Stage 1 recommendations

[akawants]

Hi there.

Recently (5 months) I bought an is250 2014 and I love the car and simple fact is naturally aspirated was one of the factors why I bought the car.

Now is known  the fact the car is not a fast runner and I m not bothered . Love the metallic sound of the engine but I am looking to improve a bit the dynamic so if anyone can recommend garages for a remap close to London or nearbys I would be grateful.

I know is not getting big earnings when is about hp/torque but I definitely look to improve.

Also if anyone did a gearbox remap I would like some feedback.

If someone has some ideas about throttle body inlet mod I am up to try it.

Thank you guys

 

[IS300FSPORT]

1 hour ago, akawants said:

Hi there.

Recently (5 months) I bought an is250 2014 and I love the car and simple fact is naturally aspirated was one of the factors why I bought the car.

Now is known  the fact the car is not a fast runner and I m not bothered . Love the metallic sound of the engine but I am looking to improve a bit the dynamic so if anyone can recommend garages for a remap close to London or nearbys I would be grateful.

I know is not getting big earnings when is about hp/torque but I definitely look to improve.

Also if anyone did a gearbox remap I would like some feedback.

If someone has some ideas about throttle body inlet mod I am up to try it.

Thank you guys

 

Good luck with that! On these cars the ECU is not easy to unlock to remap. & they certainly dont have the market/fan base for tuning. You may have bought the wrong car.

Your most obvious mods are breathing mods, exhaust, air filter, suspension coil overs, tyres, strut brace etc & weight loss get rid of rear seats how serious do you intend to go?

Look on an American forum the IS3 especially the IS350 is a capable motor we didnt get that in the UK. IS250 whilst it may be a great engine its quite lazy not designed to be a racer more a cruiser.

[akawants]

I do understand your point of view and I knew from the start is not shockingly fast but I am looking for just a bit more sharp.

I am not racing the car and the definitely not looking for lots of gains of power. The thing that pisses me of is sluggish engine until 3500 rpm. 

Only thing I am afraid of is cowboys doing remap and last thing I want to mess up is ECU.

I am hoping someone in UK already did this remap and is happy about with no issues whatsoever, that s all😅

[IS300FSPORT]

20 minutes ago, akawants said:

I do understand your point of view and I knew from the start is not shockingly fast but I am looking for just a bit more sharp.

I am not racing the car and the definitely not looking for lots of gains of power. The thing that pisses me of is sluggish engine until 3500 rpm. 

Only thing I am afraid of is cowboys doing remap and last thing I want to mess up is ECU.

I am hoping someone in UK already did this remap and is happy about with no issues whatsoever, that s all😅

To be fair the IS300H has decent acceleration in 'Sport' mode with High voltage Battery assisting. The IS250 being a VVTI engine probably loves to be rev'd out to use the power like the old Honda B/K series VTEC engines but then goodbye to MPG old techonology but making them very reliable because simple in comparison to modern engines as they are are turbo charged making them more  lively in the lower range.

For example the new CIVIC 2016 onwards with the 1.5 VTEC Turbo is a lively engine at 180bhp if your after good performance, MPG & reliability.

[Mr_Groundhog]

19 minutes ago, IS300FSPORT said:

To be fair the IS300H has decent acceleration in 'Sport' mode with High voltage battery assisting. The IS250 being a VVTI engine probably loves to be rev'd out to use the power like the old Honda B/K series VTEC engines but then goodbye to MPG old techonology but making them very reliable because simple in comparison to modern engines as they are are turbo charged making them more  lively in the lower range.

For example the new CIVIC 2016 onwards with the 1.5 VTEC Turbo is a lively engine at 180bhp if your after good performance, MPG & reliability.

When I was looking for the new car a few months ago, I had the pleasure of test driving one of those 1.5 civics and they're a joy if what you're looking for is that kind of fun. Definitely recommended. It felt quite sporty.

[Linas.P]

4 hours ago, akawants said:

Hi there.

Recently (5 months) I bought an is250 2014 and I love the car and simple fact is naturally aspirated was one of the factors why I bought the car.

Now is known  the fact the car is not a fast runner and I m not bothered . Love the metallic sound of the engine but I am looking to improve a bit the dynamic so if anyone can recommend garages for a remap close to London or nearbys I would be grateful.

I know is not getting big earnings when is about hp/torque but I definitely look to improve.

Also if anyone did a gearbox remap I would like some feedback.

If someone has some ideas about throttle body inlet mod I am up to try it.

Thank you guys

 

On 4GR-FSE (that is the engine in your car) not possible - don't waste the time thinking about it and don't waste money trying to do it. I simply cannot be done. And I don't only mean ECU cannot be mapped, which is true - it is locked and cannot be mapped and people who say it can are just lying, but as well that even if you get fully unlocked ECU, or replace it with aftermarket ECU (£1000+£500) there is simply no power to be found in the engine. 

There is no earnings to speak about on NA engines in general, you can "tune" anything you like out of them, but there is nothing to be gained. On NA engine the only way to make more power is to change the hardware... meaning - pistons, rings, rods, valves, boring out to higher displacement, then upgrading injectors, intake, exhaust... and only then you can do ECU tuning to "unlock" the power you gained from hardware. On Turbo engines that is different story - more boost = more air + more fuel = more power, big gains are possible with simple ECU tune until your rods hits the oil pan. On naturally aspirated car you just can't do it. I was at one point toying with idea of simply raising the RPM, sure at 8500 engine may grenade itself, but it would work in theory... the problem is that you will only make extra power in the new RPM range - so ~7250 to say 8250... It works well for race cars on the track, but it is simply not usable range on the road.

Likewise gearbox can't be tuned, it is simple 6-Speed Automatic Torque converted box, it shifts as fast as it can already, there is nothing to be gained. If you want less comfortable and less predictable gearshifts just press "sport" button and that is more or less what the "gearbox tune" can achieve. Now I believe A760E (gearbox in IS350) can be "manualised" meaning new chip/module is installed and it works like sequential manual gearbox, it does not override and it stays in gear you selected. That makes no difference on how quickly it shifts, but it could give a "feeling" that you are more in control, basically if you selected 2nd it will stay in second no matter what. However, I don't believe anyone officially does it on A960E (that is the gearbox in your car), because in Aisin boxes the lower number denotes the higher power rating, so A760E is in that sense superior to A960E and can hold more power. Now they are same design and very similar electronically, so I assume that whatever mods are done to "manualise" A760E would work on A960E, the reason it is not done is that A960E is simply not strong enough box to handle it. 

So no engine remap, no gearbox remap. I do believe ETC can be made more responsive, but it is kind of pointless because it doesn't give you more power and as it is electronic it does not move any faster anyway, so all the same can be achieved by simply pressing accelerator further. Note as well that with ETC what your foot does on the pedal is literally just suggestion, ECU may accept it or it may not, you cannot override it either.

If you want faster car, then you need different car. Sorry to say it but I had 4 IS250s myself (mk2, but that does not matter, they are identical as far as engine, gearbox and ECU are concerned, mk2 is even a little bit faster because it is lighter) and if there was one thing I could change about IS250 then it would be slightly more power. Not crazy amount but say 270hp and something like 6.5s 0-60 would make it perfect, sadly it is not achievable. 

I know somebody will come around and say "SUPERCHARGER"... Yeah sure - for £6000-£9000 you can get many lights on the dash indicating that your car will explode soon. It won't explode, but you will never get the lights off the dash (apart of tape trick) and secondly - do you really want to spend as much as the car itself to get ~280-300hp? At least on IS350 I understand it - with supercharger they get to 450hp and because they are lighter it makes them as fast as IS-F, but on IS250 it is all downsides and no benefits in my opinion. Certainly the power you get from supercharger is not worth the investment.

[akawants]

Thank you Linas for sharing your wisdom and experience and is really much appreciated. You just saved me couple of hundreds of pounds😅.

I think is time to get over myself and maybe just take care of it and maintain it properly. 

I will do old tricks changing exhaust/ iridium sparkplugs and air filter (K&N most certainly).

It is a bit shame because I really love the sound the engine makes and I thought maybe I can make it better. 

Definitely not investing a large sum of money and definitely doesn't worth the hassle with lights in dashboard 😁

After all it is a great daily driver and probably I need to understand the car.

Edited March 22, 2023 by akawants

[Linas.P]

Happy to hear it helped. 

Your car being Premier, consider getting maybe used F-Sport airbox and look around for the guides, F-Sport airbox has a hole and a tube to cabin to give more intake sound. Secondly, you could consider cutting out of replacing resonator which goes over rear axle (the exhaust goes into single pipe over axle and into resonator, at least on mk2 it did), as far as I am concerned that resonator doesn't do anything apart of making car quieter, so not much is lost be removing it and if the rest of exhaust is kept as it is then it shouldn't drone either. Alternatively - keep the resonator and replace back-boxes for smaller straight or turbo design, the potential for drone is there, but they would sound more aggressive than just removing resonator. Obviously, the loudest option is to do both of those things, but then you guaranteed to have a drone - cool at first, painful after 2 weeks (guess how I know), so not recommended. Just to be very clear - these 2 mods doesn't add ANY HP, maybe 2HP, maybe even loses 2HP... but they would make the car sound better and therefore "feel" faster. And secondly - this has no impact on emissions, 4 cats are in the front of exhaust and it is better not to touch them for many reason. 

I would not advise K&N filter, all it did to me was to ruin my MAF... Now I am not saying it is fault of K&N, maybe I oiled it wrong, or didn't oil it in time, but the fact is that K&N filters as far as filtration goes are worse, and that oiling them is faff. As far as the airflow goes... frankly it is irrelevant for IS250 (definitely adds no power) and as far as sound goes... I thought it sounded better, but maybe it was placebo. Anyhow I would do F-Sport airbox mod before I do K&N filter. 

Sparkplugs on IS250 are already iridium anyway, so there isn't really any upgrade you can get for them. So what is left are as you mentioned - intake/exhaust/cosmetic mods/sound. 

Other thing to consider - suspension, lighter wheels and good tyres... If anything good tyres probably is the thing that could improve IS250 the most... if you as well pair it with some light weight and maybe slightly smaller wheels, that may actually help the car to accelerate quicker. But anyway we are talking miniscule improvements here.  it is not VAG or BMW diesel where you slap the ECU tune and suddenly there is 100 more horses out of nowhere, but on other hand it is not VAG or BMW where after 40k miles you need to do full engine rebuild because Germans in their infinite wisdom makes parts like cam cover and water-pumps from plastic. 

[akawants]

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

On 4GR-FSE (that is the engine in your car) not possible - don't waste the time thinking about it and don't waste money trying to do it. I simply cannot be done. And I don't only mean ECU cannot be mapped, which is true - it is locked and cannot be mapped and people who say it can are just lying, but as well that even if you get fully unlocked ECU, or replace it with aftermarket ECU (£1000+£500) there is simply no power to be found in the engine. 

There is no earnings to speak about on NA engines in general, you can "tune" anything you like out of them, but there is nothing to be gained. On NA engine the only way to make more power is to change the hardware... meaning - pistons, rings, rods, valves, boring out to higher displacement, then upgrading injectors, intake, exhaust... and only then you can do ECU tuning to "unlock" the power you gained from hardware. On Turbo engines that is different story - more boost = more air + more fuel = more power, big gains are possible with simple ECU tune until your rods hits the oil pan. On naturally aspirated car you just can't do it. I was at one point toying with idea of simply raising the RPM, sure at 8500 engine may grenade itself, but it would work in theory... the problem is that you will only make extra power in the new RPM range - so ~7250 to say 8250... It works well for race cars on the track, but it is simply not usable range on the road.

Likewise gearbox can't be tuned, it is simple 6-Speed Automatic Torque converted box, it shifts as fast as it can already, there is nothing to be gained. If you want less comfortable and less predictable gearshifts just press "sport" button and that is more or less what the "gearbox tune" can achieve. Now I believe A760E (gearbox in IS350) can be "manualised" meaning new chip/module is installed and it works like sequential manual gearbox, it does not override and it stays in gear you selected. That makes no difference on how quickly it shifts, but it could give a "feeling" that you are more in control, basically if you selected 2nd it will stay in second no matter what. However, I don't believe anyone officially does it on A960E (that is the gearbox in your car), because in Aisin boxes the lower number denotes the higher power rating, so A760E is in that sense superior to A960E and can hold more power. Now they are same design and very similar electronically, so I assume that whatever mods are done to "manualise" A760E would work on A960E, the reason it is not done is that A960E is simply not strong enough box to handle it. 

So no engine remap, no gearbox remap. I do believe ETC can be made more responsive, but it is kind of pointless because it doesn't give you more power and as it is electronic it does not move any faster anyway, so all the same can be achieved by simply pressing accelerator further. Note as well that with ETC what your foot does on the pedal is literally just suggestion, ECU may accept it or it may not, you cannot override it either.

If you want faster car, then you need different car. Sorry to say it but I had 4 IS250s myself (mk2, but that does not matter, they are identical as far as engine, gearbox and ECU are concerned, mk2 is even a little bit faster because it is lighter) and if there was one thing I could change about IS250 then it would be slightly more power. Not crazy amount but say 270hp and something like 6.5s 0-60 would make it perfect, sadly it is not achievable. 

I know somebody will come around and say "SUPERCHARGER"... Yeah sure - for £6000-£9000 you can get many lights on the dash indicating that your car will explode soon. It won't explode, but you will never get the lights off the dash (apart of tape trick) and secondly - do you really want to spend as much as the car itself to get ~280-300hp? At least on IS350 I understand it - with supercharger they get to 450hp and because they are lighter it makes them as fast as IS-F, but on IS250 it is all downsides and no benefits in my opinion. Certainly the power you get from supercharger is not worth the investment.

 

1 hour ago, akawants said:

Thank you Linas for sharing your wisdom and experience and is really much appreciated. You just saved me couple of hundreds of pounds😅.

I think is time to get over myself and maybe just take care of it and maintain it properly. 

I will do old tricks changing exhaust/ iridium sparkplugs and air filter (K&N most certainly).

It is a bit shame because I really love the sound the engine makes and I thought maybe I can make it better. 

After all it is a great daily driver and probably I need to understand the car.

 

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Happy to hear it helped. 

Your car being Premier, consider getting maybe used F-Sport airbox and look around for the guides, F-Sport airbox has a hole and a tube to cabin to give more intake sound. Secondly, you could consider cutting out of replacing resonator which goes over rear axle (the exhaust goes into single pipe over axle and into resonator, at least on mk2 it did), as far as I am concerned that resonator doesn't do anything apart of making car quieter, so not much is lost be removing it and if the rest of exhaust is kept as it is then it shouldn't drone either. Alternatively - keep the resonator and replace back-boxes for smaller straight or turbo design, the potential for drone is there, but they would sound more aggressive than just removing resonator. Obviously, the loudest option is to do both of those things, but then you guaranteed to have a drone - cool at first, painful after 2 weeks (guess how I know), so not recommended. Just to be very clear - these 2 mods doesn't add ANY HP, maybe 2HP, maybe even loses 2HP... but they would make the car sound better and therefore "feel" faster. And secondly - this has no impact on emissions, 4 cats are in the front of exhaust and it is better not to touch them for many reason. 

I would not advise K&N filter, all it did to me was to ruin my MAF... Now I am not saying it is fault of K&N, maybe I oiled it wrong, or didn't oil it in time, but the fact is that K&N filters as far as filtration goes are worse, and that oiling them is faff. As far as the airflow goes... frankly it is irrelevant for IS250 (definitely adds no power) and as far as sound goes... I thought it sounded better, but maybe it was placebo. Anyhow I would do F-Sport airbox mod before I do K&N filter. 

Sparkplugs on IS250 are already Iridium anyway, so there isn't really any upgrade you can get for them. So what is left are as you mentioned - intake/exhaust/cosmetic mods/sound. 

Other thing to consider - suspension, lighter wheels and good tyres... If anything good tyres probably is the thing that could improve IS250 the most... if you as well pair it with some light weight and maybe slightly smaller wheels, that may actually help the car to accelerate quicker. But anyway we are talking miniscule improvements here.  it is not VAG or BMW diesel where you slap the ECU tune and suddenly there is 100 more horses out of nowhere, but on other hand it is not VAG or BMW where after 40k miles you need to do full engine rebuild because Germans in their infinite wisdom makes parts like cam cover and water-pumps from plastic. 

I was thinking for 19 inch wheels but I do think is gonna be too much pressure on arms and suspension so I m gonna stick to 18 inch I already have. Doesn't stop me to lower it a bit🤭. I know, is not gonna be comfy but I think I can take it considering usually I drive on motorways. Tyres I m running on Goodyear eagle sport which seems to do the job😃.

Now I am thinking to make the car "more of me". I will look for the F sport air box because it s sounds quite interesting. My partner is gonna hate it but after all I am the driver. Hopefully I will find one 😀

I already bought wheel spacer 20mm and this weekend will arrive🤓. Is not massive but is gonna change the look a bit and I got a chrome delete kit coming in 2 weeks.

Now from your experience do you think my 3is is gonna take  GSF bushings. I found OEM bushings for 86 quid shipment from Japan and sounds quite a bargain to me. Also looking to change oil in differential as I am sure ex owner didn t do it. Car has 80k miles on odometer and I have a little angel saying "change the oil in differential". What are your thoughts on that?

I am looking to change different things definitely on my car and I am glad I joined the "club" as people on this forum are really helpful. 

I am quite new but enthusiast about this lexus and I have to apologise if some questions are "newbie"😅

 

 

[Linas.P]

Those are good tyres, maybe even overkill (depends on whenever they are Asymmetric 3, 4, 5 or even 6?), but depends on perspective I guess - at one time I had Michelin PS4 and that was overkill, nowadays I would fit something like Goodyer Efficient Grip 2, something more touring and less UHP.

IS easily takes 19 inch wheels and the only thing to consider is tyre width in front (235 seems to be a limit, with +10 offset wheels maybe 245, but not more than that), remember that RC which shares a lot of components with IS (even if RC front suspension is from GS) came standard with 19 inch and RC wheels would be direct fit on mk3 IS. So as far as suspension is concerned 19 inch wheels would be fine. Now the reason I am saying downside rather than upsize is all to do with weight - the larger is the wheel, the heavier it is and the further the weight is from the hub... you know all the sprung and unstrung mass contributes to car dynamics a lot. So basically if the goal is to get the cars as responsive as possible, then ideally you should consider as small and as light wheels as possible and I think 17 inch is about perfect for that, many not expensive options, yet they still big enough to clear the callipers etc. As well smaller wheel circumference makes it easier to accelerate (so lower top speed, but quicker acceleration in theory). In practice the difference would be tiny.. 0.2s maybe if lucky... 

Now I get it - the looks would be ruined by 17 inch, but the questions is where you want to make compromises. For 19 inch you would definitely need to lower it as otherwise it would look like on the stilts. Wheels spacers definitely good idea on the rear as otherwise they look anaemic, just make sure to get hubcentric spacers, or else your wheel may overtake you. 

As far as GSF bushings I honestly don't know, but if they fit IS mk2 (which they do), then they should fit mk3, very little has changed in drivetrain and suspension in mk3. F-Sport had optional dynamic dampers, but that is about all that changed, so I pretty confident the bushing should fit, but don't quote me on that. 

[akawants]

Got you on quote thing😅 sorry about that

I was looking for some 19 inch wheels but I didn t find anything that would make me think "wow this would great on my car". It should be easy for me to decide what to buy  since I am quite impulsive buyer. 

Do you have something on your list that would change my mind?

[Linas.P]

14 minutes ago, akawants said:

Got you on quote thing😅 sorry about that

I was looking for some 19 inch wheels but I didn t find anything that would make me think "wow this would great on my car". It should be easy for me to decide what to buy  since I am quite impulsive buyer. 

Do you have something on your list that would change my mind?

Won't cry about it - I am 90% confident they will fit... but that 10% is your own risk!

Not really, because wheel design is so personal choice. As well the wheels that would definitely fit would all be from other Lexus models (namely RC or GS), but stock Lexus wheels are very heavy, they are durable but very heavy. Aftermarket wheels are either very expensive, or outright dangerous, or are not available in right offsets etc. Frankly Lexus aftermarket is nearly non-existent, so finding something that you both like, can afford and fits the car is not simple. 

[MattDH]

100% RCF/GSF LCA bushings fit the 3rd Gen IS. I'm getting a pair shortly myself