Hi! I've been educating myself for the past month on your excellent posts, after a lifetime of American muscle and Ford trucks I've finally took the plunge and bought a 1996 LS 400 with 31,000 on the odo, gave it a full tune-up (filters,ignition,etc) and updated the caps using the ones lscowboy recommends, I'm in the procces of stockpiling a complete stereo and alarm system and eventually a repaint, as soon as I get the car back from the mechanic I'll be posting pics, your posts have helped me tons!

 

Welcome and congrats on the LS!

 

Congrats on the pickup and welcome to the forum.

 

congrats on the new car! post up some pictures so we can see what you are working with!

 

make sure you use the actual brand and model of capacitors linked to in post #1 of my ECU caps thread, as well as the sources linked to, as these are a very rare type of capacitor, and just barely even available at all, outside of Japan.

the source is critical as well, as counterfeit capacitors are at epidemic levels on places like ebay, craiglist, amazon, etc. as well as at your local electronics store, where this type of capacitor is not legitimately available (except perhaps in the silicon valley area of California)

 

Welcome and congrats...with 31k on the vehicle, that's practically brand new. Lots of life left on this one.

 

That car will last forever! nice!

 

No problem got my caps from digi-key and my computer was worked on by my sister in law's husband who's a computer engineer who has been soldering since he was 12!
turned my car on today, after running fine It started running a little rough again, will run it again tomorrow to see if there is a bad sensor somewhere.had both temp sensors replaced with the original Toyota parts also following cowboys reccomendations.

 

Thanks for the welcome guys!

 

you said you gave it a full tune-up, when did this car last have caps, rotors, wires and plugs?

caps and rotors need to be Toyota (from Sewell Lexus, Lexus Parts Now, or Lexus of South Atlanta parts)

wires and plugs can be NGK or Denso which will save you a good bit of money, try Rock Auto or Amazon for best prices on those

 

All were bought locally, original parts, saw a little smoke coming from the back, passenger side of the engine on startup.

 

Might need part number for oxygen sensor front and back, denso or Toyota.

 

Photos mate. Always good to see another one of these beauties. Welcome to the family, by the way.

 

there are 4 oxygen sensors, 2 front (pre-cat) and 2 rear (post cat)

only the fronts (pre-cat) affect how the car runs and communicate information to the ECU

the rear ones (post-cat) are required if you live in a city with emissions requirements or you just like clean air

the part number for the Denso front O2 sensors (same part and manufacturer as Toyota but 1/3 the price) is 234-4169

the best deals on Nippon Denso O2 sensors are at amazon.com and rockauto.com (about $50 each)

 

Thanks for the info! it turns out that the maf isn't working, car runs rough with it connected or not, taking it out to clean it and then hooking it up to see what happens! thank god it's a low mileage example because it looks that the previous owner didn't take care of the car, except for plugs every part I've replaced was original.