scosol

Cool! I'm at ~220k with no big problems whatsoever outside of one of the O2 sensors needing replacement- Mobil-1 10-30 all its life. Realizing I didn't answer your other question: "How is the grip on the road with those cooper tires?" -> Good in the dry, surprisingly slippery in the wet. My rubber spring lift has sagged a little too, but not to the point that I'm going to do anything about it. Sadly I may be having to sell the vehicle due to family-space requirements- thinking GX or LX but we'll see. About once a month I get comments from people "That thing's awesome!" etc- wanting to know what I did to it- around here it's all jacked up domestic full-size pickups (agri-country) so it sticks out from the crowd :)

Very cool! Yeah, I've owned it for about a year and have been very impressed with it as a simply great all-around vehicle (and I've owned over 200- UNIMOGs, racecars, buses, ///M, you name it)- I recall that Lexus was dire to not be seen as "really just a Toyota" here in the US, so all of their stuff (from this era at least) is quality and solid. I feel you on the weight-of-the-tires aspect- that was something I neglected to mention in my post. The vehicle is noticeably slower now, both due to the increased gearing and the weight of those tires. That's unfortunate but it wasn't exactly a speed demon to begin with, so I'll take it. (ECT permanently in Power mode!) Oh, and nice knife- somehow I managed to "lose" two of those over the course of several months! Nowadays I carry a Milwaukee Utility Folder with a Lenox Gold blade... haven't lost one in years! ;)

Hey All! Bumping this thread since I just completed this same thing on my '99 RX300 and I've got some pix for reference. I bought it and use it as a cheap kid-hauling thing, but it's a quality vehicle and deserves more! I wanted to make it more off-road capable (since it's already a pretty decent AWD system) so I wanted to fit the tallest tires possible under there to give it some more ground clearance. (265/75/16 don't fit! 265/70/16 do!) (Cooper Discoverer ATP) *and* widen the track since it kinda has always felt like it needed it. I used (6) of these coil spacers- one in the front and two in the back: Superior model 18-1920 - Note that the thinner ones are too small and will not stay in- the coils are pretty far apart to begin with. (Similarly, it looks like those metal/rubber twist-in or bolt-on spacers wont work well either) I think I ended up with an actual 1.5" lift in the front and 2" in the rear. For the wheel spacers, I ordered the exact ones referenced in the link to ebay. They're incredibly high quality and I got 2". The requirement for these is because the tires are already near the spring seats, and you can't go much taller. Even as it is now, that 2" isn't enough to allow taller tires than the ones I put on (they don't move the tire far enough out, and it will impact on the shoulder still) 245-width tires may be narrow enough to clear the spring seat with the 2" spacers, but I'm not sure. As it sits now it feels more planted because of the wider track (I noticed that with the stock tires as well, as I had to put them on before going to the tire place) (note that the coil spacers can be put in without removing the wheels) and it seems a little firmer of course but it feels great to me. With these tires it does rub on the left front, only when turning hard left, and only in one little spot. It's not something I would call major. Additionally, I originally had just 1 coil lifter in the back and none in the front, and took it on a test drive on the freeway to Oakland- it was rubbing here and there over severe bumps. After adding the additional ones, it doesn't rub anywhere (except for the mentioned left front when turning hard and slow) The tires stick out from the fenders only about 1", so I'm not going to worry about any flares. Note that there's probably no room at all for any chains on it with these tires. Check out the much-cooler aggressive look (there's loads of these things around, and they're all bone-stock grocery-getter mom-vehicles so it stands out nicely and is very unique in that sense) and the super ground clearance! (the lowest thing is still that hanging muffler) Enjoy!