believe what I’m reading in this topic. Just throw on the induction pipe, tell your insurance company, pay the dosh. Done.

The only reason that new cars cant be modified heavily is due to the European V emissions laws when the car is made and under manufactures warranty. After that, who gives a dam as long as it passes the emissions tests. I mean, look at the amount of cars which the EGR does not work on now. Most are blocked.... which is technically a mod as its blocked off...

[toffee_pie]

On 6/9/2021 at 12:48 PM, H3XME said:

You absolutely cannot compare a turbo car to N/A car. 20% power increase is a general figure with no supporting mods on a turbo car. If you want more, de-cat and better intake (if OEM is restrictive) is the way to go. With N/A car you have nothing to tune unless you go straight for a de-cat and that give you roughly only 10% increase in general.

I'd be all over IS350 if it was manual, but sadly, never was, and it never even made it to UK. This doesn't mean you shouldn't modify or do anything to a car that isn't the "performance" version of your car, which in this case would be IS-F. The best way to get power out of IS250 or any other N/A car for that matter is Supercharger/Turbo. SC is better in this case due to high compression on these engines.

There is a couple Lexus cars you can tune. RC200t and the IS200t. 4 banger turbo, get over 300hp easy, but I wouldn't go that way because in a car like that, it just seems wrong to have only 4 cylinders. 

I had a IS250 and did put on a K&N intake, nice extra noise but zero extra performance - I sold the Lexus due to the lack of performance and bought a CL55 AMG with 500 horses - but that turned out to be a lemon so I bought an AWD Subaru SpecB a month later which outperforms the Merc on all road conditions and reliability and sounds amazing to boot.

If you want to stick to Lexus get a IS-F its an awesome car itself and if my Subaru was not so reliable and lasting me over 5 years I would probably have got one of those

[Johnlex]

All done and fitted, very quick simple job and will inform insurance.

gains are little noise is nice very nice and it has increased abit I feel and feels like more power on the throttle. 
driving in sport with PWR on with the paddle shift I can definitely feel more power. So everybody who had knocked it and said not worth it does nothing ?? Buy it fit and then tell me !! Then we talk 😂