TTE Lexus IS 200... Review? Not a Review? Help.

If you live in England like I do, then you’re probably sick of seeing the Lexus IS 200; they’re mostly stock, and they’re bloody everywhere! But luckily for me, once every few weeks I get to lay my eyes on one that isn’t so stock, nor is it “everywhere”. I wasn’t sure what my first Car Throttle post should be, so I thought that I might as well write you an entire essay about my dad’s daily driver, his TTE Lexus IS 200.

For those of you that are wondering “what the hell is TTE?”. Well, TTE (Toyota Team Europe) developed and released a supercharger kit for the Lexus IS 200, it was available as an aftermarket kit, as well as an OEM kit that could be obtained through Lexus directly (the IS 200 also came in a sport aero spec which came with the TTE front and rear bumpers as standard); and I promise that I am NOT getting this off Wikipedia… Honest…

Under the bonnet (or “hood”, if you’re from another world), you’ll find a red box, my dad calls this the “supercharger”, I’ve never really heard of, or seen one of these (I’m joking, of course), but they sound pretty damn good (similar to the noise you used to make as a kid when your mum refused to buy you that rad Hot Wheels car you really wanted).

The TTE Compressor provides the Lexus with a 32% power increase, as well as a 27% torque increase, perfect for that sideways action. With the kit you should also expect an decrease (thanks for correcting me on that -.-) in the 0-60 time (-2.2s), as well as an increase in top speed, but this only applies to the automatic models, according to the site that I am currently stealing this information from. You can get your own (original) TTE Compressor kit for around £2000-£2500 here in the UK, which isn’t too bad considering you can pick up a Lexus IS 200 for roughly £2.50… (Not literally, but they’re very cheap, however fuel costs can be an issue for some)

You can find out more about the TTE Compressor kit here (PDF):
http://www.is200.nl/kompressor/IS200_compressor.pdf

Closes Wikipedia

Now let’s get onto some of the mods, naturally the first thing you’ll notice is the odd whining/squeaking noise coming from the front of the car; the brakes. The car is fitted with a set of uprated Mintex brakes (+drilled and vented discs), and sits on APEXi lowering springs (35mm drop) as well as a sick pair of Toyo Proxies. The front bumper modifications look damn good, but are also very necessary to fit the upscaled FMIC (front mount intercooler). In order for the FMIC to get full airflow coverage, my dad had to saw away at some of the bumper to fully reveal it.

Here is a comparison of the original TTE intercooler next to the new/larger one:

Quite a big difference, right? But believe it or not, the car apparently lost power due to the much larger intercooler, I’ll explain why my dad went for a big intercooler near the end.

There are still a few other mods I haven’t mentioned, such as the catback exhaust system, and the strut braces, but I was just told that this article is already boring enough as it is; so let’s just move onto the future plans for the car before y’all fall asleep.

So, just like any car build. it’s never really finished, there are still many plans. The most anticipated is the new pulley for the supercharger, this actually links in with the larger intercooler. The original plan was to fit the new intercooler with the bigger (145mm) pulley, this would result in a nice boost in power, but unfortunately the pulley arrived broken and/or didn’t agree with the car, resulting in a very unstable pulley, and had to be removed, my dad ordered a new one, but the issue persisted; he’s still trying to diagnose it.

But once the pulley situation is sorted, the car can expect some more goodies, like a fresh Excedy clutch kit, improvements to the fuel system (FPR with fuel return etc.), and FINALLY some new wheels, possibly some TE37s. Eventually the Lex should be pushing around 250BHP (it’s currently at roughly 210), which in my opinion seems somewhat ideal for a daily driver.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to give you lot an updated article once that’s all done, but until then, stay safe, and drive safe (unless you’re on the track, in that case go nuts).

See ya!

Thanks to everyone that has corrected some of the mistakes I’ve made in this article, let me know if there are any more! :)