Ls400 On The Track

Redsteve · April 21, 2013

Hello guys.

Yesterday I went to an open track day with a few friends.

One of them has a track prepared Peugeot 205 1.9 GTI which is the only car we use out on track.

It has uprated brakes including brake bias control, adjustable suspension, custom intake and exhaust, full roll cage, racing seats and harnesses, stripped interior and slick tyres However, this time we thought we would all have a go. There was also a Honda S2000 and my 13 year old 195000 mile LS400.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my friends (and other people at the track) were staggered at how fast the LS was. They all expected it to be quick in a straight line, I managed 148 MPH slightly uphill before I had to brake for the corner, but nobody expected it to be quick round the corners.

When we all came back to the pits the guy with the 205 said he was only just keeping up with me in the corners and the S2000 was just as quick as I was in the corner but he could get better drive out of the corner.

I think I could have improved if I had kept at it but I didn't want to destroy my tyres and after 4 laps my totally standard brakes were useless.

I had no idea my LS would perform as well as it did through the bends, I thought I would be the laughing stock of the pits. I have no intention of driving any faster round bends out on the open road than I do now as lumps and bumps can make a huge difference to the handling of the car, but on a track it is great fun.

The other guys I was with took some video so when it has been edited I will try and post it for you all to look at.

Steve.

Bluesman · April 21, 2013

Hello guys.

Yesterday I went to an open track day with a few friends.

One of them has a track prepared Peugeot 205 1.9 GTI which is the only car we use out on track.

It has uprated brakes including brake bias control, adjustable suspension, custom intake and exhaust, full roll cage, racing seats and harnesses, stripped interior and slick tyres However, this time we thought we would all have a go. There was also a Honda S2000 and my 13 year old 195000 mile LS400.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my friends (and other people at the track) were staggered at how fast the LS was. They all expected it to be quick in a straight line, I managed 148 MPH slightly uphill before I had to brake for the corner, but nobody expected it to be quick round the corners.

When we all came back to the pits the guy with the 205 said he was only just keeping up with me in the corners and the S2000 was just as quick as I was in the corner but he could get better drive out of the corner.

I think I could have improved if I had kept at it but I didn't want to destroy my tyres and after 4 laps my totally standard brakes were useless.

I had no idea my LS would perform as well as it did through the bends, I thought I would be the laughing stock of the pits. I have no intention of driving any faster round bends out on the open road than I do now as lumps and bumps can make a huge difference to the handling of the car, but on a track it is great fun.

The other guys I was with took some video so when it has been edited I will try and post it for you all to look at.

Steve.

Look forward to seeing it. Mike

simontaylor · April 21, 2013

My mate has a civic type R and he too cant beleive how hard and for how my old LS400 pulls like a train from 30 onwards to quite a high speed. Sometime he cant keep up and other times he cant get away. Tee-Hee And for a luxury barge he is amazed.

ambermarine · April 22, 2013

Reading this with some interest as I to have found a sea change in the mark 4 from the mark1. I always questioned every overtaking manouvere with the mark1 and always applied ect power mode before attempting an overtake.

The Mark four is massively more responsive even without use of the ect power mode and picks its skirts up in a super burst of acceleration .Would'nt dream of racing my car but should I get the chance I might buy a high mileage cheap mark4 just to do some of that.

Redsteve · March 15, 2014

Hello guys,

I am sorry it has been a long time coming, but here is the video taken of me driving the old LS on the track day.

As a point of reference, when the TVR goes past us on the right we were doing about 140MPH and I was doing 148MPH when I first hit the brakes for the corner.

Notice how the S2000 "hits the wall" between 140MPH and 145MPH but the old LS just keeps on pulling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qEJcoJ6duo

cruisermark · March 15, 2014

looking very good - I bet it wasn't as noisy as the Honda!

why were ur brakes useless: was it because of overheating and brake fade or did you actually wear them out?

Redsteve · March 15, 2014

Hi Mark,

the brakes just suffered with huge fade which is understandable due to the speeds I was at and how hard I was using them. Once they had cooled down they were fine.

The LS is far...FAR louder than the S2000 due to the fact I only have two tiny silencers in the exhaust system.

Steve

steve2006 · March 15, 2014

So all that was done on standard road tyres?

Did you shift manually through the transmission?

Pretty amazing for a 2 tonne car :)

I found out the other day my Celsior will hit 80 with the ECT in power mode.... in 2nd gear!

bigjap · March 15, 2014

thats really good,amazing performance,for heavy old luxury barge,really good traction too going thru those bends

Titch LS · March 15, 2014

Steve, that's really impressive. Just shows how well these motors can go when pushed to the limit. Just out of interest, did you have the VSC on or off?

Redsteve · March 15, 2014

Hi chaps,

in answer to your questions,

I was using normal road tyres (Falkens) and after 4 laps of hard driving they didn't really show that much damage, just a bit of rolling on the outside edge of the fronts.

I just left the gearbox in D, I have learnt since I would have been better putting it in 4 and only shifting up to D for the long straight, that way I would have been quicker out of the corners.

The first lap I did I had the VSC on just to see how the car behaved and to give myself a bit of confidence, however, it did really kill the power on the apex of the bends as the inside wheel tried to spin so I turned it off and just used the Force instead.

Steve.

oldhazey · March 23, 2014

That just goes too show the old LS is a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing :-)

The exhaust mods release any more bhp ? still got cats ?

Keith Bowler · March 24, 2014

Great video Steve!

I would say that the better roadholding is probably down to the fact that you most likely have a DHP spec car, which has slightly stiffer suspension and rides a tad lower, looks identical to mine.

Redsteve · March 25, 2014

Hello guys.

I am not sure whether the exhaust has increased the BHP, the car feels quicker than it did with the stock pipes but that might just be my imagination and a bit of wishful thinking. It still has the cats, the new pipes start just after them and are the same diameter as the stock ones were.

I have noticed there is considerably less engine braking now, one of the roads I use on a daily basis has a 50 MPH limit going to a 40 MPH limit. There is a change in the road surface in the 50 MPH limit and if I was doing spot on 50 MPH with the cruise control on and I turned the CC off when I hit the change in road surface the car would slow down to bang on 40 MPH just as I hit the speed limit sign with the stock pipes. Now when I do it the car only slows down to 46 MPH.

I am pretty sure my car is a DHP spec model, I have parked next to other LS400s and mine does sit a bit lower and the suspension is much firmer than my MK2 was.

Steve

Malc · April 10, 2014

Just read the postings on this ... BRILLIANT

When I was at Le Mans the other day I passed the circuit and was SO tempted to pop in to ask if i could give Lexii a spin around the track ........ would they have let me do you think

Malc

bigjap · April 11, 2014

the mulsanne straight is the public road at none 24hr racing times,there's a smaller circuit inside for other events so you may of been on some of it

Malc · April 11, 2014

I missed that then. I went thru the village of Arnage just up from the circuit. Was surprised to see another village just round the corner that i didn't venture to ....... Mulsanne. Had I done so I probably would have been on the straight !!

Wot a bugger.

Malc

ambermarine · April 12, 2014

While out in Flo this year I went to a trial open day for drift racing ,this was in Charlotte county on the gulf coast where they are re-opening a defunct indy raceway next to the airport in Punta Gorda.The event was not a full blown race event as the safety rails and other aspects are not yet in place and was really a PR event to gauge local interest.

It was quite something ,the cars were all standard coupes and sedans souped up and roll caged but could be used on the public highway in fact a couple of guys used there own high performance road cars,one being a Porsche.

The point of this post is that there were three Lexus /Toyota cars on display were as the rest were mainly Honda's and mazda mrx's with a few american models of the coupe type,Corvettes and the like.

The main feature of drift racing is that track is basically a oval with banked corners (think of Daytona) but on a smaller scale,The car hits the corners at such high speed the normal driver would brake but that looses speed so the idea is to drift sideways round the bends while maintaining the best speed.

I was amazed to see this ls400 mark 2 going round this curcuit with blue smoke from the tyres obscuring the view most of the time as each car went on individually showing the drivers skils.The Toyota Soarer was a revelation and the is200 knocked a lot of the cars into a cocked hat in handling performance.But on the clock the 400 was a match if not better than the Honda's The tendency to overcook the drift was apparent on a lot of the smaller cars and they tended to waggle thier tails and 360 during the 6 lap trial but the Lexus never overcooked and was applauded all the way round.

Tyres were probably rubbished in one trial but it must be a hell of a thrill to just do that once.

Hopefully next year this will be a full blown event where the cars will be racing against each other so that as to be a must see.