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Lextreme II

Active Member
I wonder how hard it is to start a car forum. After lextreme started, I also tried to create something slight less hardcore for the general public. Needless to say, it failed. Initially, we had massive membership, but after few months. It just die. After that failure, I also try something more general and tried to tap into the Toyota owners in general. Again, it failed too. There are hundreds of car forums popping out monthly. I wonder how hard it is to start new forum. From my personally experience. Its very tought now unless you have something very unique and special. What do u think?
 
I'd imagine its quite hard because there are just so many out there. Lextreme succeeded because you had information everyone wanted and no one else had (the single turbo writeup) and from the beginning there was such a high standard of quality on the board, that eventually the writeup phased out and the quality has upheld the board since. I think that without some sort of incentive, it would be near impossible to start a general car forum these days.
 
David you should be proud of your accomplishment...Helps many people, and is a good place to meet friends........:beerchug:
 

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David,
I somewhat have an idea why you're asking this. Yep. It's tough to maintain a car forum when there're a lot out there. I think you're already successful on this forum when your goal is reached, a special V8 forum. But to have it more successful, you'll need to expand your goal & resources. For example, expanding to other SC300, IS300, Supra...etc when they have similar engines and mods. But collecting the info. and posting on them would take quite some times, especially when your time is limited. Perhaps expanding your product line could help and having some discounts from dealers/parts stores nationwide when your members need something. I believe those dealers/parts stores will be willing to give some discounts, such as a wholesale discount to your members.

Please don't take offense on this. It's just from what I observe. I think the www.clublexus.com is more successful because they have more resources (personnel staff, supporters, and $$$) than our forum here. They can easily draw a meet of 50 or more cars in only a week while we can't do that for months. And they have hundreds of members on their forum 24/7. Important! There're several female moderators on the Clublexus that chills out the guys with cars. :flirt: When they post the threads, it seems the guys like them very much. You know, it's a natural balance of human being.
 
stevechumo said:
Please don't take offense on this. It's just from what I observe. I think the www.clublexus.com is more successful because they have more resources (personnel staff, supporters, and $$$) than our forum here. They can easily draw a meet of 50 or more cars in only a week while we can't do that for months. And they have hundreds of members on their forum 24/7. Important! There're several female moderators on the Clublexus that chills out the guys with cars. :flirt: When they post the threads, it seems the guys like them very much. You know, it's a natural balance of human being.

I beg to differ, I think the reason clublexus has more subscribers is because they have a much larger target audience. The target audience at Lextreme are people who are interested in modifying an engine out of a large sedan or a large semi-sports car. The target audience for club lexus is Lexus owners. As far as percentage of target audience's reached, I would wager Lextreme has a higher percentage.
 
Steve, The Club doesn't have as much Aussie hardcore Xuz...influence as this forum..The Aussie's are the make up and knowledge base of this forum......There is more hardcore info on this forum in regards to the Xuz..- motors then on the Club....The Club is mostly SC300 crap..... The Club has more traffic but not smarter motor heads that continue to post like on this forum...

The only members that offer great advice on the Club are the same members on this forum, like you Steve, SCJames, Xirforever, RDM, Cowboy, JBrady, Lex, etc.. without those guys the Club would be in the dumps...GSDAVE and OLT are good too but not better then the Aussie boys and moderators on this forum...Not even close in my opinion....

I like the Lextreme forum like it is now, there is not too much junk traffic and garbage posts that come alone with the heavy traffic..I think average viewers are intimidated to post on this forum because of the knowledge base that is offered... I know I was a year ago and still am sometimes in recent days...Specs on engine bores, bore stoke, cam lift, worked heads, etc...I still get lost from time to time, and that is why I post and hang out mostly in the general discussion section of this forum....

Have you guys noticed the Lexus Owners Club forum seems to be fading out fast when just a few years ago that forum was bigger then even the Club Lexus Forum for traffic.....

Advertising and accessablily to forums is a major factor to a forums sucess in my opinion....Example - Search google under Lexus Forums and Lextreme.com pops right up on the first page...I think that is big, but also there are only so many people in this world that gets their kicks off modifying there Lexus's/Soarers and seek out Lextreme info...Most of the world likes the basic fix info like cosmetic fixes, how to fix stupid trivial things, what oil to use when changing, what coolant to use, etc...Those are the multilple and repetative posts you continue to see on the Club and I would venture to guess not many Lextremists members would appreciate reading those types of posts on this forum over and over again....right? ...If that is what makes a forum successful then I say keep the success...

GO LEXTREME!!!!!

PS. How was the fishing fellas?
 
Dear guys,

Yes, I understand your points. Actually, they're what I thought, too. Believe me, I love our Lextreme forum a lot more than the Clublexus or any other forums. And that's why I want to contribute my best opinions to improve it. My philosophy is that we never stop at improvements. But as I mentioned, we're too specialized in V8, we don't have a variety of cars/options to attract more people. And as the consequence, we might come to the point that people are getting less attractive with the same ideas/modifications when our old SC400 and LS400 become faded out (no offense, please). Unless we can expand to newer SC430 or LS430, then our future wouldn't be in good shape. I would also believe that many of us here would want a newer car, newer mods so that concept applies the same.

If we only concentrate on the targeting (goal) numbers, of course we're higher than other forums. But if we want more "business", then our current goal might not fulfill what we want. So we need to consider between the "V8 culture" or the "business culture". It's hard to keep both at their peaks at the same time. So although Clublexus has more junk posts, that doesn't mean they have bad business. By now, if you look at their "currently active users", they have 1390 users, while we only have 26 currently active users.

As John mentioned, thanks to your compliment about me. And I know that there're many real knowledgeable members on our forums to make up our pride & value. Beside our rich of technicality on this forum, we still need more members, right? I believe this is what David considers the most. We need more members to get more supporters, so we need more members to sustain our forum.
 
Steve's right.

I'm a nmber of ALSC and Lextreme. I've looked in Clublexus and left fairly quickly as it looks at areas of Lexus ownership in which I have zero interest.

Unless we move with the times and work on engines under 10 years old (the 1990 engine is 16 years old) we will be relegated to the dinosaur department and we all know what happened to Dino and his mates.

I think branching out into the 300 and even more hardcore Soarer modifications would not be out of place.

I would like to know how many members actually posted on Lextreme in the last 6 months.

And yes I think we do intimidate people with our depth of knowledge which makes new members hesitant to post. It took me a while to lodge my first post for fear of looking like an idiot because when I started posting here I knew very little about the XUZ series of engines. Hey I'm still learning.
 
Well 430 and 470's cost $$$$....The hotrodders poor man's salvation lies in the 1uz-fe motors.....What better motor can you get for the money? Zuffen you do make a good point though.....

Branch out if you must but please keep it Lextreme.....:veryhappy .

Just for the record - We at Lextreme do talk about alot of different types of swaps in various cars, turbo and supercharger applications, etc.. I know I purposely start threads on LS1 engines, Toyota Landcruiser Turbo's, and diverse stuff, etc.. Just to mix it up some and bring a different flavor every once in while to the forum as do others......We are not only all about Xuz..motor...
 
I think lextreme survived because we were unique and catch the niche of the automotive forums. Lextreme developed a name and a reputation for itself since the beginning. We focus on the Lexus-Toyota V8 Performance. During that time (4 years ago) only a half dozen Lexus forums and we came in the right time. Currently its over 20 Lexus forums. As our initial focus and goal was on the V8 engines. As long as Toyota makes V8 engines, then we will never be exstinct. If we venture out to other engines like the 2jzge, then we lost our niche and uniqueness. We evolved exclussively from Lexus V8 to Lexus and Toyota V8. From that perspective it covers pretty wide range already. Another section attract members is the swap and conversion. Lots people come here to read about the process of converting.

Branching out to different engines will dilute our core focus and aim. Therefore, sticky to our niche is very important. The only thing I might consider would be hybriding Nissan's V8 motors. We can branch out and specialize in Japanese V8 Engines. What do you think?
 
David,

So your point is clearly understood. That would make me have a better idea of what you're thinking. If our culture is mainly for the V8, then we should have more newer V8s involved. However, how many newer V8 owners are willing to touch the still new engines (expensive) and become hardcore like us? I would think that's not likely, including the Nissan V8. And for the newer Totota V8s, I don't see there're many of the members on our forum mention about it, except some Tundras. We seem to stay around what we already knew. And when what we already knew and discussed about the SC400, LS400, and GS400 are circling and full on our forum, then our members will get bored and leave. In general, people's philosophy is always looking for something new. So if we don't have much new things, drawing other car groups into our forum, even though they're old SC300, IS300...etc., can provide a richer environment and liven it up.

And what do we see our forum 5 years from now when most 1UZ are near 20 years old? This is the key question. Many things can be changed. For example, what if the gas price skyrockets to $10/gallon? At that time, the gas consuming 1UZ might not be a popular choice like right now, not to say turbocharging it. What if the later newer hybrid V8s don't allow us to modify them in anyway. My point is that we need to evolve in some ways to keep this forum healthy. But evolution doesn't necessarily mean we should change our value and belief.
:veryhappy I understand that we're all reluctant to change, but time always changes and so do we.
 
Steve,

The LS400 will be 20 years old. The LS430 will be 8-10 years old. New V8 comes into the market will expand out coverage. By that time, there will be more people modding the LS430. However about the gas price is a factor in this forum. This affects the automaker more. People are buying more gas effecient cars just like the early 1970s. We survive for 4 years and I wonder if we still be around for the next 4 years. If the gas price going up and up and we will see less and less V8 owners. Perhaps the gas price will kill this forum existence.
 
also, modification is a reactionary activity. We feel our automobiles do not have enough power, so we modify it so has more power. Instead of our forum getting pulled under, it might be the next big thing, increasing the mileage. V8s are not going anywhere, and Lexus uses small ones anyway, lots of v6s have more displacement than the 1UZFE. People will want to know how to get more mileage, and who is to say that Lextreme won't be where they go to find that information?
 
I almost forgot. The older 1uzfe engines are widely available in Australia and NZ therefore we attract those wonderful members too. Without them, this forum would not be in its position now. Since state laws restrict import of new motors therefore, older version is what they can get. Since we have swap section, this also attract off roaders and others. When 3uzfe are widely available in Australia. I am sure there will be lot talks about it when time comes.
 
I really found this topic to be the most interested and serious in all of the other threads ever. David, you're really the man to bring up this topic. You know, I have a B.S degree (with a lot of B*llSh*t also) in Bus. Admin. of MIS so this strategic thing really turned me on. Anyhow, you and other valued members on this topic are pretty right. Well, I may be wrong but I think we can always fix the problems by evolving later, of course with a correct plan. Timing is the key here. We can't be too early nor too late.

Not to say the least, I've read about a turbo kit for a Hybrid Toyota Prius. The company claims it'll boost up 30% more hp. This means some of our members can work out on the future hybrid V8 engines. So we need more new hybrid technical members on our forum who can perhaps share with us about the hybrid engines. I've personally talked to a Toyota mechanic (previously my friend). He told me that on a hybrid engine, there could be a thousand (if I'm not mistaken) little capacitors just like the batteries to run the engine. And it can give a severe electrical shock to a human. I drove a hybrid V6 Highlander with 260 hp once. It's powerful but I wasn't impressive at all. The power and the gear jerked at acceleration due to the power shutting off and on. The engine didn't have any vibration/noise at idle. It seemed like a shut-off engine.
 
Steve,

Thanks for your reply. I dont have a BS degree in Biz Admin. I got a BS in Kinesiology with a minor in nutrition. However, for the past year our team meet weekly and discuss business strategies on healthcare and possible joint venture biz too. Anyway, I think you have a good point. Currently I am trying to explore how we can mod our engine to be more fuel effecient and perhaps diversfied the topics to hybrid too. Therefore we will continue to attract the hardcore horsepower junkies like myself and at the same time fuel effecient topics and conversions (from 8 cylinders for the street and 4 cylinders for cruising like GM technologies). I think our niche still be in the future if we evolve with the changes.
 
Keep it simple, keep it V8, and keep it going....Please.:smokin:

I have a BS in BS...:jester: . There goes the seriousness and quality of this thread right out the window. Very sorry fellas I just couldn't help myself............
 
jibbby said:
Keep it simple, keep it V8, and keep it going....Please.:smokin:

I have a BS in BS...:jester: . There goes the seriousness and quality of this thread right out the window. Very sorry fellas I just couldn't help myself............
Hey I think you are higher achiever than that. PhD in BS is more like it. LOL....
 
Lex - I gave up on the Masters Degree in BS after my first term.... I had to drop out because there was just simply too much BS going around..... Now this thead is really going to the dumps.... So sorry Steve I will stop here with the clowning around!!!!
 


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