landar

Its something to look at but may not be the main issue. I would check your charging system and evaluate the age of your battery as first steps. Cold weather, such as we are having all over the country, puts more stress on those components.

Let's see. You slammed your LS out of all factory specs which would necessarily mess up the leveling of the headlights and you now want to know how to get it back to original? I am not even sure the original design allows for enough adjustment without customization. You will just have to experiment. You might start by dealing with the sensor linkage down in the wheel well.

Hmmmm...losing PS fluid. Now where have I heard this before? Oh yeah. It drips from the pump into the alternator and causes electrical problems, maybe even CEL and CHECK VSC lights on.

So, essentially, you 'done' it to yourself. I do not share your level of enthusiasm for slamming an LS but to each their own. Let me ask you a question: What prevents this wiring issue from happening all over again?

That's good news, Greg. How did the wires get cut in the first place?

Ed, sorry to hear that you are having problems and welcome to the forum. I would start by pulling one of the valve covers and having a look. If it is all sludged up, you should easily see evidence. The valve cover removal is not the easiest job in the world but not too bad...maybe an hour of so. Once you have looked inside, you will have a better idea of what to do next. Unfortunately, just like clogged arteries, there are no 'magic' solutions. Prevention is the key.

I see that pin 13A(MREL) energizes the EFI relay and that is controlled by the ECM. So, what signal is missing such that the ECM is unhappy? Thats the question. I see on page 68, look at item (9). It says that constant voltage is supplied to terminal batt of the engine control module. When the ignition switch is turned to 'on', the EFI relay is to pull in and supply additional power to the ECM. It makes sense that the ECM would need some primary power to run the relay to give it more direct power. So, it would seem like a good idea to track down the ignition switch power to the ECM and make sure that the "constant voltage" is there on the terminal "batt".

That's really good news, Paul. At least you know it will 'come alive'. Very encouraging. I found an electrical diagram on a 93 which is probably about the same as the 94. It looks to me that the EFI main relay (to which I believe you are referring) and powers the Fuel Pump ECU and Engine ECU, gets initial relay coil power or signal from the stop light switch. If I am reading that correctly, that would mean that you have to be stepping on the brake pedal to get the relay to operate. Wondering if the stop light switch is bad or wires chewed or ? Do the brakes lights come on when you step on the pedal? Here is the link -> http://www.yotatech.com/f161/1993-ls400-1uz-fe-wiring-diagram-227080/

You were hoping I would chime in? Am I that infamous now? ^_^ I guess the seller was fibbing when they said it only ran on half the cylinders, huh? Go figure. The really good news is that you have a 'donor' car that you can use to test various areas. I do not have schematics or I would give you some detailed ideas of where to check. And I do not like the sounds of potentially chewed wires. That would be my main focus at this point. If a furry creature did chew on some wiring, it would need to be fixed of course. You can examine your 93 in that area and make comparisons. As for the ECU power, I do not see a problem with energizing the relay to supply power to the ECU. But I would want to track down the supply for pin 1. Is it the ignition switch? Although I have not heard of ignition switches being a particular problem on the LS, they do wear out from use so it could very well be bad. I would probably jumper pin 1 to +12v and see if the relay will pull in. Then try to start. Pin 1 would, I assume, be the coil of the relay so I would also ohm that out before applying the voltage. Maybe it is shorted and took out a fuse? I highly doubt it but you never know.

I read thru your lengthy post and might have missed it but have a few questions: 1) Does the engine run, if only on half the cylinders...or not at all? 2) You say you put in a new coil and no spark. Did you check for spark at the coil or at a plug? Did you check the rotor and distributor. I don't know how many times I have heard of the rotor being busted. They do get brittle.

Well, Steve, you did not address my question on the exact light but I will guess it is the VSC OFF light. I have heard of the battery or alternator getting weak and causing issues with VSC but I believe it was the CHECK VSC. If it were my car, I would want to experiment a bit and see if I could nail the timing(the 30 second one) down and if it was very repeatable. Next, I would not actually put it in gear but merely press on the brake pedal before the 30 seconds were over to see if it is an extra electrical load causing it.

So, its the "VSC OFF" light, not the "CHECK VSC" light? If its the VSC OFF light(as mentioned in the thread title), that means some VSC self-check failed and the VSC should not work when the light is on. Do you have any snow in NC and a parking lot to try safely sliding to see if the VSC is working or not?

This is before or after you put it into gear?

Does the VSC light go off if you disable the VSC with the button?

what the heck? That looks like the whole wiring harness got yanked on or chewed. Not good. Did squirrels get in that thing? "you had removed the inner fender liners when you lowered your car" I try to address these issues thinking(hoping) that the car is pretty much virgin only to find out there is more going on (modifications) and I only have a partial picture...<sigh>

Well the dome light and ABS are controlled by computers so it could still be caps making the thing spazz out.

wait...you have an aftermarket air ride controller? hmmm. Someone was into the wiring, huh? If you pick one outlet, say the cig. lighter, and track down why that one item does not work, you may get to the source of the problem. I was thinking maybe you could plug a 12v light into the cig. outlet and then start moving various wiring/connectors/grounds/fuses to see if the light might flicker.

Since your ABS is activating even with the key off, 'something' thinks the wheels are not in sync. In other words, the ABS controller (wherever that is) is either not working correctly or has a sensor malfunction. With the key off, the controller should not even try to activate the ABS module, yet it is. I think I would locate that module and pull the connector just to see what happens. Of course the ABS will be disabled but you might try to start it and see how it behaves. Maybe the main engine ECU will not see the ABS module and refuse to start. I really don't know but it could yield some clues. You have to experiment a bit to gather clues which will eventually point to the root cause.

I do not know where I came up with bulb 149 (should have been 159). Anyway, if it were mine, I would take the old bulb into a store and try to match it based upon socket configuration and forget the number for now. You might also consider replacing with an LED bulb.

Greg, you have to be very careful how you approach these kinds of problems. I can tell from your comment "no codes as predicted" that you have your mind made up on certain approaches. And that is a 'dangerous' mindset to have when trying to troubleshoot to the root cause level. I do not know how many guys I have known throughout the years who have said "I tried EVERYTHING but I am still stumped". Well, in fact, they did not try everything and the things tried were done with preconceived notions as to what was wrong. The root cause almost always turned out to be something they had 'tried' but dismissed because they were sure that was not the problem. Usually, issues are something simple, though not always. But most times they are. So, if you are ready to have at it again, we can probably mention some areas to look at... maybe for the second time. You have the service manual which is nice. I would suggest that you look at a simple circuit such as the cig. lighter and determine why that is intermittent. You may have to instrument some points along the chain to the battery but it is do-able. I have experienced fuses that look good and even work most of the time but the connection inside is intermittent. A real puzzler until you realize what it going on. So, I encourage you to keep an open mind and approach every connection, fuse, circuit with a suspicious eye until proven, without a doubt to be working properly.

Does the side marker bulb look like this(149)? -> http://www.elightbulbs.com/GE-15731-149-Miniature-Automotive-Light-Bulb&source=GoogleBaseCSE?gclid=CI-wtP63kLwCFexFMgodJ0sAgw Or does it look like this(194)? -> http://www.elightbulbs.com/Eiko-40427-194-Miniature-Automotive-Light-Bulb&source=GoogleBaseCSE?gclid=CIOm-7i4kLwCFepDMgodYWgAAQ Being that the bulb numbers in question are 149 and 194, I am thinking someone, along the line of documentation, got dyslexic and swapped the 9 and 4. Or is it "dyslexus"? :whistles:

Again, I will say that I would recommend hooking up an OBDII scan tool to see how the ECU behaves and if there are any codes. It might be trying to 'talk' to you. Have you tried clipping a jumper wire onto the neg. terminal of the battery and connecting that directly to the chassis? That would ensure a good connection directly from the source to the rest of the system (if only temporarily) and might give some clues.

Mysterious electrical issues, huh? Sure does sound like an intermittent connection yet you have done a fairly thorough job of checking battery and grounds. Have you tried hooking up an OBDII scanner to see if there are any codes? But more importantly, try to determine how well the ECU is communicating with the scanner. Is it rock-solid or having trouble reliably talking back and forth? I am really wondering if the capacitors in your ECU or other computer systems are going bad. It could still be a bad connection somewhere but give it some thought. Here is a link that might be of interest. It does not mimic your cars strange behavior exactly so maybe it is not the issue. Still, I feel it may warrant more investigation until ruled out. -> http://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls400/656360-all-my-crazy-lexus-issues-solved-ecu-leaking-capacitor.html

http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/lighting/lightinginfo.html

Welcome Donna . This is going to be a tough one as it is hard to troubleshoot roughness over the internet. Things that you might try to explain to us is your definition of a "rough" ride. Is it a vibration at a certain speed or just feeling bumps in the road in general? While it could be quite a few things, I would not think, at 35k, that something is worn out. However, hitting a large hole or curb could put stress on a component and cause early failure so it is possible. I guess the obvious question is whether you had the dealer look at it for this roughness while they were replacing the brakes? Maybe you swapped it in on the 2013. ;)