well, this topic shouldnt just be limited to 250 guys, i know there are plenty 350 owners on this site who are pissed about the lack of forced induction possibilities, and know that the S/C kits out there now arent nearly worth their cost in power

 

only thing I'm pissed off about is there is no manual tranny n the 350's. mid to low 13's for a stock sporty sedan is enough for me.

 

And the truth is, if you really want to go faster, spend that mod money on driving school. No bolt on will make you faster than knowing how to drive.

 

headers !!! Best bang for your buck

 

Listen to this guy...

He's a Sensi!

I agree, spend some time on the track, with the car, and learn how to drive

 

I do plan on going to driving schools. just want to mod up the car and then save up for it

 

A track day - by the end of things - will cost about $1k. If you buy expensive modified parts and wear them out (brake pads, tires, shocks, etc) then you can expect your track weekend to cost even more.

Your bone stock car will perform admirably for your first year of track work. You'll be surprised by how many modded cars you pass in your bone stock car after you learn how to get around the track at a reasonable pace.

To put it in perspective, Zak Anderson was our instructor driver at the Lexus Performance Academy. He led us in an IS250 with full F-Sport mods. Three of us were in IS-Fs and he was pulling away from us AT WILL. I had the throttle buried coming out of the esses just to keep up with him because he was carrying speed so much better than I was through the esses.

Two lessons here - first, the nut behind the wheel is the most important part of any car, and second, I need more track time in cars because I suck at driving cars. Third lesson is, don't even think about trying to drive an IS-F like a motorcycle or you'll end up in the grass. AMHIK.

 

Crack the ecu... save all your mod money and crack the code with a blessing from God

 

If you only had any real idea how hard this is...

 

I could only imagine that is why it would take an act from God.....

 

Track days around here TX cost about 200.00 plus another 100 in gas at least. Your pads are cheap, and you can use the lexus pads off any of the lexus parts sites for around 60 bucks. Tires would be the 2nd most important thing you would want to look at, but for your first 5x's + you should be good with your stock.

Everything lobux has said here is dead on. the only caveat is that most people here wanting to make their cars faster are strictly worried about beating the car next to them on the hwy or from a stop light. Neither of these require any skill.

If street racing is your concern then you all bought the wrong car. Pretty much 99% of "how do i make my car faster" questions in this forum could be solved by not having a 12:1 NA car w/306hp and a heavy curb weight. Trade your lexus in and get 1 of many FI cars out there. You can mod them to death and beat the dude next you at the light for typically around 2k.

Unless you have a boat load of money and can afford to do a 2jz swap or anything to that degree, give it up because it won't happen on the 2is. Trust me I know from experience both of trying to mess with the 2is and from having it at the track.

Just to confirm what lobux is saying above, if you watch any of my videos from my track day in my IS you will see me passing many cars that are faster than mine. s4, lotus, sc'd 350z, etc.. This isn't because I am michael schumacher or I have a crazy fast IS. It's because I was faster out of the turns, more controlled with my braking, and was hitting apex better than the drivers in my class that day. There was an instructor out there in a miata that was schooling everyone. His car had half the power of mine. He just was a great driver. Most of what I have learned from track days will not help me beat that sti from a roll on i-30; however, it does let me know the limits of my car and how important 1. the driver is, 2. tires are.

bottom line: give up on any idea of a turbo or sc (of course money can do anything) on the IS. n2o is defintely something you can do, but once you start going through bottles like crazy, that will get real old real quick.

 

If cracking the ecu is too tough. How hard would it be to do a swapped out JDM IS350 ecu? Those don't have the same level of encryption right?

 

The problem isn't the encryption, the problem is they load the main program into PROM, then burn the fusible links to that PROM so you can't see the main program at all without an electron microscope. They use flash memory for fuel and timing maps, but there are literally hundreds of look up tables in the engine's arsenal of parameters, and Toyco doesn't give access to anything like half of them.

So things like top speed limiters and VVTi parameters are not accessible. Only fuel and timing maps. There's more to this, but I am not at liberty to discuss it and anyone offering modified Toyota engine management can expect a DMCA lawsuit from Lexus/Toyota/Scion for reverse engineering their engine management code illegally unless they've worked out a deal with Lexus/Toyota/Scion like Lotus did for the Elise/Exige cars with Toyota engines.

 

^ wow okay.. well sounds way too complex for me to wrap my head around so I'll just take your word for it..

 

Has anyone done any head work to the 350? Port and polish?