RDM

It's been proven there's a slight thermal decrease and enhanced aerodynamics with it, but the changes are so slight no one will ever notice it. Especially someone who's clearly 16yrs old.

What you spend always evens out. A new car would never need a bit of service, but it would cost you more in payments, tag fees, insurance, etc. I love having an 18yr old car that still runs great and looks 10x better than it ever did stock so I don't mind doing the labor and paying for upkeep on it. I paid $1800 for it four years ago and have less than $2k in upgrades since, you can't beat that. A little money once in a while to keep it going really isn't that bad.

When I did my timing belt at 172k it was the original belt and water pump, the previous owner never bothered to change it. The pump locked up, forcing me to do the job early (I was waiting until I had the time to do it without being rushed). I fully understand the service intervals and I'm all for scheduled upkeep, but it's highly doubtful there has ever been a timing belt that magically snaps if the interval is exceeded. There's always a risk of damage but that's possible any time you start and drive the car, there's no guarantee you'll even make the interval, there's just no way to know if you got a bad pump, good belt, hard driven car, etc. You're not walking on egg shells by waiting.

The shock is what adjusts the height. If both shocks are fully bottomed out the air compressor is more than likely the culprit.

Engine undercover. Where do you think you'll find one besides the dealer, WalMart? It's an OEM part, there's no other place to buy it unless you go used and hope a salvage yard has one in decent shape.

I can't comment on the Vaistech, but I used to install USA Spec products a few years ago and was not very impressed with their quality. The company I worked for did audio and accessory work for car dealers and we did a ton of CD changer and single CD units for numerous manufacturers, the USA Spec stuff was at best 70% functional out of the box. The Toyota single CD units usually worked fine but the audio output was much lower than the OE units, and Mazda CD changers would randomly jump discs when in use. Other products would just be DOA brand new or have problems syncing up and require constant resetting. They may have alleviated some of their quality issues but I'd be cautious.

Do you hear the subwoofer playing? If not, put any known working speaker in it's place temporarily, does it work? If so, the amp works, subwoofer doesn't. If not, neither works. Pretty obvious really.

A good bit of the switches in the dash/console are lit with bulbs, I found out after replacing the shift level indicator on mine. I ordered the bulbs for the transmission select and ride height switches by the lever and the heated seats and traction control switches above the ashtray. They weren't cheap though. The window switches though as said are not replaceable easily, you could do a solder in job though with LEDs, there's a lot of stuff online about people converting their entire dash cluster and switch arrays to LEDs. Pretty cool if you have the patience for tedious work.

English maybe? From what I gather from your horribly worded post, you know that both 2nd and 3rd generation LS seats can be adapted to work in a 1st generation chassis. So what exactly is your question?

As said, if you don't buy it, I will. Dead serious. 90k miles on a 3UZ-FE is like 15k miles on any other Japanese import engine.

I just did mine today for the fourth time. I had a faulty ignition switch that was sticking, causing the solenoid to continue to stay engaged. As I mentioned above, you can delete a lot of things to make it easier. The full teardown, removal, reinstall, and assembly took me a total of 43 minutes this time from start to finish. I'll take pictures if there's enough requests, but the two biggest things I did was remove and weld up the entire EGR system, and delete the coolant passages from the rear of the engine. I also took the wiring harness loom out of the plastic 'trays' they sit in and have just wrapped and loomed them with flex loom, though not as heat resistant the rear one removed gives you access to the starter bolts from the top (and I have big hands). I literally unscrewed them by hand once loose. For the coolant passages, if you follow the OE routing there's a nipple on the rearmost driver side of the engine, part of the coolant 'bridge', an aluminum pipe looking piece that crosses between the cylinder heads. This nipple leads to a hose, then to a small hardline, then to a hose again, and into the EGR valve. From there it follows the same hose -> line -> hose around through the idle motor and back down through the throttle body and finally back into the bridge on the passenger side of the engine. This design is completely retarded. The first time I took mine apart all these hoses disintegrated into powder and the clamps all bent out of round when removed. So that first time I just ran a single piece of hose from the rear to the idle motor on each side, bypassing the EGR and throttle body. The second time I fully welded closed the EGR holes on the plenum and capped the two passenger side ports, the nipple on the idle motor and the nipple on the bridge. This eliminated one full length of hose, making it even cleaner and easier. This time, I said hell with the entire thing. I nabbed a front and rear coolant bridge off a junk engine and for the rear one I welded both nipples shut. On the front one I welded the hole closed where the ported vacuum switch resides and drilled/tapped a fitting in front of it. This is now the water inlet for the idle motor, I then welded up the outlet side, since it also receives coolant from the water fill plug in front of the thermostat housing. I also pulled out the two M8 studs that secure the idle motor to the plenum and replaced them with bolts, so now I can remove the entire intake manifold while leaving the idle motor in place and not spill a drop of coolant. With this setup, both intake pieces lift right off without touching any hoses period besides the fuel lines. The starter is then left sitting open from the back side, with only the long coolant pipe going into the heater core to interfere. the EGR pipe is gone and with the wiring moved away there's tons of room to reach behind the block and access the starter bolts. This is all a bit extreme I agree, but as a mechanic I do anything I can to make things easier for me, plus I love the clean look of the engine without all those silly 90 degree hoses every two inches. I actually look forward to pulling the starter next time I've made it so easy.

The first 1UZ timing belt I ever did the crank gear was off one tooth, the check engine light didn't come on until the customer had picked it up and driven it home, about 20 miles. Often times the ECU stores a fault but won't trip the light until it's certain there is a problem. I'd verify the marks and reset the belt anyway since it's probable that's the issue, there's not a lot else you could do during a belt job that would cause erratic operation.

None of those symptoms are ECU related. Have you checked the alternator and charging system, including the plugs on the alternator? Sounds more like that's your culprit. All of those problems can be explained by voltage loss, I'd also look at the battery (under load) to see if a cell is damaged.

Lowering springs alone won't ride worth anything, being a 'project car' owner you should know that. You would need a set of shocks to go with them and you'd want to replace the upper mounts too since they're old and worn. Putting springs on OE shocks is the same effect as just cutting your springs. Coilovers will ride much stiffer than a set of good shocks and springs.

There's a bolt on either side of the link. You have to access the bottom of the fuseblock to get to it.

Think about your question. If the later model roof spoiler fit the early model, wouldn't the manufacturer say so? Anyone selling a product would want to verify any possible applications to further expand the potential market of said product. So, no, the later model doesn't fit properly.

There is no possible way a dealer would touch a timing belt for $475. The belt alone is more than $75. I'd seriously verify what they mean and what they include in that. For that price they may just pull a timing cover off, cut the belt, then draw it out of the engine to show you. I'm nice to my customers and I charge $1000 for a timing belt job using aftermarket parts, you're easily looking at double that minimum at a dealer.

On all LS400s the rear speaker grille/light housing snaps off, from the front edge. It slides in at the rear, so unsnap and lift up like you're opening a hinged lid. For the LS430s I don't recall, but it should be similar if not the same. You may need to pry the cover slightly to get a grip under it.

When I installed IS300 front seats in mine last year I noticed just bolting them to the OE positions set the seat itself back farther. Seems the rails on the LS seats are just set forward more on the tracks than normal. With mine all the way back now I would have trouble driving the car, not a problem on the big, plumpy LS seats.

Standard size is 7/8", 99% of oxygen sensors work with that size fine. Some sensors may feel loose but it's rarely an issue.

Over the years I've eyeballed it initially and then got an alignment done, and have always found that even with the best of measurements you're always going to be off. I wouldn't drive it too long for fear of wearing the tires and other components.

We discussed this just recently. Any remote keyless system is easily wired in to provide door locks, OE security arm/disarm, as well as any other options you may want to add. I buy/install Prestige systems (made by Audiovox) and even their entry level keyless has light flash, horn output, starter disable, an LED, etc. making it nearly a full featured alarm with just a few add-ons. The door lock wires found in the kick panel also do the OE security so it's an easy 5-6 wire hookup for whatever you want to do. I've done hundreds of them on cars for over a decade including my own LS400. The key cylinder isn't bad to replace, since the door handle is damaged it's best to do it all in one as you'll have to pull the handle anyway to remove the cylinder. I deleted the passenger side cylinder on my car completely since it's rarely used, I have the keyless, and the OE driver cylinder can be used for all door lock/unlock anyway. The driver though is a little more involved due to the extra wiring and controls it has.

Rear wall, beside the fuel tank on the driver side.

Start working on the barter system, find someone who needs your expertise and trade out, for me I'm a mechanic so I had a friend who paints and needed my skills, we traded out even. Whatever your skill is, use it as incentive. I had my '92 repainted fully last year (with the addition of 1994 lower mouldings/rockers) as well as welding up the antenna and emblem holes for just the cost of materials. I think total I was out $480 in paint and supplies, I also did all the teardown of the car and prepwork, including masking and cleaning. It's not a *perfect* job, but it looks 100 times better than it ever did, plus it's all one color now instead of that gaudy two tone Lexus seemed to love in the 90s. Painting a car is not a hard job, the problem is for $500 you're going to have a car that's got overspray and tape lines on the lights, moulding, trim, glass, everything. Plus the paint will have debris and trash in it from improper cleaning and sanding. No one is going to teardown and prep the car for that price. If you can find someone willing to paint it after you've stripped it, cleaned it, and provide the supplies, $500 isn't too far a stretch. Just know you've got to be able to get it to them somehow after all those parts are removed.

The crank seal isn't related to the cam/belt issues and it's unlikely it began leaking suddenly, it's probably been on it's way for some time. You're now noticing it more since it's finally given up completely. It's an easy seal to replace while in the front end but you might as well do cam seals too, plus anything else like the timing belt, water pump, etc. If you're not feeling taking it all on, sell it or have someone else do the job for you.