Steviewevie

What's the difference between a Sportcross bumper and the standard (saloon) bumper ?

oh really?? can anyone confirm the orientation of the number plate bulb in relation to light output?? If what stevie's saying is correct then i guess these will be no good.... I just corrected a typo (highlighted) in my posting that you've quoted (it's me that made a mistake in my original response, which I've now corrected). What year is your IS200 ? I have a feeling that something changed to do with the number plate bulbs at some point, although maybe the direction that they point wasn't affected

Tony from WIM will pass on the settings, yes, but you need to find someone competent enough to do the work (and with the right equipment). One of the items that needs adjusting (castor, I think) is not directly adjustable on the IS200, so some garages might say it's impossible, but Tony found a way to indirectly adjust it. One member from Scotland did drive all the way down to WIM just to get his geo done ! :winky: Hopefully someone will be able to recommend a decent place that is a bit nearer for you. WIM charge very roughly £100 for the geo setup, you'll have to check what price other places will charge you.

The folks here are from the UK so will be talking about 60K miles rather than km.

As I said in another thread, I think that Yeldarb struck lucky with his ARBs and it sounds like perhaps his dealer got them direct from TTE in Germany (?). As you say, they're discontinued and most dealers will tell you they can't get them. Perhaps ask Lexus MK where/how they got them ?

For any serious bhp increase you're going to need to go down either the supercharging or turbo route. Or an engine swap. Exhausts, induction changes etc are only going to have a negligible effect on performance at best (and at worse some induction kits will actually reduce your power, e.g. if they route the intake air over the hot exhaust manifold). I've got a K&N filter and it's great. Makes a very slightly different sound and increases mpg slightly. Maybe it increased power by 1 bhp or something but I can't imagine it makes much difference on that front.

Yeah tantalising to see the turbo sitting there ! :D

We could probably get a Group Buy going on the Prolex induction kit if a few people are interested in it ...

They said that Dave's car with the added coilovers "rides about as well as the IS-F" (which is not that well, in their opinion). They said the uprated ARBs were gave a better turn-in than the IS-F. They preferred the sound of the IS-F's V8 to the IS350's charged V6, and also the IS-F's gearbox.

Looking great mate ! :D

Loving the tyre man ! :D

The review is finally out, in the April 2009 edition of Car magazine. Not sure if it's in the shops or not yet, I have a subscription copy. Dave and Prolex actually get a name-check, nice work there ! :winky: :D The review is only a short one. Basically they liked it, but say that the numbers don't add up. They quote that the IS350 plus charger cost £40K when they tested the car, but now this has gone up to £49K due to the exchange rate, and an IS-F only costs 1K more. Even if you can't get a new IS-F they said they found nearly-new ones for sale from 40K.

I'm not sure if these will work well for the number plate, because I seem to remember (though could be wrong) that the bulbs point sideways and not downwards in those bulb-holders. So the light from the LED needs to be coming out of the side, and it won't be in those LEDs (the eBay ones originally linked in this thread), the light shines straight out of the end and virtually nothing to the side. It'll be interesting to hear feedback on them though.

I would tend to suspect the spark plugs. Do you know how long it is since they were changed, and if they're the long-life OEM ones ?

I haven't had to do anything to mine myself. But on the service data sheet in the online manual, it doesn't show any different oil for LSD or not LSD, it just says "Hypoid gear oil API GL-5 SAE 90" for temps above -18 deg C. The only difference that it mentions there is that the non-LSD version takes slightly more oil.

990,314

What is the problem exactly, is there a problem turning the engine over, i.e. the battery seems weak ? Or is it turning over fine but not firing ?

If yours is an earlier model like mine (mine is 1999) then the felt liner is actually screwed down into the tray and you can't remove it (unless you take the tray out first). On later models the felt tray is just clipped in but the tray itself is screwed down. So as Stav said, if yours is early (and the fact that the felt pad won't easily come out would tend to imply that it is) then you can just pull out the top tray. It is held in by three clips, one at the back (near the windscreen) in the middle, and two on each side at the top (roughly in the middle). What I do is insert a thin flat metal tool (I use a cake slice ), having put a bit of masking tape against the trim to protect it. Once you can release one of the clips, the whole thing will easily just pull out.

Is that under the gear lever trim ? Thanks.

Thanks, that was about the only thing I could think of, which was that wiring it to the loom's earth wire somehow wasn't a direct-enough connection to earth to fool the head unit. Will have to give it a try wiring it somewhere that is directly earthed ! :D

I was trying to help out another LOC member earlier with fitting a new double-DIN Panasonic DVD head unit (sorry don't have the model number) into his Altezza (no separate amp, so like an IS200 S). The head unit wouldn't display video when a DVD was inserted, and I suspect that this was some sort of wiring issue. The instructions say that the wire labelled "Side brake" needs connecting up to the handbrake in the car. I presume that this is so that it will only play DVD video when the handbrake is applied (i.e. for safety reasons), and indeed the screen came up with a "Warning" message instead of showing the video. The instructions also said that the handbrake circuit is grounded when the handbrake is on. So I wired this cable from the new head unit into the black ground wire in the Panasonic loom, assuming, this would go off via the various connectors to ground on the car and that this would fool the head unit into always being able to show the video. However, this didn't seem to work, and exactly the same message (and lack of video) came up as before. Did I make an incorrect assumption here ? Or just mess it up in some other way ?

990,321

I can't help you directly, sorry, but I suggest that you also try posting over on the Detailing World forums, where there are lots of professional detailers as well as amateur ones, and I'm sure they'll have some good advice for you.

ok, just had another look, and I can see what I did wrong now, sorry yes they're not the same OEM part Having said that, most manufacturers just seem to produce one set of coilovers for all the various models - after all, they're adjustable.

I just looked on ToyoDIY and they're different mate? JCE10 chassis uses different length springs and different dampers to the GXE10 Really ? That's where I looked and the part numbers were identical.