Would IJN have done better at Midway with four Illustrious class?

Surely you mean four Taihos, Admiral Beez? That is the japanese equivalent of the Illustrious class. If taken at literam, how on earth do the japanese board and capture all those four Illustrious?
No, Taihos are fatally flawed, with poor underwater protection, no means of effectively removing avgas vapour, and poor AA and crappy radar. So, IJN copies the Illustrious design instead, create your own POD to get to that end.
Aircraft would still be exclusively armed below deck, CO2 would still not be pumped into the fueling system during attacks, the ordnance removed from around half the strike package to be replaced with anti-shipping weapons would still be left on the hanger decks and not returned as removed to the more protected magazines, and the D/C effort would still be amateur hour.
The IJN carriers now have weapons lifts to the flight deck. Wouldn't they use them?
 
Yes, as CalBear points out. However if the Illustrious decks protect the hangar,
depends on if the US1000 pound bombs penetrate. If they do it's more then likely a re-run of OTL. if not the Japanese could potentially pull off a win.

Do the American Know that the Japanese are using amoured flight decks? Because that would probably change what type of bombs America would use.
 
To make a difference you have to effectively replace the IJN personnel, top to bottom, with RN personnel, using RN doctrine. That sort of morphs the question into "WI the RN and USN fought at Midway", which is likely an interesting, albeit ASB, discussion.
Is it actually ASB? The IJN was modelled on the RN, and the alliance was still intact when the RN and IJN got started in naval aviation. Is it possible to come up with some sort of PoD that causes Japanese damage control practices to mirror those of the RN - you're probably not going to get armoured carriers since they were a specific response to the RN having to work in very confined waters, but the fire precautions and armoured hangar floor seem possible.
 
Is it actually ASB? The IJN was modelled on the RN, and the alliance was still intact when the RN and IJN got started in naval aviation. Is it possible to come up with some sort of PoD that causes Japanese damage control practices to mirror those of the RN - you're probably not going to get armoured carriers since they were a specific response to the RN having to work in very confined waters, but the fire precautions and armoured hangar floor seem possible.
Someone needs to lose a carrier in a peacetime avgas explosion, followed by a public inquiry. That'll shake up damage control doctrine.
 
I am just picturing them figuring out a way to hook a spool up for a A6M and taking a cat shot.

http://time.com/3924549/navy-aircraft-carrier-electromagnetic-launch/

So basically a pair of wheels going careening off the front of the ship whilst a plane sits there looking a bit foolish, with the added fun of prop blades possibly flying everywhere :p

Lets not forget one thing, at Midway the USN forces actually brought nearly the same or slightly more planes to the battle in total. The IJN carriers were not full and not carrying their full compliments of aircraft. Now if you're using Lustys, then this gets even worse, as the RN carriers had small numbers of planes.

Yes they were very tough but that was at the cost in aircraft, so if the IJN turn up with 4 x Illustrious class ships, then the number difference gets even worse for the IJN.

Re the Yorktown she was abandoned perhaps a bit too early but then she was listing very heavily and there was a very real concern she'd roll over, and that would kill most of her crew (See Courageous). The USN's damage control could have saved her if she'd not been found by the sub.
 
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Probably not a great of a difference than might be imagined. The one big difference would seem to be the radar, but since most IJN fighters had their radios removed by the pilots (to reduce weight) there is no real help as far as fighter direction. There is also the reality that there were TWO IJN destroyers (Kazegumo and Makigumo) with the Kido Butai that were equipped with Type 22 radars, while these were no on the carriers there was radar with Nagumo's ships.

I have found the respective claims about those DDs having radar at Midway on the CF website, i haven't found anything from japanese sources confirming this though (namely japanese wiki). This DD class is listed as having radar installed starting with 1943. The japanese page on the Type 22 radar only lists Ise and Hyuga having it at the time of Midway.
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%BD%E7%82%8E%E5%9E%8B%E9%A7%86%E9%80%90%E8%89%A6
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%BD%E7%82%8E%E5%9E%8B%E9%A7%86%E9%80%90%E8%89%A6
 
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