RighteousR

Like the title states. My car is a 328i BMW and I love the performance, the look, and everything, except the cost to maintain.

I hear Lexus/Toyota are the most reliable. I like the 2JZ and UZ engines. I like that the car is a Japanese luxury car with RWD. The fact that it is an automatic really kills some of the fun though. But I think I will go ahead and own a big automatic luxury sedan for a few months. Maybe I will love them?

Here are some questions that come from the top of my mine right now.
-If I get a 2JZ-GE engine car, how much does it cost to FI it? Parts wise, not installation wise because I will do all work my self.
-What are the most popular performance mods to these cars? IE, what are the weak spots that slow these cars down? Gearing? Weight? Exhaust? Poor design somewhere?
-Which models came with HID? What is the most popular retrofit option if you get a non HID model?
-Do these cars have LSD?
-What are some actual 0-60 times for the stock UZ engine.
-Are there any common mechanical flaws with the car that I should check?

A stock Lexus GS400 second gen is a good car in itself. The tint, wheels, lower springs, and an HID retrofit (TSX, S2000, whatever) will give the car its character. And then I would imagine either engine responds well to mods, basic NA mods will make the car sound better and probably a little faster. If FI options are cheap, then I could make a big luxoboat into a straight line killer on the strip or in most cases the highway.

JeffTsai

iTrader: (1)

The 2JZ motor is a little beast. A lot of power can be wrung out of it for not very much money...relatively speaking compared to most other cars. The biggest weak spot will be the transmission. The engine will easily handle about 400-500rwhp in stock form, but the transmission will start to slip at about 350-400whp or so. So far I've spent about 4g's to get my car to the 400hp level. I do all the design, fabrication, and work myself as well. I'm spending about another 4g's or so to get it to the 600-700hp level. Most of that cost is actually to have the transmission racebuilt. Keep in mind this is for the GS300 with the inline 6 2JZ engine. The GS400/430 with the V8 will cost significantly more to even remotely touch these numbers since 100% of everything will have to be custom fabbed. There are no mass produced manifolds for the V8 like there are for the i6.

The most popular NA mods for the V8 would be intake, exhaust, torque converter, headers, LSD rear end. BTW: These cars do not come with LSD, but the rear end from the Supra TT bolts right up. For the i6, you're really not gonna see a big improvement with NA mods. It's more worth your while to turbo the i6. Stock 0-60 times for the GS400/430 is probably gonna be in the 5.5-6 sec range depending on the driver and road/weather conditions.

There are no real mechanical flaws, but there are a few issues with low idle that the GS400 has(probably due to old plugs, dirty sensors, or dirty throttle body). Just do a search to find out more about it and how to solve it. The starter tends to go out on the GS400's every 100-150k miles or so. The GS300 doesn't seem to have any of those problems.

kit cat

iTrader: (6)

I think magazines rated it at 5.8sec 0-60. Keyword "magazine". I kept up with a newer V8 Mustang with some exhaust and blinging 20".