denvermike

New forum member and new 2002 Lexus ES300 owner. Just wanted to see if anyone has had any experience with any of the 'performance/mpg upgrade' computer chips that you see advertised. Love just about everything about my Lexus, could stand a little more oomph though. Have not even gone through a whole tank yet, but if the MPG readout is at all accurate (unlike my 2003 4Runner), I should be averaging about 24 mpgs so far. Any advice is appreciated! Oh yeah, one more thing, I was told by my local Lexus dealer that it would be about $190 for an additional key + programming. Sounds pretty good to me, but wondering if anyone had any other avenues....

Thanks!

3000

Welcome to the Club.

Most of those "performance chips" are fake and makes the car run the same or even worse.

faithless

Someone told me HP is not a cheap thing to do reliably. Most things you happen to come acroos that sound to good to be true is right. Probally the best way to gain any power for decent amount of money is turbo but then that could be only 50HP for $3,000 or more. As for the chips only ones that I have seen are made for trucks and run from $350+. Then again this is just my two cents.

flipicanez

iTrader: (1)

Even if there was a really good chip, you would have to have a OBD1. OBD2's as I understand are soldered on the board.

LEX ES300

Hi! First of all welcome to the club. Great members on this site. They are always keen, friendly, and willing to help!

Personally, I would stay away from performance chips.

If you get one, expect to only run your car on the best premium fuel - the reason being as I understand it is that all car engines can actually perform marginally better than they do but the car manufacturers build in a 'buffer safety margin' or 'reserve' if you like into the EFI and engine management system (which reduces performance ever so slightly) to protect the engine from damage and wear due to high revs and lesser grade/dirty or poor quality fuels mixtures that may be put into it from time to time etc.

A chip taps into this 'reserve margin' and alters the settings in the engine management system to squeeze a bit more power and even fuel economy out of the engine. Tapping into this 'buffer zone' can potentially expose your engine to possible premature wear, or at the very least could make it run rougher if you intend to continue to use standard fuel.

You will discover that the makers of these performance chips always recommend that if you have one fitted, to run your car on premium fuel - this is to compensate for tapping into the 'buffer zone!'.

I had one fitted in my previous car (Chev/Holden V8) The increase in performance/fuel economy was barely noticable, and if I ran it on standard fuel it would run slightly rougher. I always had to run it on premium.

It's not worth it in my opinion. Think about it - car manufacturers want their car engines to perform to the best of their ability at the time. If it was better then they wouldn't have those 'buffer zones' built into the engine management system.

Just my thoughts!

LEX ES300

lexusk8

Agreed in not putting a performance chip in the Lexus ES300. Better reserved for Audis and the like. As far as modding the ES300, some options you can do to potentially increase performance is installing an intake system or air filter, or an exhaust system. That's pretty much about it; keep in mind that the ES was never meant to be a performance-minded car by any means.

Limen

Yea, the cheap chips you see on ebay and stuff like that only make your car run rich, so if "feels" like you gained some power. But then, after a while, your car will fix it on its own and then you have nothing. Those chips are a waist of money. The only chips that really work are the ones for turbo cars. There are some chips for the Audi motor 2.7tt that will effect that car in a HUGE way.

Lexmex

With performance chips it is hit and miss, as I spend a lot of time on weekend working my cousin on his Golf and he has a SportChip, one of the better ones for the VR6, but I have had other friends try other models and wound up with an empty wallet. In addition, you every time you do a mod, you have to adjust for this. Better bet is an engine management system, like an emanage, but even with that I only recommend doing that if you are going to do one of the big threes, turbocharging, supercharging or nitrous, otherwise it just isn't worth it. There is a lot you can do with the 1MZFE engine group and the OEM ECU can still handle quite a bit without the need to play around with it.

Only chip I have really seen for the ES is the one from Jet Performance, http://www.jetchip.com/products.asp?...&model=997#997

At least one Solara user has used this chip and was quite happy with it. I had toyed with the idea of getting one of these at one point in time.

llcoolpass

the only performance chips I recommend are the ones you don't eat --> a lighter driver = faster acceleration

[HAHA]

paintrain

couldnt have said it better..... i think im gunna start a diet

Choas

I like performance chips they taste good ,to hell with my acceleration

(And no I'm not fat 5'10 155lb.)

paintrain

the ES is never going to be fast. dont everyone send me nasty PMs all at once. im just saying, there are other models that lexus decided to pay a bit more attention to than our beloved ES

Choas

^Why ya gotta break his ***** the es really isn't fast thats not what it was made for.

paintrain

i want lexus to roll out a 300+whp ES. id be so happy id

Slooooooow

iTrader: (1)

*Dream sequence sound effects here* While we're dreaming here, would you guys prefer for those 300+ bhp to continue heading to the front wheels, or to the rear?