Haven't been on in a while. Who wants to guess why my SC400 is idling at 1,500?

M

MongooseGA

New member
This thread was written for another, more 'adult' forum, so there's some edited language in it ;)



*This is worth the read. I'm putting my e-neck on the line here.*



Wow, tonight scared the **** out of me.



I came home from school early because this is exams week. I took advantage of the gorgeous weather we're having here and decided to rid my car's exterior of winter's wrath. Wash, clay, Pinnacle ASMR, AIO, 4* UPP. Gorgeous. Tires got VRT. Looks magnificent; even, dare I say it, spectacular.



I wiped down my dash, vacuumed the seats/ mats, put the mats back in. conditioned the leather, etc... Nice and clean inside.



Then I take her for my usual after-cleaning run around the neighborhood. Uh-****ing-Oh.



I start the car and she's idling at 1,500. Normally she stays at about 6-700. I think, hmm... I'll drive slow and see if I can figure something out. The car seems quicker from a start from normal, due to the higher revs. I can't figure out why it's revving so high. I come to a slow stop and I can feel the motor revving. ****. I continue on my way, and come to a stop sign. I hold the brakes hard, and the car lunges forward.



****.



So I come home and back into my driveway, thinking how much Lexus is going to charge me to fix whatever this problem is. I did nothing to the car that would have affected it... Never got the motor wet or did anything to the brakes. As I'm backing in, I hold the brakes hard again. The car tries to jump backwards.



After carefully getting the car back in it's hole, I kill the motor. Start it again and it's still got a 1,500 RPM idle. I turned off the A/C, and it dropped to like 1,400 RPM- still double the norm.



Put the car in park, kill it, and get ready to get out. As I'm getting out, I noticed that I laid my driver's floor mat over my gas pedal, but under the brake. No ****ing wonder the brakes are making the car lunge; they're pulling the mat over the gas. The mat is pushing the pedal down some, plus more when I went to accelerate. I should have noticed a different feel the in gas pedal, but this was the first time I had driven in my Birkenstocks and attributed the different feel to the wide sandal and different fit from my tennis shoes.



Total self ownage



Cliffs: I feel like a total dumbass.
 
MongooseGA said:
:think: :think:
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Yeah I'm good at guessing games. :) Right now, I guess that you're going to put that poster of your Spanish teacher on your ceiling, and then refill your bottle of leather conditioner. :lol
 
White95Max said:
Yeah I'm good at guessing games. :) Right now, I guess that you're going to put that poster of your Spanish teacher on your ceiling, and then refill your bottle of leather conditioner. :lol
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Wait a second... You edited that...



And I'll have you know that I only use Adam's leather conditioner now. It's more cost effective. (Free for me).
 
MongooseGA- Hey, nice to see you posting here :wavey Glad you didn't have any serious problems with the floormat thing...just goes to show ya, huh?



What did you end up doing/not with your Lexus' suspension/wheels/tires?
 
MongooseGA said:
As I'm getting out, I noticed that I laid my driver's floor mat over my gas pedal, but under the brake. No ****ing wonder the brakes are making the car lunge; they're pulling the mat over the gas. The mat is pushing the pedal down some, plus more when I went to accelerate. I should have noticed a different feel the in gas pedal, but this was the first time I had driven in my Birkenstocks and attributed the different feel to the wide sandal and different fit from my tennis shoes.



Total self ownage



Cliffs: I feel like a total dumbass.
Click to expand...



Darn kids.



:grinno:
 
That is too funny! My father in law had a simmilar but opposite problem. His 4runner was driving very slow. So I took it out for a drive. Sure enough it was very slow evern for a 4runner LOL. It seemed like the gass pedal had only a short travel. Looking around I discovered that he had 4 floor matts under the pedal!. One was the factory floor mat, one was Lexus matt my borther in law had picked up at work, one was a clear carpet protector matt, and last but not least was a piece of carpet left over from work. No wonder it would not accelerate. Now it feels like a turbo to them!
 
Accumulator said:
MongooseGA- Hey, nice to see you posting here :wavey Glad you didn't have any serious problems with the floormat thing...just goes to show ya, huh?



What did you end up doing/not with your Lexus' suspension/wheels/tires?
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Hey Accumulator-



I'm just now getting back to this thread.



I ended up installing the Tokico shocks and Espelir springs. These really, truly, slammed the car. It was about 2.5" and 2.25" lower in the rear and front, respectively. My rear tires were so tucked into the wheel wells, and the camber was insane. The ricers on the Lexus forum would have loved it, but it looked too tacky on a car like this.



So, I put the stock system back in. It's 12 years old (my '95 has a build date of 2/94, go figure) but it's only moved 45,000 miles. Here it sits, stock. I sold the aftermarket components to a cool guy in CA. With 18s on his car, the drop looks great.



I'm definitely planning on keeping this car for a long time, and putting a large amount of money into it. Unlike alot of SC owners on ClubLexus, I consider this to be a classy car that doesn't need huge gaudy body kits and ugly wheels to look nice.



Plans are to upgrade the exterior to the '97+ pieces (bumpers, side skirts, tail lights) and repaint it. I'm going back and forth between using my rare, '95 only teal color, or my favorite Lexus color, the even more rare RSP. A nice, tasteful set of wheels will finish off the exterior.



I've already mapped out my exhaust. Now I just need to find a place with a mandrel bender to build it for me. No one makes any sort of breathing mods for the 400 cars, so they have to be custom built. I'm working on a discreet intake right now. A new torque convertor and an LSD will eventually come.



But, for now, I'm just glad to have the car and look forward to getting my license on the 13th of next month :)
 
MongooseGA- Sounds like you're moving in a smart direction ;) I like the way you're going for a restrained, classy look; that SC400 is probably the only Lexus that I really like and I think it's one classy car.



If it were mine, I'd repaint it in the original teal, for a whole bunch of reasons. And of course *I* would debadge it if I had it reshot.



And yeah, I'd want a LSD too. I'd probably do that first, before anything else other than age-related maintenance.



Bet you're counting the days until 3/13 :D
 
Accumulator said:
MongooseGA- Sounds like you're moving in a smart direction ;) I like the way you're going for a restrained, classy look; that SC400 is probably the only Lexus that I really like and I think it's one classy car.



If it were mine, I'd repaint it in the original teal, for a whole bunch of reasons. And of course *I* would debadge it if I had it reshot.



And yeah, I'd want a LSD too. I'd probably do that first, before anything else other than age-related maintenance.



Bet you're counting the days until 3/13 :D
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The thing with the teal, is that I don't really care much for it. In certain light, it looks awesome, but there are other times when I hate it. Here's a direct sun shot of it:



DSCF0262.jpg


If this color wasn't so rare, there wouldn't be a second thought in my mind to change it. However, everyone else seems to love it and it is pretty unique.



But then, this Royal Sapphire Pearl color is gorgeous.



sc2.jpg
 
Is this low enough for you? Some sort of 12 way adjustable thingy. I don't know what its called. Its off a customer car.



sc400sup0579cn.jpg






Has some sort of little boxes on top of the struts.



 
That RSP color is something like that cool color that was available on the first-gen RX-7's...that was my favorite car color for a long time.
 
MongooseGA said:
The thing with the teal, is that I don't really care much for it. In certain light, it looks awesome, but there are other times when I hate it. Here's a direct sun shot of it:



If this color wasn't so rare, there wouldn't be a second thought in my mind to change it. However, everyone else seems to love it and it is pretty unique.
Click to expand...

You should keep the teal. It's a neat color, very 90's. Just curious, but why do you want to change the bumpers and repaint and whatnot? Is the paint in a bad way?



In response to your title question, I figured maybe you dropped in some big cams or something and the car couldn't idle below 1,500! Glad to hear it was just your carpet instead! You ever take the car to the track to see what she'll do before you go mod-crazy?
 
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