1998 Lexus LS400

Your plan is exactly how mine is set up which gives a tasteful but nice burble when pressing on the loud peddle! When cruising,its classy & quiet. Last month I visited a performance exhaust place in Nottingham as I'm thinking of going a bit muscly rather than VIP with mine and was after a more yankee growl He reckoned to get that sound, the centrebox would need removing with separate left & right bank pipes to the mid silencers.

Changed the air filter this morning. The one in there was minging!







I was hoping it was one of the contributing factors to the 'just-before-redline' redline issue I'm having.... It's not. But the new air filter can't harm the situation. I'm sure it'll breath easier now, anyway!

Tailpipes are nothing special & could do with improving. Zero drone on my setup!

So that's the good news... the bad news is that it's stopped revving over 4k when warm. I didn't realise it was just when warm as I don't like to boot it when is cold. I cleaned the MAF thinking it might be that, but the next day found out that when it's cold it doesn't do it. This has led me to think it could be the coolant temp sensor, so I've ordered one, and I'll fit it as soon as it arrives. It runs beautifully until the revs hit around 4k.

I tried plugging a scanner into the obd2 port but it didn't communicate. There is a manual port under the bonnet that I'll try and play with when I get some time.

Speaking of which, I had 2 hours on it today and instead of trying to get a code out if it, I decided to T-Cut every panel and give it a good polish! The paint is far from perfect, but I managed to get a few scratches out of it, as well as some awful bird acid marks that I thought were here to stay. Looks pretty sweet now:



This is where the bird acid was:



There's still a trace, but it's loads better.

Well, I'd hoped this next update would be some awesome exhaust news... it's not.

I took it to the local specialist, and to weld the cat flanges and put straight pipe in for the silencers they quoted me...


£600!! I don't think so...

Anyway - I got 3 hours to myself to play in the garage for the first time in a long time. Decided to clean the LS400 properly. I cleaned and fed the leather, and T-Cut, polished and then waxed the paintwork using Simoniz paste wax. It looks a million times better! Although it has highlighted a few different shades dotted about... Looks tidy enough though.

The wheels let it down so badly. They're a mess. I'm after some SC430 18" 'pie-dishes' for it - you know the ones everyone hates?! I think they'll look awesome on this. There's some for £350 on ebay but I don't currently have the funds :/

I'm going to sell a few bits to raise some pennies soon (see 'ebay and elsewhere' for my restored Nardi!)

Oh, I also bought a square plate and LED number plate lights thinking it'd JDM-yo the rear end a bit. Unfortunately, I'm not gonna be able to fit them, as when they arrived I realised there was a slight issue in the way the numbers and letters are layed out...

To me, they blatantly say: A R S E!



Gutted! Not quite the look I was after...

I fitted the LED lights anyway, one original had popped so job well done I say:





Enough talking; pics post valeting sess:

















I was cleaning out the boot and made a nice discovery: unused spare! Might try and sell it to raise cash for the rimz; I don't think there are many of these 16s about in such great nick. My other 4 certainly point me towards that conclusion!






A little list of the to-do variety, in no particular order:

Paint front bumper.

Get dents in driver's side rear door and front wing sorted.

Stop the boot leaking.

Buy some Lexus SC430 18" wheels.

Weld cat flanges and put some exhaust boxes in the wheelie-bin.

Do the air-box mod.

Cut down the plates to achieve the look I'm after, sans A R S E.

Sort over 5k-when-warm-power-loss (coolant temp sensor?) ... the 4k one went after cleaning the MAF sensor with electrical cleaner.



I think that's it for now!

I carefully used 'magic sponges' to clean the muck off and then used Autoglym leather conditioner on them. You let it soak in for a few minutes and then buff it up quickly. Came up really well. Didn't realise how dry it was actually!

Successful and satisfying little morning job: due to the unfortunate issue, I attacked my want for a narrow plate in a different way... cut the plastic fool down! Measured and taped it up, scored the backing so it didn't tear, and hit it with the the hacksaw. Rounded the corners with a file and polished the edges with sandpaper and metal polish.

Job's and goodun. Makes the car look wider now, and subtly different.

Got me some wheels! 18" deep-dish 7.5j Lenso RS5s in pretty good nick. Need a bit of a polish and touch in here and there - but on the whole they're sweet.



Couldn't resist a mock-up when I got home with them:




Just got to work out the best size rubber for them now. The standard wheels have 225 60 16s on them. I put the details into a size calculator and I got the following:


225/50 R18
0.8%

245/45 R18
0.2%


275/40 R18
0.1%

285/40 R18
1.3%

I deleted any that werea smaller than standard diameter. My gut tells me 245 45 18 all round.. can't wait to stick 'em on!

Would love them, but they're a little out of my budget

I had a good look at the wheels this afternoon. Seems they've been 'cleaned' with a very stiff bristled brush - a lot of surface scratching! I took some t cut to one and some started to come out, so a bit of elbow grease and they'll be sweet.
I've ordered a set of spigot rings - just need the tyres!