2006 IS250 LS1 Swap
I'm not sure if he mentioned how but I would not doubt he would be able to get it to work by the quality of work he has done so far.
Honestly, I am not sure how much of the cluster will work. Everything on the interior runs off separate ECUs than the engine so I am not worried about it all powering up. What I am worried about is that the wiring diagram shows some wires from the engine ECU going into a "microprocessor" in the gauge cluster. Because of that I am not sure if the car uses traditional tach and speed signals.
I actually drove the car this weekend, I'll post the video shortly. As soon as I sort out some drivability issues I'll look closer at the gauge integration.
LOTS of activity lately, sorry I haven't been great about posting it all. After my initial test drive a little over a week ago, I decided that I needed to do a little work on the steering, cooling system, and air intake before I took the car on any more drives. My camera is in my car at my friends warehouse right now so unfortunately I don't have all the pictures to post. I do however have some cell pics and some movies.
I'm not going to get into the steering issues right now since I don't have the pics but I will say that I ended up splicing together 2 outer tie rods to make a longer tie rod with a standard thread. I'll get to that later.
The biggest difference you'll see is that I installed a coolant expansion tank that would act as a reservoir as well as a fill port that doesn't block the throttle body. This allowed me to install my air intake. I fabricated the intake using a 4" cast short radius elbow (yes it is cast aluminum), a 12" long 45 degree bent tube, 2 silicone connectors with stainless t-clamps, and a 7" K&N filter.
Here's a shot of the Moroso expansion tank.
I actually disconnected my heater core and ran the heater core output, through a tee fitting that is connected to the expansion tank, and then back into the heater core return. I live in Florida so I don't think I'll miss that heater and if I decide I want to hook it up it would only take about a half hour. For now I like the clean look without the hoses running across the top of the engine.
Here is another shot of the intake and the expansion tank
So now on to the current. I hooked back up the steering and drove the car about 20 minutes south to my buddies warehouse. Up to this point I have done this entire swap in my garage with a set of $30 Harbor Freight jack stands and a $30 floor jack. When my friend offered up his lift to fab the exhaust I couldn't turn it down. I'll post pics of the exhaust build in a few days but for the time being I'll leave you with 2 video of the car on the road, still exhaust-less and sounding like a beast. You have no idea what kind of confusion you see in peoples faces when they realize the noise that they hear must be coming from the Lexus because there is no other cars around. If it wasn't unbearably load in the car, I would be inclined to keep it as is for a little while just to mess with people.
Here are the videos. I should have another post later this week.
Now one with a little more juice
I'm not going to get into the steering issues right now since I don't have the pics but I will say that I ended up splicing together 2 outer tie rods to make a longer tie rod with a standard thread. I'll get to that later.
The biggest difference you'll see is that I installed a coolant expansion tank that would act as a reservoir as well as a fill port that doesn't block the throttle body. This allowed me to install my air intake. I fabricated the intake using a 4" cast short radius elbow (yes it is cast aluminum), a 12" long 45 degree bent tube, 2 silicone connectors with stainless t-clamps, and a 7" K&N filter.
Here's a shot of the Moroso expansion tank.
I actually disconnected my heater core and ran the heater core output, through a tee fitting that is connected to the expansion tank, and then back into the heater core return. I live in Florida so I don't think I'll miss that heater and if I decide I want to hook it up it would only take about a half hour. For now I like the clean look without the hoses running across the top of the engine.
Here is another shot of the intake and the expansion tank
So now on to the current. I hooked back up the steering and drove the car about 20 minutes south to my buddies warehouse. Up to this point I have done this entire swap in my garage with a set of $30 Harbor Freight jack stands and a $30 floor jack. When my friend offered up his lift to fab the exhaust I couldn't turn it down. I'll post pics of the exhaust build in a few days but for the time being I'll leave you with 2 video of the car on the road, still exhaust-less and sounding like a beast. You have no idea what kind of confusion you see in peoples faces when they realize the noise that they hear must be coming from the Lexus because there is no other cars around. If it wasn't unbearably load in the car, I would be inclined to keep it as is for a little while just to mess with people.
Here are the videos. I should have another post later this week.
Now one with a little more juice
Last edited by Thumper28; Jul 22, 2013 at 08:21 PM.
