Has anyone supercharged the classic Jag six?
It seems a perfect match and plenty of room in the XKE.

thanks
JWW

 

Yep, pretty rare, only one I could find: 1969 Series II Jaguar E-Type XKE 2+2 4.2 - European Car Magazine

 

Thats a neat car in the article.
It seems so odd to me that back in the day there wasn't a kit by someone.
It was always cams and webers.
British cars had always been supercharged from the Blower Bentley onwards.
The stock, reliable XK six is all about torque, so a blower would be perfect. Even 5 lbs of boost would be awesome and reliable.

JWW

 

I've looked, but can't find it. A fellow in England used a series 3 and mated it with a XJR6 drivetrain in a way that looked totally stock. 400HP of dependable series 3. Sounds great to me

 

I was a Jaguar mechanic (part time) back in the 1970s and there just wasn't that much interest in blowers aftermarket. I expect because the aftermarket was mostly focused on drag racing and putting them on sports cars just wasn't something people considered. My own XKE back then had the side draft Webbers. Cars weren't anywhere near as reliable as they are now and the blower added complexity, a lot of it. Then we had the smog insanity and getting an aftermarket blower approved would have been damn near impossible. The only blown car I recall from back then was the turbo charged Corvair which put out a whopping 180 ponies, about 80 less than what you could get in an XKE of the time (both were 6s) and it wasn't exactly a poster child for reliability or not leaking a ton of oil. I think a combination of improved technology/reliability, relaxing of the smog rules, and the eventual recognition that blowers weren't just good for quarter mile runs changed the market. That's my guess anyway.

 

Yes Rob. True in my country also. Nor, back in the day, was the racing scene interested in "blowing" larger capacity engines . . . supercharging was strictly the province of 1 to 2Litre engines that were then rated to race with the big boys.

Back in the day, most racing XKs were modified to run triple dual side-draft DCOE Weber carburetors using then popular Lynx manifolds, but we went down a different route using 6 individual "fuel injection" units. These did not use an injector in the modern, electronic sense. Instead, each unit held an air butterfly (IIRC 2" bore) fed by a ram tube, with each vertical spindle linked on top to its neighbour(s). As the spindle rotated, a conical needle & seat on the lower end of the spindle metered high pressure fuel into the engine. All were individually adjustable, but a right pain to tune . . . we used purpose made pressure gauge to match air flow at each ram tube. IIRC, the use of aggressive cams, light weight flywheel, and with this induction system, held the idle at a very "lumpy" 1800-2000 rpm . . . but provided instant engine acceleration . . . hardly tolerable in a road car.

Cheers,

Ken

 

Yep to say my old '64 with the Webers was lumpy was an understatement. But man could it run flat out. Damn car almost broke me though. Taught me never to buy a car, particularly an English car that was abused (it had been thrashed to near death). But it had a racing cam those Weber carbs, and would regularly snap spokes off the wider rear wheels on acceleration. Basically the reason I had to work as a mechanic was to pay to keep that damn car running. Ah the stupidity of youth...

 

All good stories.
I think we have our tally on why NOT to blower the lump.
Ill use twin turbos on a stroker 4.7 instead!!!
Best
JWW