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First up, I opted to remove the hood. I'm doing a lot more than just the cooling kit and having the hood out of the way makes everything easier.
I rigged supporting ropes from the garage door opener rails. Looks a little janky, but it actually worked quite well.
Once I had the car moved out of the way, pool noodles make good protection. Good pipe insulation would work too. Anything you can slit length-ways and slide on the front of the hood.
Assuming you have good arm span, the hood is movable with one person -- it's quite light. It's just ungainly. Yes, the garage door has been disabled so its safe to lean it there.
Last edited by GerbilEngineer; Dec 23, 2025 at 02:12 PM.
Next up was to remove all the underbody splash guards. Why all? Well, I'm going a good bit more than just the cooling upgrade .
AAaannnddd.... there was a good forests worth of crap that had collected in front of the radiator.
With all the underbody plastic out of the way, I pulled the bumper. Not necessary for the cooling upgrade -- though it will make it much easier to work on -- but at some point in the past, the car had a minor collision with something and bent the headlight mounting brackets and the bumper no longer aligned with the fenders and the headlight couldn't be vertically aligned properly. But that's all another thread.
With the bumper off, the airboxes and headlight brackets were next to come out. I'm not doing an aftermarket intake, but will put new filters in when I put things back together.
Before I start ripping the top of the engine, I drained the coolant. Well, I drained the radiator. I realized as it was draining that I don't have any empty containers for the old coolant. Will correct that this afternoon.
For those wondering, this is the radiator drain plug. I doesn't come all the way out. Unscrew it till is starts to dribble, then give it a little tug to open it up a bit.
I am going to pull the drain plug on the block, as well. No, I don't have to. But, I'm not skipping things while I have the entire front of the car torn apart. The few minutes for the plug isn't a big deal, and a extra gallon of coolant is nothing compared to what I've spent on the combined projects, so why not change all the coolant while I can.
There's the plug, tucked back under the driver's header outlet and above the front drive shaft. This would be a whole lot easier on a RWD car.
17mm hex drive on the end of an extension, with a breaker bar. That sucker was in tight. Once it was loose, I switched over the an socket wrench, extension, and u-joint so I could feed the hex drive up, and still have a funnel in place, in an attempt to make less of a mess.
...it did not make less of a mess...
The funnel actually worked exactly as I wanted, but the block dumped coolant much faster than the funnel could empty and it just ended up overflowing. I used the largest funnel I could get in there. Oh well, it was worth a try.
And then I got the first real surprise of this project.
Yes, those are sparkles in the coolant. There aren't supposed to be sparkles in the coolant. I didn't notice it in the coolant drained out of the radiator, but I'm going to take a second look at it now. General consensus with other car people friends is that it pretty much has to be the water pump bearing. It's not like there is much in the way of moving parts in the cooling system in these engines. No real signs of corrosion or other degraded aluminum. These looked quite sparkly and distinctly copperish in color. We'll see what i find as I continue to tear things apart. Luckily I have a replacement water pump on the bench, if that turns out to be the source. I almost skipped draining the block when I saw how much of a pain it was going to be to get the drain plug out. Glad I didn't.
After that little surprise, it was back to planned activities. Pull the air cooler, with little fan-fare.
First look under the covers.
That picture down the intake is probably the worst of the eight. No significant build up, just a bit of carbon coating. The car has about 38k miles on it so no real surprises.
Next up was to pull the air intake piping and remove the supercharger belt. The belt was still quite tight -- there wasn't much slack with the tensioner up against the stop. The belt came off without issue, it just took a bit more persuasion than I was expecting. For those doing this and looking at an excuse to buy tools, buying a tensioner pulley tool is worth every penny.
In prep for the next steps, I unplugged the connector to the throttle actuator and had my first real "aww, crap" moment of this whole effort. 9 year old plastic is brittle, even in 80°F temps. I must not have pushed down on the tab enough and when I pulled, the retaining catch sheared off. Rather unfortunate.
I have a couple of ideas for fixing it, and worst case I'll pick up a decent second hand one. Just a heads up for anyone else though. One other heads up. The connector on the purge valve line, where it connects to the supercharger, behind the throttle body. To release the fitting, squeeze the sides parallel to the hose. I've been following the Onca Engineering video series as one of my references and he actually notes that he broke the plastic spring clip in the fitting, going at it with a pick. I almost made the same mistake. Once you have it off, it's obvious how it works if you watch when you squeeze the sides.
It was late enough in the day, after the broken retaining catch and the sparkly coolant, I decided it was time to do pause for the day and go make Christmas cookies.
In my working on cars, I've come to the conclusion that the vast majority of training, that a certified mechanic goes through, is the passing down of the knowledge of the mystical motions necessary to release the retaining method of various clips and connectors. For those new to doing this, almost all connections in a car will actually come apart with a simple tug -- if the retention mechanism is properly released. There are obviously exceptions -- wire harness connectors with many wires; leaking, corroded, or otherwise damaged fittings; etc. If something moves but won't come of, don't force or pry. That will break something. Look for the retention clip or mechanism that you missed.
What did I do for Christmas? I continued taking my car apart.
I don't have good disassembly pictures. I could barely get tools in there, much less a camera. This is one place where the V6 guys have it a bit easier, without the two rear cylinders.
Throttle body was loosened first. I didn't remove it as I didn't care to redo the heater hose fitting on it. I don't know how you get the inside bolt out of the symposer hose connector on the back of the intake. I ended up just cutting the hose since I'm not putting the symposer back. General process was to get all the bolts and connectors I could, then get the supercharger loose and forward slightly, to get to the rest of them. Once all the connections were loose, it was just a matter of man handling it out of the engine bay. I didn't have any real issues with the two dowels. A bit of prying at the front and it the came right out. Do be careful that you don't scratch up the mating surface of the heads, with the supercharger dowels. There are two plastic clips on the bottom of the supercharger, that hold the throttle heater hose. a) Release them once you have the supercharger loose. b) You will almost certainly break one or both, pull the supercharger. I haven't dug up the part number yet, but they will go on my list of clips and retainers to order.
It's out though.
Rear crossover. One of two reasons I'm doing this.
And the Y pipe.
And OMG what were they thinking? How much engineering time and effort went into this thing? Note that I manage to snap the vacuum line from the control solenoid to the output valve. Not that it matters or anything.
I'll have to go read up and see what others have done for the incoming vacuum line and the control solenoid. It will be significantly easier to put things back together without that mess in there.
Supercharger is sitting on the bench. It will get an oil change, new coupler, and new pulley.
The valley is nice and corrosion free. It's got some sand and grit collected in the corners that I'll vacuum out before I put it back together.
And that's where I stopped. Today -- pull the rest of the plumbing and water pump, then start putting some stuff back together.
Thanks for the great pictures!!
I have been investigating knock sensors. Your car has 4 knock sensors and that's an addition at some time. I wonder what year JLR went to 4 knock sensors?
My 2014 5.0L SC has just 2 sensors.
Anyone know?
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Continued pulling stuff off the car. Some notes for others doing this...
When pulling the water pump, there is a small plastic elbow that connects to it.
To release the fitting, press the little black ring towards the pump, and pull the elbow out. A trim tool works quite well for applying even pressure to the ring.
When you are trying to pull the thermostat housing out of the lower pipe, I found that leaving the housing bolted to the engine and placing a 3/8" extension on the outer ring of the fitting, then tapping with a rubber mallet will separate the two pieces. Obviously you need to make sure the snap ring is pulled out first. Don't use a screwdriver as I expect it would damage the plastic.
Pulled the rear cross pipe off.
Note that there are supposed to be gaskets in the channels. If you pull yours off and it looks like mine, the gaskets are likely stuck to the rear of the block.
Pulling the Y pipe made a huge mess. So much for having the system drained... Note that the gasket, on pipe that goes into the water pump connection, gets replaced. Don't scratch up the pipe when you pull it off -- it will likely be stuck pretty good. The Euro AMP kit has a replacement gasket that is sized to fit the new, metal piece that connects to the water pump.
Removing the Y pipe made a huge mess. So much for having the system drained... Note that the gasket, on the tube that connects into the water pump fitting, gets replaced. The Euro AMP kit has a new one, properly sized for the new, metal fitting. Don't scratch up the tube when getting the fitting off -- it will likely be stuck on pretty good.
Last edited by GerbilEngineer; Dec 26, 2025 at 06:07 PM.
Look on the right side at the rear, above or behind the starter. Pretty sure you have to remove the starter. It drains the other side of the block.
It's got to be hiding behind the starter as I can't see it. That would also align with the approximate location of the one on the left side. I really don't want to take the starter off, even if it is just two bolts. I wouldn't even be considering it, if it weren't for the glittery coolant. I pulled the water pump and it spins nice and smooth, with no shaft play. Doesn't rule out water pump bearings, but less likely. Top two other options seem to be head gasket debris -- both normal from install, and bad from degradation -- or somebody dumped a metallic stop leak in the coolant. One other possibility that I saw mentioned was a metal coated plastic water pump impeller that was shedding its coating. None of them are particularly good. I'll probably pull the pump apart and see what it looks like and then just plan to have the system flushed when I am done. Yes, I could do it, if absolutely needed, but it's messy and time consuming and paying someone is probably worth it.
Let me just say how my dealer did it when they replaced my pipes and water pump. They never removed either drain plug in the block. They claim they ran water through the system once they got it back together, drained it at the radiator, then refilled it with coolant. Seemed like a half-a?? way of getting it done to me. Next time it's due, I'll probably leave the plugs in, drain the radiator, fill, circulate, and drain and fill at least two or three times before putting coolant back in. You're doing a great job! Hang in there! and thanks for the great pictures and updates.
FWIW on the oil cooler gasket, as a dealer tech i've never seen someone replace one, nor have I seen one leak. Can't hurt to change, but I would not let it slow you down.
The coolant has a longer service life than the components will last before something else leaks, flushing it all out is overkill. You routinely get enough new additive in there to protect the very few moving parts, it's fine.
2017 F-Type R, EuroAMP cooling upgrade install
