squarehat

Once you get the knack of it, you can change bulbs in under 30 seconds/side. I installed a new pair of Silverstars on my '96 last week (one burned out, and the other wasn't as white--my original pair was from from 2 years ago when they first came out and weren't sold as color matched pairs--I remember spending 20 minutes trying to match bulbs in the store). Unsnap the harness, figure out which way to do the 1/4 turn, and repeat in reverse--done :) I did this by handling them from the base at all times, and I was wearing clean medical gloves just in case I got careless and touched the glass. Good luck. Once you figure out the trick, it's literally a less than 60 second job :)

There's a company called Leatherique (Leatherique.com) that can custom tint dyes if you provide them with a small piece of your leather (there's usually a little extra that could be taken from behind the rear backrest).

Is the exterior a gray with a hint of purple? The interior of those had a purplish gray upholstery that Lexus called taupe.

Without pulling the unit, the Nak would have a Nakamichi logo, and the Pioneer has the model number written on the cassette door, and that number starts with the code "P" for Pioneer. The Naks also have a pure digital connection (not sure whether the ES uses fiber optic or copper cable) between the headunit and the glovebox CD changer.

gbhrps beat me to it, I was going to warn people that the '97s up have a secondary pyrotechnic pretensioner system in addition to the standard inertia lock. I'm not sure what year this was added...I'm guessing it was added during the 1997 redesign (I recall a magazine ad for the '97 ES back in the day with the tagline "You Never Know What You're Going to Run into Today" that touted all of the new safety features added to the '97s.

The only ES's with radio codes are the 92-93's (and reportedly some '94s with very early build dates in summer '93). After that, Lexus figured the odd trapezoidal shape of the radio was enough of a theft deterrent in itself...e.g. it's pretty darn tough to fit an ES radio into a Ford Escort.

The needles are bunch of tiny LEDs run end to end, and from what I've read, the cluster if turned up too high, supplies too much voltage to the LEDs, which causes them to become fused shut over time (and no longer illuminate). There seems to be several fixes to this--painting the needles with glowing paint (see the sticky on top of the LS forum), sending the cluster out for repair (ballpark of $300) or the new cluster. Of the three, I would recommend sending out for repair if you can live without driving the car for a few days. A salvage cluster may conk out on you a few thousand miles after installing it, not to mention the mileage issues.

If you want upgraded halogens, go with Sylvania Silverstars (or PIAA Xtreme White). I had a set of "blue bulbs" like that for one day in my old 3-Series. The dark blue coating really robs you of usable light by filtering out the red/yellow light coming from the filament. The 10 extra watts those have 65W vs. 55W for normal 9006, won't produce enough extra light to compensate for the filtered out colors. I drove on some back roads the night I put them in, and noticed my visibility had been drastically decreased. Look around for the SilverStars, Sylvania used to run rebates on them all the time. They're also fairly easy to find (I hear Wal-Mart carries them).

Yep, that was the "center point" I was referring to--it has to be painstakingly set by hand with the bubble levels/thumbscrews just like the housings in a non-levelling halogen headlamp. Definitely not an on the fly adjustment :D Interestingly, the only Toyota product I've seen with manual power leveling HID lamps is the new Sienna XLE minivan. I do remember looking at 00-01 Infiniti Q45s on eBay and seeing the headlamp leveling switch.

I believe the "air intake" the magazine was referring to was actually the air dam/lower grille insert, which was changed to accomodate the new rectangular foglamps of the 95.

Sensors in the suspension detect how the nose of the car is pitching, and sends the data to a control unit, which controls motors that move the lower half of the hinged reflector bowl (raising and lower the beam cutoff). It auto-levels with respect to constantly returning the cutoff to a pre-set "center point." Some people have complained that the center point seems too low, but I'd caution against raising it too high for the reasons you mention yourself. I believe they were selling a manual override control unit for the levelling over on IS300.net. You'd have to make sure that the ES and IS use the same control unit, and that the device would work on an ES.

sk., am I reading it correctly that you park your car in neutral on level ground and use the parking brake to hold the car instead of the transmission?

I never used my handbrake when parking on a level surface until I read on here that leaving the e-brake on until after shifting into "R" will reduce the "clunk" one hears/feels when going from park into reverse. Now I leave it on until after I've shifting into reverse (or drive if pulling straight out), and set it before I place the car back into park. I can't seem to find the thread (I remember steviej contributing the above suggestions). Perhaps it was during the time period that was lost in the archives.

What about that AEM intake mentioned a couple of weeks ago? Is that a "true" cold air intake? The +10HP/11TQ at the wheels has got me interested. My only concern is that the stock exhaust would be too restrictive to realize those gains, and I'm not planning to do any exhaust mods.

Have you checked your transmission fluid dipstick? On my old Camry, the dealership forgot to fully re-fill the reservoir after a flush, and the car wasn't shifting until about 5,000 RPM. I took it back in, and they were like "oops, we forgot to refill the fluid all the way"

I know I've seen 00-01s on eBay with the ASL button on the head unit, not sure whether it's found on both types of system (Pioneer and Nakamichi).

VVT-i was added in 1999 (taking it to 210 HP) . The '04 models are the first with the 3.3 (I think it's designated 3MZ-FE; 2MZ-FE is a smaller V6 not found in any US-market models). I'm not sure what changed from '96 to '97, but I'm pretty sure it went from 188 to 200 HP, and that some parts are not directly interchangeable.

$1800 for the Nak--wow :o I know the Nak changer is all digital and uses a fiber-optic link to the head unit, but that seems steep--same with $1000 for the Pioneer. Look around- you should be able to find a rebuilt unit with a decent warranty for around half that.

Interesting that it lists the 94-95, what about the (seemingly identical) 96? I know on a lot of cars the 94-95s were OBD I and the 96s OBD II, but the ES has used OBD II since '94. +10HP/11TQ at the wheels sounds nice, but I'm guessing, as with any intake, those gains are only at very high RPMs (probably around 5200, not your normal driving around town range), and I wonder about those kinds of gains at the wheels given the restrictive nature of the stock headers/exhaust. skperformance or JPI, any thoughts? You guys seem to be the 1MZ-FE experts around here

Thanks, I had the feeling that like previous special edition ES's ('96,'99,'01 Coach and '00 Platinum), the wheels would be the same size as stock. Also, like SW mentioned, previous SportDesign models have used the same size wheels (02-03 GS and 03-04 IS SportDesigns both use the same size wheels as their non-SportDesign counterparts).

Are the special wheels going to be 16", or will they be upgraded to 17"? I'm looking for a new set of 17" wheels for the summer, and it would be nice to have an OEM choice. (sorry, I don't get Lexus magazine in the mail, and I couldn't find it in the online edition, which is still an older issue).

Yep, I had to have the cam cover seals replaced on my '96 about a month ago at 98,000 miles. I didn't have a burning oil smell, but I did watch the puddle on my garage floor grow each day.

That's exactly what it sounded like. :) And it was definitely from an area of the engine bay with a lot of A/C components.

Yes, the climate control was in "Auto" with the front defogger on, so the A/C compressor must have been running at least part of the trip. I'm guessing what I heard were the normal sounds from the A/C system after the car shuts off. :)

Auto-levelling won't work, because it requires a control unit, and sensors on the four shocks to tell how the car is pitched. For the harness, you'll need a harness that lets you connect the power inputs to the ballast to the battery, then a relay to your headlamp switch (via the factory H7 connectors). You may be able to purchase one from autolamps-online.com; if not, the people at hidforum.com could probably point you in the right direction. The price for the housings sounds good. Besides the housings and the harness, you'll need a pair of D2R bulbs (OEM are 4100-4300K Osram or Philips) and a pair of ballasts (Philips, Hella, or Panasonic). This is definitely as close to a DOT-approved retrofit as you can get (auto-leveling is not mandatory in the US, reference my Acura example, as well as the Sylvania Xenarc retrofit housings for Ford and Chevy full-size pickups/SUVs, which are fully street legal while not-self leveling). Finally, the bubble level is to help aim the headlamps when the car is parked on level ground. There are horizontal/vertical adjustment screws (should be in the manual). As long as the headlamps are aimed correctly, the lack of autolevelling shouldn't be a problem unless you're carrying 500 pounds of cement in your trunk, pitching the nose of the car way up :D )