Peter P18

Hi Mike, Congrats! Car looks great. Nice to see another former Supra owner joining the 'F'amily! Hope you enjoy many happy miles together.

Congrats! Wishing you and your F many happy miles together. Welcome to the 'F'amily!

Thanks Steve. Was a lot harder to get everything to fit properly than I had planned for. You wouldn't think it looking at the photos, but that's why I got Rob Mitchell to help me. Guy is a genius at things like this. Couldn't do it without his help.

Here's how mine looks. Notice the passenger seat is AWOL!

God that's awful! Had no intention of sticking gauges to the dash like that. Really looks tacky in my opinion. Got the pod and gauges installed today. Took a lot more work than I'd hoped though! Thankfully my mate Rob at Darnley Autoworks in Strood did me proud. Took him ages though! Will post a picture of it shortly. We have run the wires into the engine bay, but can't wire in the sensors till I get my T piece adaptor to do the two oil sensors. Hoping that arrives tomorrow. Started on the seats as well today. God they are a PITA! Getting the sliders to fit was a mission and a half! Had to come up with DIY spacers using longer bolts and some nuts I had lying around. Wiring is a nightmare though! Trying to work out what needs to be transplanted from the OEM seats to keep the warning lights etc off. Won't get them done anytime soon at this rate. Still, I'll make it all work eventually!

I thought the different speedo was 2012 onwards?? Issue is there were probably some older stock sold off at the beginning of 2011 that could in fact be 2010. You still benefit from the better LSD and softer suspension in which case. Like with everything, any potential buyer would need to check the history with Lexus, and give the car a thorough once over before making any offers. Price is pretty much what I paid nearly two years ago for my 2008 model!

Doors are the same colour I reckon, just bad lighting in their showroom. Has all the right features for a 2011? Correct wheels, blue bottomed steering wheel, piano black buttons on the nav unit.........

Small update, thanks to my mate Rob at Darnley Autoworks in Strood, the Defi's now fit in the pod! Hoping to get them installed with the sensors, controller etc on Friday.

Agreed. Get some good pops and bangs from my system. Think the lack of secondary cats might mean I get a few more pops and bangs than others do! Either that, or I am 'pressing on' more than others! Lol.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201604132930261 this one would be worth a look. Good price for a 2011 despite the higher mileage.

Yes chap, tune will be available for UK F'er's. Initially you had to remove your ECU, and mail it to them to bench programme. Now they are tweaking a handheld solution that you plug into your OBD2 port. Will mean new tunes can be emailed to buyers at no additional costs to load up as things progress. The next big milestone will be their supercharger kit. Exciting times!

Yes Stu. Tune is only adding around 20-30hp, but cars with I/H/E and the tune are getting over 500whp now. RR-Racing are also looking into a supercharger kit, which can now be tuned to get good returns. I'm hoping 650-700 will be possible without risking the reliability. Won't happen overnight, but it's progressing along nicely.

Wife has an Audi A4 2.5 V6 Tdi Estate I use when I'm not driving the F. It's a 6-spd manual, quite nippy for an estate car. Does good MPG as well compared to mine! May start another project at some point. Probably go with a Supra, but always fancied an R32 GTR.

Interesting to hear prices are dropping over here. It's the opposite over in the States. Now that the ECU has been cracked, the tuning scene is seeing prices go up, not down. Guess the lack of interest in tuning the F over here is responsible for that. Still, great news for anyone looking to buy one. Great cars in so many ways. If you haven't driven one, you really should.

Look forward to seeing it mate. Thanks for the kind words. It's a work in progress, but I'm getting there slowly! Roll on Sunday!

Nice one Michael. Let us know how you get on when you've collected it mate. We like photos on here! Enjoy it, awesome cars.

I'd contact Josh at Meraki Autoworks mate. May be able to bring it back for you on a business trip if that helps? Cheers. Peter

Hey Rob, With the improved intake pipe and performance panel filter, should gain between 5-8hp. Not really noticeable, but at least it's a gain! I like others in the States actually lost hp with the Takeda! Best setup is the performance intake pipe with stock airbox, and performance panel filter.

Hi Neil, Fair points. I think the main focus for H&S is to develop homegrown systems including headers that can produce more power than the competition. Being an n/a car, every extra HP counts, as they are difficult to come by without bolting on a supercharger or turbo kit. If their headers could improve the flow enough to gain say 10hp over PPE or SIKKY, with dyno runs to support it, they would have a product people would buy both home and abroad. I can probably source them a set of LHD headers from the States. If those guys decided they wanted to run the H&S exhaust with H&S headers, the supply and demand could be huge! PPE are on something like a 6 month backorder for their headers at the moment according to what I read on the US forum! Demand is outstripping supply, especially with the likes of RR-Racing and TTFS offering ECU tunes that show good gains on cars with I/H/E installed. The X pipe will be an interesting one to follow. At a static 5K RPM, my car was recorded as doing 95db by H&S. Well within the limit for most tracks in the UK. As soon as the growl starts up or you accelerate, the level goes up a lot (so much so I would be black flagged at most circuits I think). H&S are going to add the X pipe to my car to trial. We will see how it compares in terms of noise, power, fuel economy etc over my previous setup. I don't want to lose the V8 burble and growl I have now if I can help it. At the same time, if the X pipe gains me 15-20HP, and reduces the drone even more than the extra silencers that replaced my secondary cats, then I would be hard pressed to go back to the old setup. It's all about trial and error at this point, what I am pleased about is the fact H&S are willing to partake in the R&D for these things with a view to marketing the results for other F owners worldwide to enjoy.

Hi Dave, The last two sparkplugs are the furthest back from the front, and are indeed a royal PITA to access! I'd be inclined to get it back in for them to change those ASAP though mate. Reason being that is one area you can then tick off the checklist. Happy to have a nose around for you at some point chap? Maybe the next Bluewater meet?? Not suggesting I will spot anything that the guys at tech-one or Lexus didn't spot, but can't hurt to look.

I saw that article as well funnily enough! I plan to print that off for H&S to look at as and when they do my header install for me. Given a few owners in the States have actually tackled the header install themselves in their domestic garages, and successfully installed them, I don't see any reason why H&S or other reputable tuning garages shouldn't be able to do the job. Where we suffer is the amount of time it will take for a shop to do this as a 'one-off'. If they do a few, they will get to know the process better, and therefore take less time to do the work. You will note the garage in the article suggest 6hrs to do the complete install. It will take most garages over here double, triple, or even longer to do this in my opinion. Hopefully H&S are willing to invest some time and R&D into the IS-F as a platform for future work. Having a shop that knows how to install headers would be really useful for owners looking to gain a significant amount of extra HP. Even with tuning options slowly developing over in the States from the likes of RR-Racing, no single modification available today will generate more power than a set of exhaust headers. Given the reputation and work H&S have done over the years on some truly unique and exotic race cars, I honestly believe Ian and his team are capable of doing this for us. The issue will be whether there will be enough return in it for them to do so. I may well try and grab a set of LHD headers from one of the guys in the States for Ian to look at as well. Would give them a much larger target market if they could offer both RHD and LHD options like PPE currently do. I'm also getting Ian to look at adding an X pipe for development purposes to see if that generates any extra HP, and what impact it has on the noise level. Know a few folks have been commenting on this recently, so hopefully that will be enough for H&S to take on some work getting a better product sorted out for a wider audience.

I would imagine Paul at Whifbitz would be able to supply these for people if needed as well? Just another vendor option to consider. Paul already has a few IS-F specific products available via the shop on their website. Just thought I should point it out for the newer F owners. Here's the link: http://www.garagewhifbitz.co.uk/lexus/is-f.html

Thanks Jon. Lol, as and when I add the supercharger kit, will have to re-think the pressure gauge! Luckily that won't be for a while though!

Not sure David? Makes sense to me, but given I am the only F owner I know of globally that has chosen to run additional gauges in their car, It's all a bit of a learning curve for me! The Defi senders are included with the gauges, so I'm guessing they are calibrated to work together. Not sure if the OBDII interface on our cars would do the same? It's a valid point though.

Morning James. Thanks. I'm going with three Defi CR Advance gauges. Oil Temperature, Oil Pressure, and finally Water Temperature. The gauge pod holder is actually based on a pair of IS vents. This means the guts are the same as what I will be removing, and ensures a good fit to the dashboard. Being the CR Advance, they can be daisy-chained together, meaning I only need to run one wire from the three to the advance controller that will live in my glovebox along with the remote control. I mocked up the controller on Friday night. It will actually sit really nicely on that black plastic stand we get in our glovebox! The two oil gauges will have sensors attached via a sandwich plate between the block and the oil filter. The water temperature will be done using a T-piece adaptor in the top radiator hose. Just need to find a grommet on the firewall that sits behind the glovebox area on the passenger side. Should be able to find something that will work hopefully! I need to re-use my oil when we drain it to fit the sandwich plate. Wouldn't normally bother, but the car goes to Lexus Canterbury for it's service on the 1st June, so seems pointless to waste money buying 10L of expensive oil for a month/two. Got my new seats arriving this Thursday as well! Went with Cobra Misano Anniversary edition with one-off light blue stitching (these were custom finished for me by Cobra, hence the slight delay!). Once the gauges and seats are installed, I will be saving up to get my headers done. May be getting H&S to make them for me. Ian is having a look over everything this week whilst he mocks up the system for the Americans. He is also doing a noise check on my current exhaust, and may fit an X pipe to see how that impacts things. Busy times, but should all work out quite nicely once it's all done!