Hiro

Well, directly above where the drips appear is always a good start..... Generally leaks will come from worn seals or hoses, so basically just run over the whole power steering system with your fingers and feel for damp spots. Is the fluid reservoir directly on top of the pump or remote-mounted? If it's remote-mounted then there's more hose to check (and more places for the leak to occur)

I'd be guessing T40 or W40, what engine does it have?

Iridiums are much more worthwhile for FWD V6 engines where spark-plug changes on the rear bank are a hassle....

How loose is the belt? May just need to be tightened up a little

2.25", but no supercharger unfortunately :P

I've got an Ultraflow behind a single hotdog in the AE102 and it's not excessively loud....

I see your daisy chain and raise you a Lemon Party.

Rev-cut could do it too, depending on the power/torque curve, which could be either timing, ignition or fuel cut.

Umm, isn't the 3 MPS limited in first and second gear to only give 170kw, but 3-6 is full boost/power? If your question is a quizicle answer, then just correct me and say so. I'm only going off what the owner's of the 2 MPS3s I've been in have told me. It is possible 1st and 2nd are throttled to such a boost level, and then 3rd and 4th less so until 5th and 6th have full boost. That's all very rudimentary anyhow, as 1st and 2nd gears get you to over 100kph in an MPS3 anyhow, by which time the race is more than half over... There are other things about the MPS3 than in-gear EBC that bothers me. Gav. I know there is a torque-limiting device in first and second only (read in multiple reviews), not sure if that is tied to the boost limiter or not.

Umm, isn't the 3 MPS limited in first and second gear to only give 170kw, but 3-6 is full boost/power?

To me, Altezzas are the following: "Hey look at me, I've taken the tail-light style of a car which didn't exactly gel in the first place and applied it to my car, with a liberal dose of even-worse, just to make it complete" I hate "altezza-style" tail-lights, even these days I look at the rear end of an IS200 and shake my head, not because it looks bad (I don't think it looks great either) but because of what it has spawned. To me, the only clear tail-lights that look semi decent are first-gen Mazda 2 and Mazda 6 lights (from the factory too not aftermarket)

Oh without a doubt Lexus should still count. Ironically, the Lexus logo is the little icon which comes up in the address bar when I type in au.toyotaownersclub.com and the auto-complete does the rest.

Having read some of the Lemon guides out there, I'd still take it with a grain of salt. Some things they seem to be right on the money, other things they are completely off on, either biased/ill-informed or poorly researched. There'll be a reason why they haven't been fitted in Australian models, and I'd concentrate on improving active safety (tyres, brakes etc, things that prevent accidents) before worrying about passive safety (seatbelts, airbags etc, things that lessen accident damage/injury)

I'd like 30 seconds of my life back, please. Actually, since I watched it at work, those 30 seconds earned me 17 cents.....

Been playing GTA: San Andreas too much I think... As to what I think about the whole situation, this sums it up perfectly

Mechanic Kittah on lunch break?

There is a STUPID QUESTIONS thread though.....

Almost all cars go very rich on a stock tune up to, it's a safety thing - extra fuel cools the combustion chamber. Leaning out the tune a bit up top can provide more power, however. And aftermarket exhausts/intakes tend to make AFRs worse, when I got my 7A dyno'ed pre-exhaust/intake it had very smooth AFRs, with exhaust and intake the power figures were much better but AFRs much rougher (and that is still keeping all the stock sensors etc)

Looks like one of those pull-back toy cars with those wheels, lowered soooo much rubber

Not any more though. Ever since 2005 Lexus has been sold in the Japanese market, which means there is no longer any need for a Toyota-branded equivalent. Lexus models were never based off Toyota models anyway (apart from platform sharing, engines etc), the Toyota model was just the home-market equivalent (and never sold outside of Japan, just as Lexus was never sold in Japan until '05). All Toyota-rebadged equivalents were discontinued at the end of the model cycle after the Lexus marque went local in '05. The only Toyota model with a Lexus clone that existed before Lexus was created was the Soarer (Camry for the ES doesn't count, as the ES was standalone based off the Vista and then rebadged as a Windom) - the Celsior, Harrier, Altezza, Windom were all co-developed with their Lexus counterpart. The other exceptions to this rule of late has been the LX/Landcruiser and GX/Prado (not sold here), but these are much newer than the creation of the Lexus brand and are significantly more upmarket then their Toyota equivalent.

Say that to the 355 Challenge :P and the 550 GT

The front part is a sealed strut, so it completely replaces your stock strut (you'll need springs though obviously), this is standard practice for MacPherson-strut cars.

Originally, overdrive was an extra transfer case bolted onto the back of the gearbox, which would be selected separate to the rest of the gears (this was on both manual and automatics). Thus, the normal gearbox was still a "3-speed", but there was an extra overdrive gear added onto the rear. Over time, the overdrive unit got integrated into the transmission and the overdrive became just a normal gear. The reason why it's called overdrive is because it is a gear ratio less than 1:1 - ie the output drives faster than the input, hence "overdrive". In most 5-speed manuals and 4-speed autos, top gear is overdrive and the next one down is close to 1:1 (but not always, sometimes that second one is also less than 1:1). In more modern 6-speed manuals/autos etc, there may be more than one gear which is technically overdrive. The reason for the lockout button is so that the automatic transmission can be locked out of top gear to prevent it shifting in to too high a gear before the car is warmed up (or when towing). It is recommended to leave overdrive turned off when towing or climbing hills, to stop the tranny from "hunting" backwards and forwards between top and second-top gear, which puts a lot of stress on the transmission - better to force it to stay in a lower gear (same reason why there are the L/2 lockout shift positions too, for really low-speed stuff). In a manual it is not needed because you manually select all the gears yourself anyway. As for why it's a button and not just another notch in the gate will be a throwback to the old 3-speed transmission gates which were just L, 2, D, N, R, P. Since overdrive/4-speed boxes were often added extras on higher-spec models (especially if it's a bolt-on unit and not a new transmission), this would allow you to keep the same gate and associated linkages/valving across the range and just add a new shifter/button. Reduces parts needed (most likely the non-overdrive shifters had provision for the button with a blanking plate or the like), plus a lot of early automatics (especially US ones) were column shift and thus you want as few positions as possible (otherwise Park would be pointing straight up and L would be touching your knee).

In possibly the best news I have ever had for this car, have _finally_ tracked down an FX-GT front bar + foglights. Pretty soon my front end will look like this: Except obviously in sedan form, and with my halos and grille...

Kickpanels? Fuseboxes love to hide in there