How many miles is too many miles

[Jesus-Ninja]

There are a lot of bargain LS400s to be had, but some have epically high mileage (200,000+). Are the engines particularly shoddy over a certain mileage, with lots to go wrong, or do they just run forever?

 

[fastegg]

Mileage

200,000 means the engine is just run in... However it all depends how it was looked after foe those 200k, although being a Lexus, 100% of Lexus owners really look after their cars so I wouldn't worry about that.
Recently their was a guy with a '90 LS400 on ebay with 750,000km on it. I just rang him out of interest and had a chat. He had a limo service and had 7 LS400's of vareing ages but he liked them as you can pick up a '98-2000 VVTi for under $10k now so the're cheap to buy. On the one he was selling, he put a low km import motor / transmission in at 700,000 as the origional motor was smokey on start up and he replaced the tranny as the motor can with one but the origional one was still working perfectly. This car he said, everything still worked, nothing leaked, but the seats were getting tired and it wasn't nearly as nice to drive than the '98 VVTi. My '98 VVTi has 220,000km on it and it drives like a brand new car. The mods ive done is to fit a set of heavy duty Bilstein shocks and had a rear sway bar made up from 22mm hollow to 24mm solid, mainly to control cronic under steer, although it was much improved, I should have gone bigger, 25 or even 26mm solid and reduced tyre profile from 225/60/216 to 225/55/16... Ive removed the cold air intake scoop and it now makes a B-E-A-U-T-F-U-L grown when you pedal it and ive replaced the entire audio system with a kick arse sound system which is C-H-O-I-C-E !!!!!!! Ive also had a start button fitted, don't ask why I just like it, and an Odyssey battery that weighs just 6kg (the stock one weighs 25kg and that mod alone made it noticably 'nicer' to steer.
All I want to change now are for a set of fully adjustable coil overs (didn't know about the when i bought the Bilseins
And a Torsen unit (limited slip diff).
So yeah, don't be worried about the 200k mileage... I wouldn't worry 'till you get to about 500,000 km !

 

[fastegg]

Which one do I get ?

By the way... I don't know how much you want to spend but I strongly urge you to pay the extra to get the '98-2000 LS
I promise you, you will always be happy you did. .. ... ....

 

[Jesus-Ninja]

Thanks for the replies

So, engine wise, 200,000 miles is nothing to worry about, which is about 300,000km.

What's the benefit of the later 1998+? I'm looking for a donor, so a tired shell and interior would help to drive down price. Looking to spend around £500. Pull the engine out, and then split the rest and sell for parts to get my money back.

 

[fastegg]

The '98-2000 is a VVTi motor. It has variable valve timing and variable intake track length. It's got the best stock exhaust manifolds, makes the most HP and torque of all the 400's and uses the least amount of fuel. So if your looking for a donor motor i'd definatly go for the VVTi. (so long as you don't want to supercharge it)
Apart from all that, it's by far got the most wank value too !
I guess to be safe, before you install the motor, i'd replace the cam belt as it's heaps easier to do with the engine out and their good for 150,000km
... What are you putting it in ?

 

[Jesus-Ninja]

Cheers - thanks for that. I may want to go forced induction, but more likely I'd look at ITBs if I were going to tune it. Earlier donors seem to come up at significantly cheaper prices, and headers will probably be custom anyway. Out of interest, what's the difference in stock power between the VVT and non-VVT.

It's going into an MX5, so stock power will be immense in a tiny car but, you know, you always end up wanting more

 

[fastegg]

Come to think of it, 300,000km is getting up there... and while they do go forever, if it were me i'd look for one with less k's.....

 

[fastegg]

VVTi......... Torque-400nm @ 4,000rpm KW-210 @ 6,000rpm
non VVTi... Torque-375nm @ 4,600rpm KW-190 @ 5,600rpm

VVTi 0-100kmh 6.9 Comp 10.5-1
non 0-100 7.5 Comp 10-1

Early 400's had stronger/heavier rods.. VVTi had lighter rods, not so good for supercharging.

If you want any specs on any car go to www.carpoint.com.au and look up what you want... scroll down the page to the Specification menu

 

[fastegg]

Supercharged MX-5

There's a mob over here in Australia that re-manufacture an MX-5 with supercharged 1UZ motors... check these out...
http://www.bulletcars.com/cars/

 

[Jesus-Ninja]

Yeah - seen them They use the the Supra boxes. I'm trying to avoid moving away from the Mazda box. More work mating the engine to the box, but less in terms of mating the gearbox to the chassis and diff and making the box fit.