Es300 Good Young Person Car? Best Upgrades?

hkjewop · September 12, 2005

Is a 1996 Lexus es300 a good young person car? I'm 16 and this is my first car. I'm going out tomorrow to look at one and possibly buy it.

What are the best upgrades? Performance and Looks. I'm already getting new rims/tires and shifter knob.

Toysrme · September 12, 2005

Ya it's a good car.

The looks hold up well, it's reliable, safe, and the brakes are awsome with a great set of pads - Hawk HPS Track pads (I've converted dozens... Best pads of all time), and Brembo Blank rotors. Skip drilled rotors, they're inferior in every aspect of braking, slots are for road racing tracks.

Best upgrades?

For wheels / tires. 17*7.5 wheels with 225/55 R17 are going to have the best handling/performance/steering/driving balance.

$101 - Hawk HP Plus Race brake pads FRONT (mmm tirerack has the price inflated $35) (You need to run these pads... Ultra long life, very soft when cold, track stiff when hot)

$47 - Akebono ProACT Ceramic Pads REAR (FYI these are the OEM/dealer pads)

OR

$53 - Hawk HPS Street brake pads REAR

$20 - DOT4 brake fluid - Yes... Flush the brake fluid every couple of years with Dot4. If you're rich, go for dot4+ / Dot5.1 (Same stuff)

$125-$150usd - New Rear Sway Bar. (RSB) !¡WooT WooT¡! Whit eline over TRD if you can FIND/import a Whiteline!!!

Here's everything you need to know about performance in 8 steps:

1) Intakes sound nice but don't do crap for power. So just make your own for free, or $15 at Lowes.

2) Headers are expensive out the !Removed!, & don't do anything for power until you run lots of n2o, or run high boost pulleys with the trd supercharger.

3) Cat-back exhausts are like intakes. Nice sound, but there is no power gain from it.

4) The only gain<s> in the exhaust are in a custom y-pipe, and replacing the cat with a high-flow cat convertor. $250-350.

5) There are no chips. You can't reprogram the ECU. You *can* buy a piggyback (SAFC, E-manage, SMT, FTC-1, there are a thousand of them) to LEAN the fuel from say... 4250rpm to the rev limit. Worth 10bhp peak.

6) There are no cams. Custom cam regrinds will cost $1200, not including paying someone smart to re-shim the 24 valve lifters.

7) The largest single change you can make N/A is having someone port & polish your heads with a 3 angle valve job. (and unshroud the valves) This costs $$$.

8) You should take the upper half of the intake manifold - correctly named the Upper Intake Air Chamber - see here:

off every year and clean the inside of it; including the throttle plate, ISC valve (Idle Speed Control), EGR valve (Exhaust Gas Recirculation), and the ACIS valve. The ACIS valve is the big flap you see. That is our variable intake. Open at low rpm, @ 4100rpm & 50%+ Throttle & the car moving - the flap will close, increasing the velocity in the intake. The flap closing is what gives that small power surge at 4200rpm.

By not cleaning the upper intake, carbon builds up on everything. You loose 5-10bhp. Eventually the carbon will build up on the ISC valve - causing a poor idle & stalling, the EGR valve - causing poor running, failed emessions & CEL, and cause the throttle plate to stick - which will make the throttle unresponsive when you barely put the pedal in.

If you have thousands to blow, you can always do the now permanently out of production TRD Supercharger, or a custom turbo.

$325-$450usd will buy you a wet n2o kit. You can run a 75 shot easy enough. Upgrade the fuel pump & figure a way to add more fuel & the engine should take on up to 320-350whp if you get enough fuel to it, and are super careful when you run that much power. (That's up over 400bhp) Keep in mind second and third gears are going to last one run if you have over 320bhp... The point stays the same.

Personally... n2o is safe, but you need a compression check to make sure the engine can handle it, aux. transmission cooler, and if you're going to run more than 320bhp you *have* to have the transmission ugpraded or it's going to pop.

It's a great first car. Not fast enough out of the box to get yourself into some serious trouble in a serious hurry, but not dog slow. handling can be whatever you want to spend on upgrades, and the brakes will stop the car very well without major upgrades no matter how much hosrepower you put down.

They're also tanks. The gen3 Camry rear bumper design takes huge hits without much damage & the suspension will survive most sane impacts with curbs, ladders, and various off-roading experience (forward, sideways, and backwards!) without even loosing the alignment. =)

Synthetic fluids... Use them, live them, love them.

hkjewop · September 12, 2005

thank you very much for the fast and detailed reply. Performance upgrades sound very confusing and costly so I will probably stay away from that stuff. I'll just keep everything clean under the hood and let the stock lexus engine do it's thing. I'll just spend all the money I have/make on cosmetic upgrades.

Thanks. And maybe if i can afford it one day ill get the turbo.