I have owned my 2009 IS 250 AWD for 4 years now, and I am currently looking for ways to improve the cars performance without doing too much to the engine. it sits now with 103,000 miles and counting. So i'm hesitant to do anything major in fear of it putting to much stress on the engine and wearing it down. I take great care of the car and always get it serviced on time. Does anyone have ay suggestions on how to add some horsepower without spending too much? (1-2K)

Ive heard of intakes and filters that can be added, but from what I understand the power added from these is almost negligible. Im a novice in terms of car knowledge, but am learning as I go so any feedback is appreciated.

 

Headers would be your best bet. Good ones (PPE ) will eat up about half your budget. There are also tunes available if you feel thats not too extreme. I would research the tune post and see what those folks are saying about it. Other options include a full exhaust. But with all that being said , don't expect it to be a world beater.

 

Get a joez tube with an fsport intake, you wont go much faster but the sound will satisfy your thirst for power without breaking the bank.

 

Intakes are largely worthless. And there's zero difference between the oem intake tube and everyone else's... They're all smooth on the inside. If the throttlebody's the same, making small changes to the inside diameter of the intake tube's absolutely worthless. Get genuine headers and a tune, and that's all you're going to be able to do, without changing your final driving gearing. But if you do that your fuel mileage will go down, and the cruise rpm's will be higher. And to do that to a lexus is just stupid. It would be better to sell it and get a genuine hotrod like an "f" series car, or an STI or something else.

 

Unfortunately buddy, this is not a BMW. If you want to get any noticeable gains in power, you better be ready to spend some money. Headers and a tune would probably be your best best for some noticeable gains, but should still be within your budget ($1.5k or so).

 

Yea, you're looking at around what, a grand for the headers & 7 for the tune? If you put the headers in yourself you'll save a good amount of money, plus you'll have more control over the QC process as well. They're a pain though. But yea, on a 250, you're going to need at least that to get some decent gains.

 

The only true method of measuring gains, is going to the track and comparing your mph for each run. I know this may seem like a lot but it's **** I do in the name of science lol. Buy your headers and tune. Go to the track and get a few baseline runs stock. Then throw the tune on, see what happens. Then go home, put the headers on, retune it, and go do a few more runs to see what it's netting you. You can judge by your timeslips where your gains are as long as the weather's fairly similar. Overall, if I was stuck with a 250, I'd absolutely run some headers and a tune without a doubt. At that point I think they'd be just about acceptable for a daily driver.