smooth1

metropolis

:) Just make sure you take good before and after shots of the same place on the car so we can compare. Then we'll see how long it lasts.

Oh man....LOL!......I have an Obsidian Black IS 350, and if I "ran" into that scene..............I'd a probly broke down! LOL!! I'm really sorry....But like some of the other posters said, I would ask a pro detailer like, Detaildoc, SW03ES here, and take it into a pro detailer/paint shop and have it fixed.

ok.

I haven't used the Cyclo before. I think I have seen an ad or two about it, but that's all. I think I remember saying to myself for the price of that machine, I could get the machine I see all the pros using and all my chemicals and compounds and some nice towels for about the same money. All I can tell you is that I like the Griots machine. I use it to do my car with and I think it does a great job. Way nicer and easier, and much better results than using one of those $39.95 Auto Zone specials! I've buffed this car 4 times now with it. Once to put on the paint sealant, and once to put a coat of wax on it. Then I just recently broke that down, easy clayed the car, and then paint sealant and a coat of wax on it again. I have the Obsidian Black, and not a single swirl mark on the car.

I agree that "measuring" the change can be performed on a dyno, however, "feeling" the change can be very real. For example, there are a number of "changes" that an experienced race driver can tell his crew chief about throttle response that a Superflow SF-902 or an SF-600 Flowbench CANNOT. "..experienced race driver..." I agree... But how many of those do we have amongst the overall RX ownership populace. 5...?? Sorry, perhaps I used an inappropriate example. My point is that "changes" in throttle response can be "felt" very often by an average driver. There are literally hundreds of posts right here on this site that describes "seat-of-the-pants" (butt dyno) experiences. :D "..literally hundreds of posts...." Yes, and I'm willing to bet good money that the clear majority of those "seat-of-the-pants" judgments of improvements were significant biased due to the fact that the "judge" had already spent a not insignificant amount on the modification. I'd bet that in the majority of those "posts" you could have told the owner that the modification had been done when actually it was not and the owner judgment would have remained the same, POSITIVE. CAI, Cold Air Intake, K&N, simple 10 cent 1/4 watt resistor in the IAT circuit, etc. wwest, Granted, we all want our goodies to perform after spending our money. You said "The only way you'll be able to tell is on a dyno, with and without the mod." I said, no, that's NOT the only way. How many of the modifications that you are proposing have YOU had dyno tested? NONE. But the intention of my mods have NEVER been to increase HP/torque but to increase FE, and I can check THAT with a pencil and pad. On how many modifications have you seen any certified dyno test results? Have you ever experienced a change with one of your modificatons WITHOUT a dyno test? Yes, see above.. Again, my point is simple, I've made modifications to enhance engine performance on a variety of engines, both race and street, "both race and street.." Aha, so you acknowledge that your "butt" meter has been sensitized (calibrated..??) via racing mods.... and was able to "notice" improved (sometimes worse) throttle response and I didn't need a dyno test to experience the change. During flight training, private pilot, the instructor kept on me to pay more attention to keeping the airplane's center of gravity "correct" in a turn, I simply didn't get "it". Then I started taking my wife along on trips. I soon figured out that my "butt" meter need to be calibrated, sensitized, to the center of gravity NOT being "vertical" for my, her, body. As far as... "you could have told the owner that the modification had been done when actually it was not and the owner judgment would have remained the same, POSITIVE." I agree, but a "placebo" has been known to cure a disease. :P Hmmm... Are you implying that a "placebo" engine modification might actually result in a performance improvement...? "I hereby withdraw the question.." You also said "So your idea should work but the HP gain may be only 10-15% and therefore might not be really noticeable." In my experience, a 10 to 15% gain in HP would be VERY noticeable. I agree, but each of us differs in the level of butt sensor sensitivity, and some have even been "trained" to increase that sensitivity. In fact, I've heard some very experienced engine builders state that experiencing (via your butt dyno) a change as little as a two or three numbers in torque in not unusual. On my Toyota truck at 110 HP, a 10% gain would be 121 HP with a similar gain in torque number. This gain would mean the difference between driving down the freeway at 65 MPH in 4th gear max, or being able to cruise down the freeway at 80 in 5th gear If you got that level of gain with a 110HP (MAX HP) toyota engine then the WORLD needs to know. "cruise (as in CRUISE..!!) down the freeway at 80 in 5th gear." For most of us, " 65 MPH in 4th gear max" would imply WOT, actually using the full 110HP, whereas "CRUISE" would imply partial, or even "light" throttle. If you got that level of gain at light/partial throttle, starting out with a 110 max HP engine, then the world needs to know how you did it. Or was something wrong, VERY wrong, with the engine to begin with..?? Ask me how I know. I'm asking, but BOTH questions, how do you know and how in hell did you do THAT..?? If the native 110 HP only got you up to a maximum speed of 65 MPH then you had to be producing upwards of 150HP, at only partial throttle yet (Cruise, remember..??), to get to 80 in 5th gear. Assuming even 1/2 way open for CRUISE, partial throttle, then the maximum HP after your mod might have been upwards of 250HP. That's over a 200% gain, not 10-15%. At the end of the day, 5 pulls on a dyno is WAY more interesting than anything my "butt dyno" can deliver. I take back my thought that you have racing experience, 3 spins around Daytona in a GT3 to calibrate/check my butt dyno is WAY more interesting than standing by and watching a dyno run. A $100 chassis dyno test provides some really interesting data to consider. A $1,000 engine dyno test sheet is even better to review and stare at, especially the numbers! How did you get from a "$100 chassis dyno" to a $1000 engine dyno test sheet. Oh, engine vs chassis. I hereby withdraw the question. Hi wwest, Great questions and excellent commentary. I'll happily do the best I can to answer them. stay tuned..... I still work for a living! Hi wwest, Getting back to your question about increase HP. Here's a what I experienced on my 1985 22R 4 cylinder, 5-speed, stock 96 HP 2.4L engine, carb'd. I installed a Doug Thorely header and opened the stock exhaust tubing, couldn't find the cat to re-install, so that mod was about a 10% increase in HP and torque numbers. This engine was in very good mechanical condition, no blow by, good compression, properly tuned, etc., in fact, for as many miles on it, it ran like raped-ape compared to some others I'd driven with the same engine. With 33" tires, I could only use 4th gear at freeway speeds and was limited to about 65 MPH in 4th gear and about 3200 RPMs, without flooring it and getting into the secondary. 5th was just too tall to pull it down the freeway with stock 4.10 diff gears. This engine has a peak torque at 3400 RPM. I could easily hold 75MPH in 4th at about 4,000 RPM, but that RPM for cruising seemed a tad high for my old engine (about 180K miles then). I had an idea for some time and finally got around to making the modification. I drove the truck to Lake Havasu City and back, about 475 miles round trip. Two weeks later I planned on the same trip. Before I left I took about 30 minutes and made my modification. I simply removed the center bolt in the carb that held the top of the air filter lid on, extended the bolt about 3", extended the breather tube, stacked another identical stock air filter on top, put the lid back on. This in effect, created a gap around the filter canister about 2". I then made the same trip to Havasu and back. This time I was amazed!! I could actually shift into 5th gear, and could maintain 80 MPH at 3200 RPM!! Since I was tracking my gas mileage for every tank, I calculated about a 1.5 to 2.0 MPG increase, from an average of about 19 to an average about 21. If I hadn't experienced it myself, I'm not sure I'd believed the difference it made. What I meant about the "butt dyno" experience is that the real data from an actual dyno test is confirmation of BD feelings. But, I agree that on the track exhileration and adrenalin is awesome!! Here's a photo of my "double-gnarly air filter mod".... R&B, that's a totally different scenario though. In the "old days" of carbs, instead of adding another air filter, you could have simply rejetted the carb, and set it up to run leaner. Sounds to me like the original setting was too rich. In these new ECU controlled cars, any adjustment you do before the MAF/IAT, the car just compensates and adjusts. Whereas the old systems wouldn't really change anything unless you changed it. And everyone knew that factory settings were on the rich side, so, just up the air intake and leave the fuel system alone and you effectivley leaned out the system to gain more power. That's just not how cars work anymore.

I have noticed, the more I use it, the better it gets. Or is it the better I get at using it? Not really sure. I was curious if it takes awhile to learn your voice? Some of the phones I have owned in the past had a learning mode that you would say the same words several times for it to compare it to. I wonder if voice system logs your words and uses them later to get better? I turned off all the voice prompting stuff, so when I hit the button, I just get a beep. I have to say that it mostly gets it right. In fact, other than the first month or so, it has been right on since. I do wish it was more intuitive though. You do have to press a button more times to operate the voice command on some funtions than just changing the function directly. That is annoying. I don't know why you can't just hit the phone button, and say" Call Home" and it just does it.

Disintegrate

If there is a coating, I wouldn't think it would be on the outside of glass. As any "coating would be worn off by the weather, windshield wipers, and sand blasting highway speeds. Not to mention the calcium water deposts that get left behind.

But wouldn't that be when you take the filter out, clean it off with a hose, reoil it, and put it back in? And the other part of the argument is how much air filtration do you need? Isn't there a point at which it doesn't matter any more? I would think if there was some real concern, the automotive industry, namely the car manufacturers themselves, would have some filtration standard somewhere. Yet I have never seen a single mention of it anywhere. So, my question is then, how do you know the stock air filter that is in there now is any good? Did the car manufacturer test the filter life and conclude that it is sufficient? or that in general, all air filters are sufficient?

Welcome to the LOC btw!

If your talking about just changing to a drop in filter by K&N or AEM and such, yeah, that's fine. The initial cost is saved by not having to replace them so in the long run you actually save money. If your talking about a cold air intake system, I wouldn't waste the money on that. Your not gonna feel any improvements there. It may sound nicer and look good, but that's about it for the RX.

I think 720 is the magic number. I didn't finance anything when I bought mine, but I am in the biz and that is a good number. At 760 or higher, your signature is pretty much gold.

I would just call ahead and talk to the Lexus service guy. Tell him you will need a ride along and why so they can schedule that. I had an issue once, and it turned out to be the Sun Pass. One of the suction cup things had come loose and it was banging on the windsheild, and because I have it right behind the rear view mirror, I forget it's there. So the service guy jumps in and we go for a drive so I can let him hear it, as we drove he looked around and tracked it down,( something I can't do while driving.) and fixed it no problem.

Looks good! That color was my other choice. It was like 51% Obsidian Black, and 49% Smokey Granite. You know the F brand parts are out now, so you could have the dealer do the mods if you want. Of course, it won't be cheap, but hey, they are even warrenteeing the after market parts now for a year!

To a point you have to remember this is a forum, I don't have your car in front of me. I can't look over the system, and inspect it for myself, plug in my ODBII scanner and take a look. I only have the info you have provided. But I can say for sure from what you have described above, that your issue is probably the MAF/IAT sensor, and or the 02 sensor.

Welcome to the LOC! For 100K miles, you should be in the 12-15K range in price. More around the 12ish area than not. But I have also noticed that the prices can fluctuate alot by region for some reason. The IS 300 has proven very reliable. No real issues other than the stock CD player is trash. The ride is waaaaaaaaaaay nicer than the WRX, but it's not as quick in stock trim. You can drop a turbo in it and then you'll be faster than the WRX. I can only think of the pros, no cons come to mind.

Hello, Thanks. I did give the intake ducting a cursory once over, nothing obviouse. But didn't focus on it because of the "lean bank 1" descriptor which I interpreted to mean 1 row of cylinders. A leak in in central ducting I would have thought would give lean errors for both banks, 1 & 2. But, I will give it a twice over, spray some starting fluid around any areas of suspicion...see if I get a blip out of the motor. Regards, PK Actually, it refers to the location of the sensor itself. Bank 1 sensor 1 is the exhaust sensor in the header after the cylinders. And it is just reading a lean condition. Which could be from a bad MAF, blocked air induction or PCV piping. It could mean a fuel pressure issue, or engine coolant temp sensor is bad, or a heated 02 sensor that went bad.

You actually have two problems here. The first one is the idle issue. You either have some bad vacuume hoses, either leaking or not connected, or the Electronic Throttle Control System (ETCS) which controls the engine idling speed. The ETCS operates the idle control valve, and adjusts the intake air amount to obtain the targeted or programmed idling speed which is controlled by the ECU. It also retards the ignition timing and the ETCS opens the intake air to help warm the catalists during cold start ups. Which is why the car is idling too high when you connect the MAF. And the second problem you now have is the disconnected MAF, which also contains the IAT sensor. Intake Air thermostat. Which tells the car what the temp of the intake air is. With out the IAT, and MAF, the car is put into a type of protection mode and has retarded the timing and running rich as the temp sensor is in a default mode. You will have to reconnect the MAF and fix the thottle issue seperately.

I really think that either the MAF and IAT were reinstalled incorrectly, or are not working and need to be replaced.

Beagle

Yeah, I would think the USB would need to be connected to a hard drive system. And the IS doesn't have one. Unless you put one in.