new 2000 rx300 owner and would like to up the performance a bit (and hopefully gas mileage). I see lots of performance chips on ebay with wide range in price and promises....anyone have experience/comments on these?

 

I don't have any personal experience, but I think that you'd get either improved performance or gas mileage, but not both. I'm pretty confident the Lexus engineers tried their best to compromise between performance and mileage. You probably need to look into air intake modifications and/or exhaust modifications to get improved performance and increased mileage. Others on this forum have discussed these modifications in the past.

 

Welcome to the Club.

Those chips on ebay don't do much. They alter air inlet temperatures to make it seem the incoming air intake temperature is lower than normal. However, if the air isn't really that cool and it meets up with proportional amount of fuel according to the air/fuel ratio the ECU has set in, in terms of a range, you are bound to get an engine error.

I run intakes that regularly, if you check with an OBDII scanner, I get a pending P0171 lean error, and then every so often the light will actually come one after hitting the pending error so many times.

bob2200 said it exactly as there is a compromise between perofrmance and mileage.

 

how about those infamous tornado type devices that create vortex of air at intake....anyone got opinions/

Also would love to hear rx owners thoughts on the best intake/exhaust upgrades.

Mahalo.

 

The "tornado" device is what is known in engineering circles as a "flow restriction". Putting a little propeller in the intake stream does nothing to "swirl" the intake air, but that spinning disc does block a fair amount of air flow - and probably results in a rich mixture in applications where it is located downstream of the MAF. That would create a fuel penalty along with the performance loss. A tennis ball in the intake would achieve much the same effect.

As to chips, your RX probably wouldn't benefit because it is a rather sedate powerplant. High performance engines benefit from an aftermarket chip that removes a few safety/longevity limits. In addition to making the engine think it is getting denser air by altering the output of the temperature sensor, as in the cheap chips, the really expensive ones also raise rev limits, and in turbo applications, boost pressure. The latter can have a pretty dramatic effect on horsepower, but instantly void your warranty and allow your engine to destroy itself. If you are considering buying one of these high end chips for your performance car, best have a spare engine tucked away somewhere in your garage as well. You'll need it.

 

i was thinkin about getting this from jetchip ..lexmex was talkin about it last time. http://www.jetchip.com/products.asp?...odel=1034#1034

 

shoot...i would get a jet chip, but i dont like sending my ecu to them so they can install it.

 

I was also thinking about getting a Jet chip at one time. However, as zombie mentioned, sending it a way would not be my cup of tea either. I thought about getting an eManage or other engine management system so I can increase the amount of fuel to air ratio. I am actually very much looking at this option and some other things like the CP-E intake, specifically the one that has the tuning option for the Solara, http://www.cp-e.com/2017.html

 

There is a rx300 driver on cardomain that said he uses a tacoma's superchip in his rx. he told me he blew a head gasket, but its okay now.
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2923121

 

I know the head of Unichip down here. He races a Harley at my track and he is from Australia. A while back we were going to do a custom one for my RX, but after consulting a bit more, we realized it was going to be a bit more difficult with the tuning than we expected. However, I am not sure I will reapproach that and likely do some other way to augment the air/fuel ratio electronically.

I admire the guy for trying that out though.