I have seen so many threads about SC's not handling well and being a heavy weight. This is true to some extent, but we have a capable car and with some tweaking, it can be made into a great handling car. Ok so the curb weight is 3500 pounds, and a lot of other sports cars are as well. Now im not comparing apples to apples, obvious a Viper, Lamborghini, Corvette all have aerodynamic power, suspension and braking advantages. We do have a great core to start with. Double wishbone suspension, traction and toe arms and we share a platform with the MKIV Supra. With a little more R&d i know we can have a capable car, I have seen a Supra at fire bird raceway here in phoenix pick apart a viper and corvette on the track.

 

Remember while our suspension is similar to the supra's, Lexus gave the car much softer bushings and such, since the ride is supposed to be smooth as possible. Most SC owners want the luxury ride, not a harsh track suspension ride, so there's no huge demand for more performance or suspension parts for a Lexus SC, and only a small number of companies even make upgraded suspension parts for our cars.

 

That's the thing, WITH a little bit of R&D and modifications the car would be a good performer. Comparing stock to stock the SC is not going to fair very well.

Anything and everything can be made to handle and go fast relatively, just depends how deep your pockets are.

 

I have a ´92 SC400 and a '98 Subaru Impreza WRX and I´ve got to say that the twisty roads are not the better ones to SC´s while the big high speed curves are their natural "habitat".
On road trips I realized that I went faster with the sc than with the wrx and about a month ago I tried to eclipse a 60mile-24minutes record (*) I hold with the SC and It did take me 30 minutes to do those same 60 miles with the wrx begging me to lift my right foot.
Maybe is the noise absense or the luxury performer she is. But I´m very very glad of what she can do.
My car have 18 wheels and I´ve replaced the front shocks with new ones (OEM)
It´s not bouncy, it´s not noisy, it´s not unconfortable. It´s fast and I think that could be as fast as some Ferrari/Porsches with no major problems.
All Supra suspension kits do work on our SC´s. So there IS performance and suspension parts for our cars.

(*) = yes: 240km/h of avg speed in 60 miles =)

 

The car is decent, nothing like the true handling car performers.... for daily driving you dont need much more.... If i want handling I would of jumped in a miata,mr2,evo,s2k,nsx,m3 etc instead. I wont track my sc300 anytime because parts and paint are expensive =/ rather beat up a miata on the track.

 

the car handles fine, you have to realize theres a lot of this going on around here.



and then they wonder why it handles/rides like **** and tears the wire harness up

 

93MSB comment is true, but this might open another helladumb/stretched tires aren't for performance debate thread lol.

Just upgrade the bushings, shocks, springs, wheels, and grippy tires. Then have fun on the track

 

uhh O i see a heated thread coming up stay tuned CL lol....

 

iv owned several different RWD cars, and by far the SC300 has been the most "comfortable" but at the same time, less responsive in terms of feedback from the steering. I think the biggest complaint that its not a good handling car OUT OF THE BOX. But like all goals, all can be made with money. You might be sacrificing some comfort by upgrading the suspension and chassy, but thats reality that there is no perfect car out there.

If there was a way to increase comfort and handling performance of the car without sacrificing anything but weight, you should share the magic.

 

93MSB I think you are spot on. While I like that look and style, I bought this car to build something fun with and only payed $1500 for an SC300 with 130K miles on her. She has issues, but I think she is more responsive on corners than my old 240SX was, this however being stock to stock and just an opinion. I am doing the basics-bushings, sway bars, wheels, sticky tires, toe and traction rods and of course coils, all coming in the spring. Weight is always a concern, but like I stated most exotics or sports cars aren't light, just well balanced, which is possible to do with our chassis. Obviously we can achieve the power out put these sports cars have, it's been done often. IM gonna talk with my fabricator and see what we can come up with to make this car handle.

 

Fresh bushings (not that poly junk), supra-based spring/strut/swaybar setup, and alignment is a step in the right direction...

 

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't negative camber improve handling? Around turns and what not

 

The correct amount of negative camber may improve handling. But excessive negative camber like in that picture above does not. It's all about roll/squat.

When you have a straight standing tire with 0 camber, it'll rover over onto it's outer sidewalls when cornering, which can be pretty bad.

With just a little bit of negative camber, say like 1 degree or 2, the tire is still making full contact patch, just more on either side of the patch depending on straight-line acceleration or tire roll/squat

 

Yes it does but to certain degree. You only dial in enough camber to account for the most bank or lateral g force your car would presumably encounter at a particular track. The reasoning is so the suspension geometry would effectively use the entire contact surface of the tire when rolling/weight shift through turns.

 

How are polyurethane bushings junk? They greatly surpass regular rubber