Greetings club Lexus fanatics,
Long time observer with my first post today. I want to thank you all immediately for the content I've been able to use this far to keep me going in my pride and joy, sexy Lexi.
For about the past month I've been dealing with some absolute craziness with a very long story being truncated to my present situation, which is a canopy over my car in a pretty poor part of town here in Portland.

BackgroundI obtained this car through sweat equity. Prior owner was in the midst of a starter installation and I guess just decided to quit after he lost the last key. Having fell in love with the lines of the vehicle I volunteered to tow it away. I put in the starter and very odds and ends got a key made and I was in business. Of course, the cats had been cut off so she sounded like a monster truck but I managed to straight pipe it and tone her down a bit. She's an immaculate condition otherwise.
Some weeks ago my friend was arrested and was in possession of my one and only master key. I called in a locksmith and this rushing outfit came indicated they need to reflash my ECU and 5 days later came back with a key that indeed turned off my security light but when I went to turn her over she would fire and immediately fall off and die.

Under threat of lawsuit I got the Russians to come back to diagnose deeper than what I could with my fixed OBD2 scanner and they indicated there were no immobilizer issues.

The only codes being thrown (none have been thrown since my last reset because the car has not run hence no new codes being detected) were a throttle position sensor, Park in neutral sensor, and MAF circuit.
Some irregular electrical behavior (the moonroof opened when I was jiggling the starter cable) sent me on a diagnostic tour de force for shorts and after having clamped my test light to the positive battery terminal I found a short within the STA circuit.

ProcedureAt one point in the last couple weeks I showed up 30 bucks to pay emanual for the repair manual but my laptop has since been stolen because of this decrepit environment I find myself in.
I was able to glean some of the starting circuit information and my question is as follows:
Assuming there is a short to ground somewhere in the starting circuit would I observe what I am currently observing which is the engine firing and then subsequently falling off?

If I have indeed located the main issue being the short in the starting circuit where do I begin? I've taught myself a bunch about multimeters and testing for continuity but should I begin at the ECM and work my way through the circuit?
I want to be as efficient as possible so I can just get the hell out of here with my baby because some points of despair of have arisen as of late where I imagined parting out this machine before the locals do it for me.

What other informa

​​​​​​Thank you for lending your experience and expertise to my situation. It's badass to form like this exists and just goes to show how a model of car can do something to a person.... What that thing is remains to be seen :-)

All my best, john

 

Bad MAF can cause this, the engine will either idle poorly and die when you stab the throttle or won't idle at all. What are (or were) the exact codes?

 

Thanks for the reply...please see attached