There it was. The biggest luxury car bargain I'd ever seen. A good-condition Soarer twin-turbo usually sells for 30-plus thousand dollars, but the dark green beast that lay parked in the wrecker-come-importer was stickered at mere A$16,500. Boy, was I feeling tempted to say goodbye Subaru and hello to many kilograms of Toyota/Lexus's finest sporting coupe!
I have to admit though, I often approach import cars with some skepticism, as many have been damaged and repaired, flood damaged or whatever. So I had to wonder why those aggressive swept back headlights were so milky (had the car been buried in several feet of snow like a GT-R I'd recently heard about?) or was this merely just a common problem? The interior was also a little bit tatty, but under the bonnet rested one of the finest motors out of Japan - the 2.5 litre 1JZ-GTE. Its twin-turbos, intercooling, injection, twin cams, 24 valves and variable cam timing give it a full 208kW - along with plenty of low-to-mid range grunt. It'd surely blow the pants off any 1UZ-FE 4.0 V8 Soarer, but it's funny how people have pre-conceived ideas. The guy selling the car said, "Yeah they go alright, but any V8 Soarer or Commodore would kill it."... Ah, ha.
Anyhow, aside from a couple of small bodgies that popped up, I was pretty rapt in the car at such a low, low price. After all, this was a car built to contend with the Merc and BMW coupes of this world - which are still fetching ludicrous dollars. But being an import, I also had to wonder how much cheaper Soarers will get in a couple of years time. After all, I remember Soarers being advertised for around 80 grand not so long back... Of course, on the other hand all that I could stand to lose is A$16,500 - and there's no way the car will ever be worth nothing at all! Maybe it might sell for 30-40% less when it comes time to sell. Who really knows?
I then did some research on the web to get a feel for the world of Soarers. There wasn't anything that seemed to go wrong, and most people also suggested that many driveline parts (such as the trans) were then same as that in the 4.0 V8 models (like the Aussie-delivered four door LS400). And I'd expect anything made by Lexus to be pretty bullet-proof. I'm not sure about the life of those twin-turbos though, 'cos a lot of the earlier 1G-GTEs have one completely seized turbo (which I'm guessing might be caused by having one turbo "over powering" the other?).
Monday finally rolled around and I was able to check out my finances and the state of play with insurance for the big cruiser. The company I'm insured with gave me a quote for nearly A$2000 per year, which of course is a lot of money wasted if you never make a claim. That would've been pushing it a little.
But the ol' bank balance was the real deciding factor - mainly because there wasn't any money in it. Oops, I'll have to stop swiping that EFTPOS card so frequently... Oh well, there's plenty of other automotive fish in the sea I guess - it's just that most of them are trollop!
While in Melbourne recently, both the Editor and I visited Simon Gishus at Nizpro. The straight-talking Simon showed us what was happening around his workshop and then began talking to us about what horsepower some people are claiming that they've got from their engines. It's a world of lies that, if you're not well informed enough, is easy to get sucked into - everyone thinks they're an expert. You often hear things like "Oh, yeah my car makes about blah-blah horse power and can pull a gab-gab down the quarter". But it's all so easy to make these claims without actually having anything to back it up. To find out if they're actually telling you the truth or just pulling your leg, you need to follow them up with more detailed questions - like "was that time at the drags?", or "was that on an engine dyno?". That's when you're hear the lame pseudo justifications.
Anyhow, Simon had some interesting stuff to say about how much horsepower you can expect from an engine - any engine, including forced induction - on various types of fuel. He says a 2 valve per cylinder engine on premium unleaded can make up to about 180hp per litre. The same type of engine running on Avgas might be good for 230-240hp per litre, and a 4 valve per pot mill can generally make another 20 horsepower on top of that. Simon added that these are general figures and there might be 10% variations either side these exact numbers - but you it's fair to say with his wealth of experience that this is good info. One of the exceptions to the rule though, is Nissan's SR20 turbo, with Simon having seen a dyno-certified 276hp per litre! Isn't the SR just an absolute ball-breaker of an engine!
And on the subject of fuels, people who insist on pulling out their unleaded car's lambda (oxygen) sensor to run leaded fuel are wasting their time. (I can't remember how many times I've heard about owners of turbo cars putting in leaded fuel so they turn up the boost!) So the other day I decided to ring Shell directly to get their word on the octane (RON) ratings of their fuels.
Poor old conventional unleaded (ULP) is quoted at 92RON, premium unleaded (PULP) is 96RON and the Victoria-only Optimax is rated at a massive 98RON. And leaded fuel? It's 96RON - exactly the same as PULP! Sure, it used to be up to about 98, but recent environmental laws have meant a reduction in the amount of lead content and an accompanying reduction in octane. Another interesting point is that ULP actually varies between 91 and 92RON. It's no wonder I often hear ULP cars pinging on hot days when the air's on and the driver refuses to change down a gear! Tink, tink, tink...
But returning to all you naughty turbo people - put back in those oxygen sensors and stop choking your cat converter - and the rest of us!
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