2008 Is350, Any Suggestions?

[Kelly's IS350]

I just bought a new 2008 IS350. I'm so excited about this car! It's my first Lexus :) Anywho, I have a bunch of thing's planned for this car, but I'm not sure exactly where to start ... I've checked out different websites for modification's, but there is like hardly any available .... Does anyone know of any good places or sites to buy parts from? I also want to put an exhaust on my car, but not sure which one to go with. I'm debating between the Greddy SP2, HKS, & Tanabe w/Racing Medellion ... which one sound's better? I'm looking for something that's not really quiet or too aweful loud, but not like all ricey sounding. I was talking to some dude and he has an 06 IS350 and told me not to get headers, because he had problems with them ... anyone else have any issues like this?

[dcfish]

I just bought a new 2008 IS350. I'm so excited about this car! It's my first Lexus :) Anywho, I have a bunch of thing's planned for this car, but I'm not sure exactly where to start ... I've checked out different websites for modification's, but there is like hardly any available .... Does anyone know of any good places or sites to buy parts from? I also want to put an exhaust on my car, but not sure which one to go with. I'm debating between the Greddy SP2, HKS, & Tanabe w/Racing Medellion ... which one sound's better? I'm looking for something that's not really quiet or too aweful loud, but not like all ricey sounding. I was talking to some dude and he has an 06 IS350 and told me not to get headers, because he had problems with them ... anyone else have any issues like this?

Beautiful car

[Knightshade]

If you want to mod the car for performance, don't bother. There's literally nothing that adds significant performance for any reasonable cost right now. The Joe Z intake pipe is probably the nearest thing, only because it's inexpensive for a good quality item, but still only adds single-digit horsepower. No -legal- exhaust adds more than that either and costs massively more. Some non-legal (ie off-road only because they delete cats, etc) exhaust might add as much as 10-15 horsepower if you don't mind dropping a grand or more for such gains.

There's a supercharger for $6000 that'll add 40 hp or so, still pretty poor bang/buck.

NOBODY makes IS350 specific headers, though a few very-cheaply-made generic headers that physically fit the motor are available.

Nobody makes a real ECU performance chip either, thanks to lexus encrypting the ECU.

Right now unless you can engineer your own parts the best way to -significantly- enhance the power/performance of an IS would be to trade it in for an IS-F in a couple months. You'd gain over 100 hp plus better handling and such for about 10k.

If you want to mod for sound/looks, well, then you have lots of options of body kits, aftermarket wheels, loud exhausts, etc...

Toyota/Lexus is sponsoring this years SEMA show at the end of the month... Some folks hold out hope that we will finally see -real- performance enhancements for the 350 available then... many others think it'll just be more of the same (ie bling/show items that don't really do much and are way overpriced) but it'll be another week or so before we know for sure.

[bartkat]

There are some exhaust vid/sound clips here on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...p;search=Search

[Magnus357]

There are some exhaust vid/sound clips here on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...p;search=Search

Awesome link, thanks!