PLease excuse the numerous newbie posts

So what can we do to pump up the power? Superchargers? Turbo? How much?

Reliability wise, anything that is prone to breaking on a '00-'01? Expensive to maintain?

Thanks

 

easiest cheapest is to get rid of the 3rd useless cat, that cost is well prob 70$ for a good y pipe, u would need to do that before u did anything else, Lexus are reliable, but unlike the buying a brand new BMW where u get free maint. from brakes to oil anything for 4yrs/50k miles, people that buy Lexus start off w/ a lower price, but then get smacked when they go in for service.

yea went off topic but they have superchargers for 430

http://www.l-tunedparts.com/product/?id=338
here is a tom's supercharger for $11,000, which includes a *****ty exhaust with it

 

if you get 01-03 ls430, you can put on an aftermarket tq converter and also the 3.76 gear ratio and your car will be mad fast, much faster than stock. instake, exhaust, ec... those only add marginal power, imho don't really gain you anything

if you have 04+ ls430, sorry but the tq converter and the rear end don't apply

if you do it right, the car will be just as reliable. my 98 gs400, i have the tq converter and the 3.76 gear, been a while, the car is strong as hell

 

Which are you referring to as the "3rd cat?" Those long 'glass-pack' looking things just forward of the differential are not cats -- they are straight-through resonators of some sort. (...just in case you were referring to those, as I've seen several people do).

 

romini,
More info please on the converter and gear! Source? Effect on fuel mileage? Converter's effect on routine, moderate driving? Any other detailed input will appreciated as this sounds like something I may want to do. I think the LS needs to be JUST a little more peppy. I'm pretty sure it could be acheived with a reprogramming of the tranny shift points if a reprogramming were possible, but the gear and converter -- particularly the gear -- could do it too, I think.

 

Wald is offering a S/C kit claiming 350 whp and 412 tq. I haven't seen a price on it yet. That power level and the converter and gear that romini should wake the LS up a bit.
Edit: looks like the list price is about $11K in Japan, so it depends upon how deep the discounts are once the stuff gets to the US. HKS and GReddy stuff can often be bought for about 60% of list, but Wald may not have enough competition to get the prices down...

 

the wald supercharge comes in at whopping 13k to 15k. i don't think it's really worth the money (considering the power gain). that's tons of money man.

sure i can talk more on the tq converter. the 01-05 gs430, the 01-03 ls430, and the 02-05 sc430, they all share the same drivetrain (engine and tranny and rear gear ratio).

if you go look at the gs forum, you will see tons of people putting the precision industry dragon tq converter with 2800rpm stall speed in their car. the result is remarkable. in my case, it really wakes up the car. throttle is so instant and it pulls like crazy.

one thing to keep in mind. if you put the tq converter in, more than likely you will get a check engine light. it says something about the tranny stall speed wrong. of course, that's the whole idea. the 430 engine drive train they put in more sensors on the tranny so that's why you get the light. on the old 400 (gs400, my car for example) there is no such sensors so most of us don't have the cel light.

so it's up to you wether that bothers you or not (the cel light). but i can tell you the improvement is crazy. and if you pair it up with the 3.76 gear ratio (stock is 3.26 i believe) from the supra tt, you have some major fun

now of course, what's the catch? the tq converter wil definitely put up more heat on the tranny, so what you need is a tranny cooler that mounts on the radiator up front to help keep the tranny cool. another 50 bucks investment and your tranny will just be as strong and long lasting

hope this helps

 

I agree completely on the cost of the S/C kit -- lots of $ for not much power. However, I suppose it's all relative, and some people might go for it without feeling much pain (but not me). I see people spend half of that on 25 HP for some BMWs, Porsches, etc. I guess I'm spoiled by the Supra, where $13K gets you an additional 600 WHP over stock, plus the supporting mods to go along with it.

What does the converter do to light-throttle 'drivability?' I know that a 2800 stall wouldn't make it annoying to the extent that, say, a 4500 stall would, but when you just ease away from a stop, do you notice the engine revving higher and the converter slipping more than stock?

Re: the differential gear for the LS, do people just drop in the entire chunk from the automatic Supra, or do they just use the gears/internals? (Sorry for taking the shortcut of asking you instead of going to the GS forum and doing the search and trying to extrapolate to the LS....)

Do you know of anyone offering a transmission shift-point reprogram? I think that would do wonders for the LS during moderate driving because stock, it upshifts at such low RPM unless you're into the throttle pretty good, or shifting manually.