hey everyone i am doing some work on my friends ls400 and had a few questions. so his car has 255k on it and the water pump seized and i found a 98k motor for $350 and decide to just replace the whole thing and fix the water pump out of the car and resale it. anyways the car and the new motor are from cali and in no way did his old motor feel like it had anywhere near 250hp in fact it was straight gutless and i have been in other ls400s that were fast as hell. and i know cali tunes there cars a lot. so what is the difference and can it be changed easily? is it just the ecu or is it exhaust intake and everything under the sun? anyways anything will help

thanks
Matt

 

1st gen LS were extremely overrated, and have been shown to have ~180-190rwhp in stock form. they are just slow.

the 95-97 are a little better, and 98-00 are a split second behind the GS400 in speed/accel.

 

Say what?

Welcome to CL. This site is a full resource of Lexus knowledge. Search around and get some ideas of what others are doing.

I am a little confused in what you have done for your friends LS as far as tune ups so far but i would start there. If it fills gutless I would search the usual suspects before you start looking at after market performance.

Good luck, you are a cool friend for helping out

 

year and budget?

 

its a 92 and we just got and we went and picked up the motor today and it is out of a 97. the budget is pretty tight and time line is to get the new motor in asap to get him back on the road. so the plan is to get the motor installed tomorrow. anything i should watch out for or tricks you know of to speed things up? i have always worked on my supra's and vw's so the ls is a first for me but it doesn't seem to be too complicated.

thanks for the help
Matt

 

oh boy, a 97 engine WILL NOT work with a 92....harness and accessories are totally different.

92 should be mated with a 92..93-94 had significant changes and the 90-91 had minor changes..

 

Oh crap! thats not good! and another problem popped up just a minute ago while i dropped the car off at my shop, for some reason the car wouldn't shift out of second gear and the reverse light was on the whole time. any ideas?

 

wouldnt shift out from "2" at all? try manually going from "2" to D and see if that works..

reverse light on MAY be the infamous trunk harness issue.

 

it wasn't the reverse lights on the back end of the car it was the gear indicator it said the car was in reverse. is there no way at all to make the 97 motor work? i looked over it and it did't seem very different other then the afm. I dont know this is all very frustrating cause our back up plan is to return the motor and do the water pump.

Thanks
Matt

Some times i really hate being the mechanic that all my friends go to!