mrfunex

F&S; I think I may have touched on this a few years back, when I first got my GSF - and I couldn’t agree more. The ISF is better on track (even an early one with the electronic LSD - I couldn’t tell the difference!) - it’s lighter and more agile and the GSF is a far more grown up road car. This isn’t to say the ISF isn’t great on road, or that the GSF isn’t extremely capable on a circuit.

190mph? My ‘08 certainly had the limiter set at 170...

The pedal dead-zone annoyed me too. Every so often, I’d remove one of the fuses from the fuse box and reset the throttle map, but the dead-zone would return after a while. Eventually just got fed up of ‘fixing’ it and drove around the issue. Mine never did it in sport either. GSF doesn’t have it.

Previous owner of my ISF did exactly that with a visit to Hayward and Scott!

About £700 from Lexus I think. Only available as a pair, but that was many years ago...

Are you buying an ISF, or an IS hybrid?

I thought I’d better post something, seeing as I’ve been AWOL for a good while... A good few years ago (I may have written about it on here, I can’t remember!) I took my ISF around the GP circuit at Silverstone. It rained a lot, but the car nevertheless was a lot of fun if fairly lively, I didn’t get flagged for noise (despite having a H&S cat-back system which sounded like a NASCAR) and both myself and a mate I invited along had an extremely memorable day. Advancing the calendar to a fortnight ago and it was yet again raining all day, this time at Bedford Autodrome (the 2.8mile SW configuration). The day was mixed discipline, with two car groups and one motorbike group; the latter were understandably getting increasingly frustrated watching the cars lapping round when they weren’t allowed to play! I was accompanied by the usual salad of track cars - Clio 172/182s, MX5s, Elises, Boxsters, Civic Type Rs, some fast Meganes and several Fiesta/Focus STs. There was a rather charming ‘70s Lotus Europa too. Switching the drive mode to Sport and the TVD to ‘track’ (obviously), I accelerated out of the pits with a brief burst of power before the sharp left in front of the hospitality suite. Quickly afterwards, there’s a fairly greasy L-R-L chicane flowing out to a left-hander where grip was still far less than expected, especially on the racing line. A couple more turns and it’s now the long, slow left-hander at the far end of the circuit before the straight - the karting line is preferred here - patiently going right around the outside of the corner, taking the same time to rotate the car but exiting the bend a little faster and handily right in the ‘meat’ of the power band in 2nd. The straight was a full-on bellow through 2nd, 3rd, 4th and as far into 5th as the occasional patches of standing water would deem sensible - I very much do NOT want to know what aquaplaning and a possible spin would be like north of 140mph... A fast chicane, eased by huge liberties on the kerbs, followed by a couple of ever sharpening left-handers bring you down to earth a bit after the big-numbers, then a right and a faster right brings you back to where we began... The GSF? Faultless, of course! The brakes seemed endless, the handling fairly benign but progressive and easy to catch, helped by the weight and the relatively long wheelbase - it was obvious when grip was about to run out, even for a Neanderthal like me. The noise was awesome and the fuel economy was... about 9mpg (although nearly 37mpg on the 140mile journey to get there!) The main problem with this car? I’ve nearly had it 3 years and I can’t begin to think what could replace it...

Can’t you just buy from the US?

Different car, but same as @Arqum, I just wired mine directly to the battery. Works fine.

I’d absolutely love an Evora Sport 410, in fact one may end up replacing the Viper if I ever fancy a change! There’s a great review of the Lotus on Harry’s Garage on YouTube... Here!

Unfortunately not, I’ll be in the main public carpark (which is still worth a good look round!). I went to the last meeting of 2019, but was turned down from the actual display. I wasn’t massively impressed with people leaning on the cars and unsupervised young kids wiping greasy fingers along some seriously expensive metal. IMO, it’s become a touch too popular, but still worth a few hours.

I’ll be there - silver Viper with blue stripes if the weather is ok, black GSF if not.

I wonder if they’ll do an F version? Some cooking hybrid would be nice - it seems Lexus have kind of stalled at that end of the market?

I’d be up for a dyno run. Mines a GSF, so same engine, but yours has a slightly different intake I believe? I’m around the Portsmouth area. Have you noticed your car has recently lost power, or has it always felt slower than it should? If you felt everything was all right before, it might be worth taking it for a run on a different dyno?

I live around Fareham and have seen a black ISF (and you!) about too. (from the chap with the black GSF!)

This. A couple of good, firm stops from high speed makes the problem go away on my GSF, but only for a day or so, then it’s back. Gotta drive the car harder, fella!

That GFV is horrendous!

I’m using an Ikea pencil and a cable tie! Keep meaning to find something a little less ‘MacGyver’!

Long post warning - but still featuring GSF content!! I’ve been a petrolhead for a long time - ever since my first Matchbox car I guess. Later, as a young teenager, my posters of semi-naked ladies were forced to share space with car pictures; I remember staring at both a lot. Another thing I remember, just next to my poster of Lindsey Dawn McKenzie (remember her??!) was an older picture of a Dodge Viper, a gen 1 car, in red - I’d had this poster since I was 8 years old. The Viper lacked some of the more refined design cues that Ferrari and Lamborghini boasted, but she seemed to have an evocative, outrageous and curvaceous style all of her own. There was nothing else quite like her - I was smitten! The car was nice too. (please excuse the grin... 😂) A couple of decades later, and after a track day driving one, I thought “why not?"; so here’s my new toy, a 3rd gen imported Viper that lived in Florida until very recently. The gen 3 is considerably more refined than the early cars and the original 8 litre V10 now displaces 8.3 litres, which is 14.6 pints. There ain’t no replacement for displacement so they say... Many people will remind you that it’s a truck engine, which is and isn’t technically correct. Originally, Dodge mooted using a big-block V8, but needed more power. The engine was duly handed to Lamborghini, who added two more cylinders and recast the block in aluminium, resulting in an engine both more powerful and lighter than the original V8. Its a relatively simple and old-school giant, 20v, pushrod and with no fancy turbos, cylinder deactivation - nothing. I’ve only done a few hundred miles in it so far, but here are my initial impressions; Firstly, just look at it - the Viper’s doing 150mph just standing still! The enormous bonnet, huge vents/slashes in the bodywork (all of which are functional, to expel heat - we’ll talk about this later) and massive fat tyres - 345/30R19s at the rear, 275/30R18s at the front all edge toward the superlative! The folding roof is manual, can be completed in about 10 seconds but unfortunately does involve opening and shutting the boot. Getting in, the driving position is a little unusual, aside from being a left-hooker, the pedals are offset slightly to the left. When cruising the below-waist configuration could best be described as ‘manspreading’. The driver is cocooned in a very comfortable seat between wide sills, which house the side exhausts, and the immense gearbox in the middle. The steering wheel isn't adjustable, but the pedals can be moved closer or further from the driver to fit. Visibility is a leap forward from the gen 1 cars (where, being 6’2” I couldn’t decide whether to look out of the extreme top of the windscreen or stretch and drive over the top of it!) The engine utterly dominates the car as you would expect. Physically, it’s massive, and from the moment the red start button is prodded, a huge bassy rumble of thunder splits the air, quickly settling into a surprisingly low 600rpm idle. The gearbox is probably the most truck-like of the drivetrain components - it’s heavy, a little vague and fairly slow, although it does deal with 505bhp but more specifically 525lbft (712Nm) of torque with ease. The gearbox almost isn’t required, however. Shifting into first and pulling away, I’d be surprised if you could ever stall it. Gentle driving activates the skip-shift mechanism, which will guide you straight from 1st to 4th if you change before 15mph for ‘economy’. A $30 plug in device can disable this, but I’m undecided for the moment. Torque is everywhere and in the lower gears at least, the Viper appears to have little inertia; you decide how many revs you want to do, and the car’s speed immediately comes up to match. On a motorway, the Viper is sprung fairly softly, the tyres aren’t ultra-low profile and the ride is at least as comfortable as my GSF; which surprised me. There is some tramlining, but it’s easy to drive around that. The cabin is typically American (plasticky), although reasonably refined with little wind intrusion with the roof down. In the ultra-long 6th gear, revs are barely above 1000rpm at 70mph. A country road blast really wakes the Viper up, although it’s a wide car and needs room to play. Above 3000rpm, the brute force of that mighty V10 pins heads firmly to headrests, like a modern day Cobra. It’s not traditionally sonorous - sounding more like a V8 with extras, rather than the wail of other V10s. It handles like a go kart, has very quick steering and ample visibility to create a very enjoyable hoon! A blast in it reveals the engine’s dominance in more than just noise and power however; the heat haze is plainly visible from the 10 slats in the bonnet, and the warmth from the transmission tunnel, and the sills (do not touch these when getting out!) works the air conditioning hard. It’s been my dream to own a Viper, and it was difficult to let my previous track toy, a Honda S2000 go. Let’s hope I did the right thing! I aim to keep this thread updated for as long as anyone is interested, any questions, ask away. Hope you enjoyed the post, and I'll get some more picturesque images once it stops raining!)

I saw the blue one near Chichester last week! If you’re on here, I was in the black one! 😎

Wonder if the revised gearbox mapping is available for other cars...

Oi! Gerrof! Start yer own thread! 😉 Welcome back!

‘Luxury’ doesn’t shift many cars though. If it’s not going to drive off at <£400/month on a PCP, it’s generally not worth a large manufacturer bothering to bring to market.

It does look quite plasticky. I’d like to have a few hours in a new ES, to experience for myself, but from the pictures it doesn’t look a patch on the GS. It’s a big shame, but the interior on my GSF was one of the things that stood out to me as being a little special. *Disclaimer - I am aware of the price difference between the two - I’m merely a little disappointed Lexus didn’t try a little harder with the ES.

Have you therefore been using a pouch without knowing why?