Eric Cheung

Oh, my apologies. It should be in front of the throttle plate, as it bypasses the throttle plate during idling.

It is quite easy to do. I cleaned mine using throttle cleaner. The IACV opening is just *in front of* the throttle plate. Look for a little cavity and spray lots of cleaner in it until it overflows. You should see black cleaner liquid coming out. Repeat this until the cleaner liquid coming out is not too dirty. Hope that helps. Edit: The IACV cavity is in front of the throttle plate. *Correction per Camlex response below.*

Looks like IACV needs cleaning. The IACV controls the amount of air intake during idling. Carbon built-up might have hindered adequate air intake.

Is it the altnernator or powersteering pump in my case? I touched the tip of a 10" long screwdriver on the alternator and listened at the end of the screwdriver plastic handle, the sound was amplified and was very noticeable. I did the same for the timing belt cover and other metallic parts and the sound was not very noticeable. From this I think it is the alternator, am I right?

Toys and Blk, thanks a lot for the information. My cars dont have dash speakers. There are only the tweets and the door panel speakers in the front. I wired the front and rear panel speakers in series and connected them to the front channel of the 17W RMS/channel headunit to leave the rear channel for the subwoofer. The is not the final setup I did this to test the sound quality of this setup before deciding whether to buy an amp. I'm thinking about buying a 4-channel amp to improve the sound quality. I'm struggling between Alpine MRP-F250 and MRP-F450 amps. F250 is 40Wx4 RMS and F450 is 70Wx4 RMS. Other specs are the same for the 2 amps but F450 costs 50% more than F250. I dont need very loud music. Will F450 give better sound quality (cleaner sound) than F250 at low to moderate volume at which there is no distortion? And for low to moderate volume will the stock panel speakers give good sound quality with an Alpine amp? Thanks again.

I notice a high pitched continuous sound from the alternator. The frequency of the sound increases with engine revolution. It is about 500 to 1000 Hz during idling (660 rpm), higher when the a/c is engaged (about 1000 rpm). I stepped on the gas pedal to increse the engine revolution up to 2000 rpm and the frequency of sound increased with engine rev. I checked the belts and the tension was tight enough. I think it is the alternator. Or is it something else? Any advise is highly appreciated.

Thanks a lot for your reply. Are your front door speakers the origional ones, or have you changed them? My Sony headunit is model CDX-GT300 and is capable of 17W RMS each channel. I am now using it to power the 4 door speakers and the subwoofer. I put the front and rear door speakers in series and power them through the front channels of the headunit. The rear left channel powers the subwoofer. With the configuration it sound quite ok to my ears. I am wondering whehter sound quality can be greatly improved by changing the speakers? Or the weakest link in the system is the headunit and putting in an Alpine amp can improve sound quality noticeably?

I am planning to upgrade my car stereo by putting in an Alpine amp. The speakers are currently being powered by a Sony Head Unit. I am thinking about whether I should change the door speakers as well. The front doors speakers are 5.5" Toyota 15W speakers. Has anyone changed these speakers and notice a big difference in sound quality? Any information shared is highly appreciated. Thanks.

For instructions on cleaning IACV, you can find many posts on that by doing a search on "IACV" For PCV, I took it out by using a screwdriver to lever it out - using the tip of the screw driver as the pivot pressing on the engine valve cover, and using the shaft of the screw driver (which goes under the bent of the PCV) as the force point to slowly pull the PCV upwards until it comes out. Hope that helps.

Looks like it was not cleaned thoroughly. You can do it yourself, it is not that difficult. My car acted exactly like that 2 years ago. I fixed it by spaying lots of throttle body cleaner into the little cavity near the throttle plate to clean the IACV. Search the forum and you'll find lots of posts on that.

Can you restart the car at all? Does it stall short after a restart? Can you keep it going after restart by stepping on the accel pedal?

I confirmed my rear valve gasket leak by wiping dry the rear (side & bottom as far as my hand could reach) of the engine, ran the car for 30 miles or so, then see if there is oil again at the cover junction and below at the rear of the engine.

You might want to start a new topic for this so that people who know the solution to your problems will be aware of your post. Those people might not be interested in this original topic.

Update: Adjusting the nuts at the throttle body does lessen the slack. I adjusted as much as I could. Now there is still a little slack, but it is much better than before.

I am using a Sony 40Wx4 head unit. I heard an amplifier will greatly improve the sound quality even if the output power is the same as the head unit. That is, an amplifier of 40Wx4 will give much better sound quality than a head unit off 40Wx4. Is this true? Thanks

Thanks for the advice. I tried that but there is still slack. Probably there is too much slack? Can something be done at the pedal end? Thanks again.

There is some slack in the throttle cable of my 97 ES300. I want to tighten the throttle cable to eliminate the slack, but don't know how to adjust the throttle cable. I have searched the forum but have not found any posts describing how to adjust the throttle cable. Any advice will be highly appreciated.

Left & right strut assemblies are different. Make sure you get the strut from the same side. ;) Thanks a lot AMF.

I thinking about replacing the rear right strut assembly. I'm going to get one from a junkyard. Do I need to ensure the one I get is the rear "right" and not rear "left"? Or are they the same?

Could be the IACV (Idle Air Control Valve) having carbon built-up. Cleaning it could solve the problem. Search "IACV" and you should have the details in doing that.

There are posts detailing this. You shoudl be able to do a search to find the posts.

Yes, that's what I was thinking. I'll take the car to the garage to let them take a look at it when I return from business trip.

The belt was changed by a local garage. I opened up the belt cover a bit to take a look at the belt. The belt is black with white big "Toyota" printed on it together with some smaller Japanese say something like "bending is strictly forbidden". Does it sound like a genuine Lexus/Toyota belt?

After having the shop change the timing belt and the water pump, there is a strong sound coming from the engine compartment and seems to be coming from the time belt. It is not particularly loud but is quite noticeable, even with the hood closed and sitting inside the car with all doors closed. The sound is like rubber rubbing against plastic. There was no such sound before. Could it be the timing belt rubbing against its cover or something? The car runs normal, though.

I see. I think I'll take my car to the shop if I want to change to rear valve cover gasket then. It was leaking, but after reading the posts on PCV valve I cleaned the PCV valve and wiped off the oil leaked from the rear valve cover. Now I'll see whether cleaning the PCV will stop the leak. If not, I'll have the shop to change rear valve cover gasket for me.