smooth1

anything you pick won't make an IS 300 sound like a Honda Civic. the I6 is sooo much meaner sounding. HKS Dragger II, Tenabe is nice, but still relatively quiet, Yo, any exhaust will work if you just want it louder.

The super streets are way stiff. even though their adjustable, when you drive over thick painted lines on the road, it's jarring stiff. I wasn't happy with that. Great for the track though. And the Flex's are nice and better behaved on the street, but if your gonna go that route, then the CS is soooooo nice. The car rides quieter than stock on heavy textured roads. It handles the big bumps way better as the coilovers have a faster reaction time, so the car rumbles over the rough stuff, and then settles right away. And in heavy cornering, man, soooooooooooooooooooo much better than stock. I don't feel the car float in the corners at all!! You can feel the traction in the steering wheel. You know exactly how hard you can push it. And there is almost no body roll at all. And if your really into it, the CS is edfc compatable also. But unless your setting it up for specific tracks, and need to adjust for them, I think once you get the set up the way you want for the street, you won't be adjusting them anymore. So, I don't know, seemed like alot of money for very little real world use. I have mine set, and I don't think I will need to be messing with them anymore. I guess one of the things that drew me to the IS 300 is the way it handles and rides. I mean the Impreza WRX is sporty and aggresive, and so is the Mitsu Evo, but I hate the way they ride!!!! So I made sure that in improving the handling and aggresiveness, I also maintained the sophisticated class ride the IS 300 is. And I felt the CS coilovers do thier jobs very well. I have to say I'm very happy with them.

Sounds like a torque converter issue. Your stator may be starting to seize up. That's gonna kill your gas mileage, and make the car feel real heavy at take offs. I would take it to Cottman transmissions. ( they are one of the few chain places that I know of that actually opens up trannys and torque converters and makes repairs as opposed to just replacing everything. But if you know of another place, then by all means.

through

Yo Jibby, I hear every word you said bro. The issue right now is my tranny. I gotta get that taken care of. The tq converter just laughs at me when I open the throttle more than 1/4 until I get to 3rd. gear. Then I can start really gettin on it. I'm losing 100 hp just in the tq converter. I've been calling around and I think I'm gonna take it to Cottman transmissions and see what they have to say. The guy there atleast knew what he was talking about. If I just upgrade the valve body, throw in some Sprags, boost the pressure, and a new tq converter, I was thinking the Dragon or getting a new billet tqc, set it up for 3500 stall speed. Should be good to go then yeah?

Forward

Yeah, well, then you could do an badge mod. LOL!!! just put a 300 badge on and take the 400 off. I have to tell you though,,,Man it sure did feel good woopin up on a BMW M3. I mean just plain toying with em!!!

imagination

Ok, I'm gonna get in to trouble if I keep this up, but I killed a BMW M3. It was a wide open race too. No cars in the way, no having to slow down except when we came to the light together. He had his M3 lookin all nice too. Drift rims, custom tint, exhaust system, and it looked like he had some lip extensions, and it was a 03-05. When I looked in my rearview mirror I noticed the headlight shape. ( LOL!!) Anyway, I'm rolling along and he turned on to the road and came up next to me. I looked over and saw what it was. At first I thought it was a 3 series, but then I noticed the side vents. Then the road ahead seemed to just stretch forever and my heart dropped into my gut as the light turned yellow, and then red just as we pulled up. I have to say I was nervous. This in my opinion would be the first real test of the turbo. So I give it a quick rev, and then he gave his a few revs. I knew we were on then. So, I'm trying to look at the light for the cross traffic so I can see when the light is going to turn, I rev it up a little, but careful not to rev it too high, ( I'm still running a stock tranny and tq converter.) The light didn't seem to change, it jumped, and then I hear him break the tires loose and I see him pull out on me about a car length. I'm praying the tranny will hold as the turbo kicks in and the car switches to second gear. Now we're moving together, he's not pulling away, and I'm not either, then I feel the car shift to third, and the power of the turbo can now be put on the ground as the tq converter locks up, and then I just pull away from him like he was suddenly dragging a huge wieght behind him. Then it shifts to 4th gear and all 450 ponies are galloping now, I look down and I'm doin about 130 and the needle is be magnetically drawn to the 155 print. I still have fifth, so I look in my rearveiw mirror and I was releived and pleasantly stunned. He was about 100 feet behind me. So I'm looking ahead and we are coming up to where there are intersections again, so I back out of it and slow down. He catches up and as we come to the intersection the light is red, there are no cars around, and I'm thinkin round 2. The light turns green, and we do it again, and as soon as I hit third gear, it's "SEE YA!!" . My turn is coming up and we were now coming into town where traffic is, so as we pull up to the next light, I'm in the inside lane about 2 cars back and he was in the outside lane 1 car back. I saw him looking in the sideview mirror at me and the car, and as the light turned green and I pulled by him he cracked his window and gave me a nod. I nodded and smiled back, gave him a quick peace out and made my turn. BMW M3, off the hit list.

Heres a few I've seen in the past:

LOL!! am I pronouncing that right?

Well, in order to point you in the right direction, I think you would need to first sit down and deterine what your goals are. For example, if your only interested in stock hp and stock performance, then I would simple look for a used motor and just drop it in as a full replacement. You have 83k on it now. You could find motors with fewer miles quite readily. And cheap too. I think I saw one on Ebay, engine with tranny and ecu for 2 grand out of a 2003 IS300 with 55k miles on it. But if your looking for more, get a new 2JZGE block. Iv'e seen them for 750 ish dollars. Install forged everything. take the heads off the old motor, port and polish, and tranfer those to the new motor. And all the other goodies, while replacing anything along the way that might not in great shape. Drop it in and your ready for turbo with a tranny upgrade. If you want alot more, then get the 2JZGTE block, Iv'e seen those for around 2200. And build from there. But then you will need a new tranny and drive shaft to go with it. And if you want to be crazy, drop in th 1UFZ V8 motor!!!! why not??? It won't cost you much more. You'll have to do some custom work, but it's been done already. And of course there are alot of in between routes you can go also. How much do you wanna spend?? How much hp are you looking for? And as for the knowledge thing. Depending on how much time you have, you can find all the answers along the way. Whats gonna kill you are the tools if you don't have them. The amount of money your gonna spend on tools is about what you would pay a good mechanic to do it for you. Especially on a big job like this. And you'll need the garage and atleast a few months to work on it. As you have to go to work and do all the honey do list stuff along the way, order parts and wait, etc. etc. But I have alot of fun with that part. You may think that as well.

weirdos

strategy

Master plan

If you go thru Ebay, go to the car parts.com store and they have the same KYB shocks for 64 bucks each. Just go to ebay and look up by your car model. the search engine should find them for you.

You can try a reset. Take the negative cable off the battery for about 20 mins. Then reconnect it. That clears the ecu. But I don't think that would do it. It's not a DTC code. It doesn't throw up a cell like from a sensor on the catalytic converter. It's a diagnostic routine everytime the car is started. So before you replaced the seat belt, you didn't have an issue with the light. You replaced the seatbelt and now the light is blinking? If that is so, then there is something wrong with the seat belt sensor, or connection. That's all it could be.

Well, yes and no. Your fiances Ford uses a pneumatic shock to dampen a full coil spring suspension. ( If you look at them, you'll see a huge coil with a shock that is attached inside the spring to the axle and frame. Your GS uses a nitrogen charged fluid hydrolic coilover design. Much more complex design and significantly better control and ride. That's why your Lexus doesn't ride like a Ford. And those $30 shocks for the Ford are not even worth the time and energy to put on. Even Fords and such, if you want any ride quality at all, your gonna spend in the $60 and up range per shock.

2200???? For just diagnostics?? Then I would crack open a phone book, sit down with the phone and start calling around to repair shops, like authorized body collision shops and see if you can get a better price that way. Maybe call your insurance company and see who they recommend. That way you can tell them your ins. is sending you to them, but the money for the repair is coming out of your pocket. Alot of times they will work with you on the pricing and such.

Yeah man, slow down. Air bags are not something you can just drop in unless you know what your doing. I would at this point, take it in to the dealer. Have them hook up the ODB II and make sure the crush sensors are cleared. And that there isn't any message in the sytem that is still telling the car to deploy the airbags so fourth, and to make sure the trigger sensors are working properly. Then, once it's clear, you can hook up the airbags. The airbag system works together with the antilock brakes, seatbelts, and sensors placed around the car. You might want to make sure they are all working right before you go any further.

Yeah man, way to represent!!!!! Mustangs are fast, no question. They really have the gearing worked out. So that really says alot about your car. Nice bro. Nice. I have yet to confront one, but I'm sure it will come. I need to get the tranny squared away first though. Yeah, what's up with that??? I know he had a CAI, and exhaust system on it atleast. But I don't know that I even needed the turbo for that. I think stock, I could have taken him. ( But I have to say that to CRUSH his hopes was nice.) :D He literally just gave up after a few hundred feet. LOL!!! Yeah, it's ok to laugh guys. I have to laugh at myself for that one. (Damn I thought the world ended.)LOL!!!! Sittin across the street from a gas station, and not even knowing your out of gas, spending 3 hours to figure it out. Damn.........STUPID MAN!!!!! ( Repeatedly banging head on wall here.) LMAO!!!!!

I killed an S2000 this morning. He pulled up on me as I was working may way thru some slower traffic. When we broke out, he pulled next me, I heard the BWAAAAAAAAA and the I saw his head lights rise up. But that race lasted for less than 500 feet!! I just went half throttle at low boost and pulled out 6 or 7 car lengths and he just gave up. I actually had to put my foot on the brake to let him catch back up again to see if he wanted anymore. LOL,,,, he didn't .

ok, well, I have somewhat of an embarrasing but funny story tell. Let me preface it with, man how the little things can get ya!!! First, I started having some spark issues. I have been playing with the gaps on the plugs and if you know what you have to go thru to access the plugs and change them, then you know how much work it can be. So, anyway, I was still getting some blow out, and fouling so I opened it up and went from .32 to .24 gap, and figured I just try .18 gapping. Put it all back together and the car ran fine. ( On a side note, I am having an issue with the idle return so I'm still figuring that out.) But the car seemed to run very smooth now. So off I went and jumped on the toll way and cruised in vacuume to check out the engine cruising operation. So open it up about 1/2 way to just bump it up to boost, and the car started to accelerate, when suddennly the car lost power and started to sputter and bogg down. I took my foot off the accelerator, and the car ran fine, put my foot back in it, and bogg. So I rolled it down the next off ramp, and came to the light. The car was idling just fine, but when the light turned green, and I put my foot on the gas the car would sputter and bogg, and then it just died. So I coasted to the side of the road right across the street from a Racetrac gas station. I have no tools with me, it's 2 pm, so all my freinds are at work, I'm miles from home, and the shop is to far to walk to. This really sucks!!!! So, I pop the hood, and take a look, and hope maybe on of the hoses just came undone from the turbo, nope all looks great. So I check the top of the motor and make sure the plugs are in and connected, everything is good there also. As I'm checking, a freind of mine rolls up behind me and says " I thought I recognized the car, is everything ok?" I tell him what happened, he offers to give me a lift to the house to get my tools and stuff, and then bring me back. So we get back and I check the AEM over, all the electrical, then I go over the intake and turbo, everything is good. Then I open the intake up spray some carb cleaner in there and try to start it, and the car wants to start. *!!!! Ah hah!!! the fuel pump? So I take the back seat out, and pull the fuel pump cover out, with the ignition, test it a few times, Hmm, seems to be working ok, so I take it out, and there was the problem. I was out of gas!!!!!!! LOL!!! The gauge still read a 1/4 tank, so I had no way of knowing, but I was just out of gas. When I installed the new fuel pump, I must have bumped the float and sensor arm out of it's proper setting without realizing it. So, I fixed the it and put it back to the correct setting, went to the gas station, put fuel in, and the car started right up. 3 frickin hours !!!!!! and I was just out of gas. I felt soooooo stupid!!! Man. During a time like that everything is running thru your head, every connection every possibilty, frustration and anxiety. And then,,,,,,,,,it very gratefully mind you, turned out to be a false reading gas gauge.

marter

Who did the airbag replacement? Only the 2 airbags went off? Has the car itself been repaired?( I mean the damage from the accident.) Sometimes when the body shop fixes the damage, they don't replace the sensors or reset the crush sensors in that area of the car. As it sounds like the airbags were fixed seperately? so they wouldn't have been able to check them. So, you'll probably have to take it in and find out if the sensors are good or need to be replaced.