George - Thanks for sharing this video and explanation. I would love to see him do it this way on a future vehicle. I have no issues at all being proven wrong and standing corrected. I think it could be a big time saver for many who want/need to do the same thing, just seems like a very tight squeeze to do it this way. Nevertheless, it does appear someone's SC heat sink is off the car in the pictures.

 

Perhaps now we can put to rest the myth of having to remove the SC in order to get the aluminum coolant pipes installed. Unless, of course, one is servicing the SC or have some reason that it has to be removed there is a way to get the aluminum pipes in without going to the huge expense of a SC removal.

I realize, of course, that this is going against the grain of accepted perceived procedures in that the bottom bolts are not torque down to spec's but then again one has to question when the last time that torque wrench was last calibrated and is the element of experience good enough to ensure a proper fit.

Well, my view is that an hour's wage time to do this installation done by a professional Jaguar mechanic who has done this a number of times,with nary a whisper of a complaint , is good enough for my book given the benefit of having aluminum piping in my engine.

Of course, this is a choice for each individual to make. My point is that to categorically state that this cannot be done is not correct.

Fortunately, for our world, whenever someone says it can't be done there will be someone out there that says, oh yes it can. As Fridtjeof Nansen said, "Difficult takes time, the impossible takes a little longer."

Like everything else in life one weighs the pro's and con's and comes to a decision that is comfortable and acceptable to oneself. But, please do not shoot the messenger.

 

Euro Amp is out of kits that include the aluminum pipes, thermostat, waterpump, etc. Does someone else sell a "soup to nuts" kit for the SC 5.0? Got a link?

 

Are they getting more in? I was slow to buy....,

 

Try RKX Tech. it's where I got mine along with the oil cooler and water pump pipes.

They are a great company with excellent products and great to deal with. (No affiliation whatsoever)

Pipes are $109.00 now and if you are interested you can also get the water and oil cooler pipes.

https://www.rkxtech.com/products/rkx...r-3-0l-5-0l-sc

 

Don't see the prices going up?
Here is a quick search and there are 115 ads on EBay currently selling these. Around $55 for the pair. I think they are selling like crazy too.

Search Results for Aluminum Cooling Pipes
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I realize that there are many pipes on EBay as several of my friends here have purchased them there and they are perfectly fine.

However, I purchased mine from RKX and when that pipe was compared to two sets purchased off EBay it was very obvious that the pipes from RKX were much better finished.

Does this make a difference? Of course not. They both are functional and that is what's important. Perhaps all of these pipes are coming from the same source I really do not know. I just try to support an established reputable business whenever possible and if that means I spend a little bit more so be it. I know that I will be well treated should a problem arise.

When these pipes first started arriving they were north of $200 wherever one purchased them. Now they have been reduced substantially and that is good for us as I believe this is a critical modification to all JLR engines.

 

Highly unlikely for any fatigue failure - these operating temperatures are not very high. The loadings would be due to expansion and contraction length changes (and don't forget the attached pieces are also moving). Going from 80 degrees F to 230 degrees F is a negligible change.

In the day the other Ford V-8 went through these same growing pains on the 4.6L modular. It took a class action from the commercial fleet to prompt action (they prevailed but retail customers did not). The solution was to change the plastic water runners to aluminum. Yes, different geometry but similar application and concerns.

 

Now that I have a Jaguar and a Range Rover both with the Supercharged 5.0 I figured I'd tackle this on both.

My 2014 Range Rover has the plastic pipe up top. It also has a water pump replacement in it's service history. Makes sense, let's replace it. But here's whats strange

My 2011 XJ has an aluminum pipe up top. I cannot see the Y pipe for either. Also, I have inspected the water pump on my car and it is original, with a FoMoCo stamp. 67000 miles and it runs fine.

Did JLR install factory aluminum pipes in early engines? I can't see why I'd need one in my XJ. I've owned this car since before these pipes came out, so it's not that someone else replaced it before me.

 

Yes, on the early AJ133 V8SC the top cross-over pipe was alu alloy from 2009 to 2012 then JLR in their wisdom replaced it with the crappy welded seam plastic version. This was at the same time the AJ126 V6 was introduced, also with the crappy seamed plastic pipe. Then around 2017/2018 JLR upgraded the plastic pipe (and the lower one underneath) to a smooth non-seam welded version but still plastic. Dunno whether the lower pipe on the early AJ133 was alloy or plastic but I suspect it was alloy.
The earlier alu pipes are not interchangeable with the plastic version(s) so you can't "upgrade" the plastic ones to the earlier alu ones.

 

This is good to know. I'll run a camera down the front of the engine and check the lower y pipe. So basically, if that checks out, I'm good to go on my 2011, I'll just replace the rear crossover and call it a day. The 2014 will need work though.

 

Just had a peek and yes, the lower Y pipe is indeed aluminum.

Baffling how Jaguar decided to cut corners on newer models.

 

Andi,
You have to remove the water pump and until someone comes up with a pump that lasts more the 25-30k miles and on occasion higher, wait for the WP to fail. Big hint, remove the throttle body to install as you can get behind the WP to get the oil cooler into the back of the WP.

Randy

 

Obviously it was the bean counters seeing a way to save a few cents per car, no true engineer would have supported the move from alloy to plastic let alone really cheap plastic with a plasti-welded seam that was bound to fail eventually.

 

The cost savings was likely significant. I'm not defending JLR in this case but going from cast alloy or even aluminum to a dual orientation molded part? Not even a chance that this wasn't a significant BOM savings. The problem is reliability standards at JLR (don't quote me) do not exceed market expectations. I'd expect cooling tests to 100k miles to be normal, but accelerated life testing makes assumptions about working conditions. I'm making assumptions based on practical knowledge from their former parent company. I'm guessing at the speed they released this revised part that this was a quick and dirty conversion project.

 

The early Aluminum pipes from Jaguar also suffered plastic failures as at the top of the neck where it "crook's" a bit. There is a plastic coupler between the two Aluminum tubes. This fails and I think this was one of the reasons Jaguar redesigned those two parts and then obsoleted the original Aluminum parts. Of course as posted above it most likely involved a cost savings as well.

So even if you do have the factory installed Aluminum cooling pipes your still likely to have the same type of failure. It's far better to replace all that old design with the 2 updated Aluminum pipes. No plastic connector between the two to fail.
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My coupler between the two aluminum pipes on my 2011 was/is aluminum, not plastic.



Side note, the water pump on my wife's '19 RRSS just went out in the beginning of May and the dealer is replacing the two OE plastic pipes with new plastic pipes because they said they were leaking (coolant in the valley). The car only has 54K miles on it. Don't even get me started about all of the BS stuff the dealer tried to charge her for that wasn't needed, plus they tried to triple charge her on some items (coolant) and they tried to mark up every single part 200%+. Too much to type, but I got the bill reduced from $5,745 to something like $1,700 because I knew what I was talking about. In retrospect, I wish I would've just done the work myself, but my wife was sure that her worthless third party warranty (Concorde) would cover it. Wrong - they wanted to send the dealer a Uro water pump (which the dealer wouldn't install, anyway), they wouldn't cover any of the pipes, wouldn't pay dealer hourly rates, etc. I told her that she'd wasted her money on that warranty when I heard how much she paid for it (before I could stop her), but I was hoping I was wrong. Anyway, the reasons I didn't bring it home, order the new aluminum pipes, and do it myself are 1) she's paying for everything, 2) I don't have much free time, and 3) they gave her a new F-Pace P400 R Dynamic as a loaner (which I absolutely hate, btw, but it's still a $90K car). We've now had the F-Pace for a month and a half because some of the RRSS parts are backordered.

I might sell the RRSS because I don't have time to do the work on it like I did my XFR and she can't afford to fix everything that's going to go wrong on it (and I'm not going to pay for it, either).

 

Yes good point on that part as I was wrong about the plastic material. What fails on that setup are the rubber O-rings. Bigg Will had that failure very early on with his 2010 XFR and noted that in his large water pump change thread too.
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Yep, I did replace the o-rings.

 

just finished rebuilding my engine and the pipes are not strait fit
had to change the lower 2 seals because very big and cut if we try to force them to enter
then I had leak between the lower and upper pipe
there is a seal there to I have to remove and put original one that is little smaller