Hi all!

I've been scouring the forums and all over the internet to find out what my problem may be and I'm 90% it's a single injector but would like input from the community as replacing injectors is an expensive job.
I've got a F-Type V8S

I had a CEL come on while I was driving, car felt really lumpy and spluttery with little power(didn't want to test the power part too much), I manage to get home and thought maybe it was about time I changed my battery since I had the low battery warming for ages now. I thought perhaps electrical gremlins were creeping in
I ordered a new battery, fitted it and the car fired up just fine. Took it for a nice thrilling test drive... no problems.
Then about a week or so later I took it out again and while driving the same lumpy thing happened with the CEL flashing. So I drove back home, and have now subsequently not been able to get the car to start without a very horrible idle and with white smoke coming out the exhaust.
I downloaded some software on my phone, connected to the car via ELM327 and scanned the car to get the attached errors.


I then thought to try a few things (never worked on this car myself). So I took coil from Cyl 7 put it in Cyl 5 and checked the spark plug of Cyl7 as my plugs were all changed earlier this year about 1500 km ago, all looked fine. Fired it up, still the same problem.
I then with great difficultly managed to get Cyl 6 coil and plug out, swapped both of them with Cyl 1, fired it up and same issue.

So that's where I am right now, it's very expensive to replace the injectors so any guidance would be helpful.

 

Did the white smoke smell sweet? If so, your problem is likely not injector(s) but coolant getting into the combustion chamber.

 

No, it smells more like fuel.

 

No it's not coolant with what you described it's a classic injector failure with all the white smoke.

I just went thru this on my 2014 XJR and I will say I am still confused?
My car did the same thing. Came back sputtering and spitting. Plumes of white smoke from the exhaust. Multiple miss fire codes. Hardly running at all really.
After reading theses forums I found Jaguar generally will replace the entire side of the engine causing problems. So all 4 plugs and injectors even if your getting codes for only 1 or 2 cylinders.

I decided that since the car was at 60K miles and as you posted the labor to do the repairs is quite a bit. I would replace all 8 plugs and all 8 injectors just to cover all the bases.

Things went from bad to worse? After changing the drivers side (Which was the side that went bad on my car). The car started but again massive miss firing and much white smoke. I planned to do all 8 anyway so on to the passengers side! Changed the passenger side plugs and injectors and now the car won't start at all! Just cranks and cranks with out any attempt of the engine starting. Went thru a LOT of work! Verified spark on both banks, verified fuel delivery at the engine (Don't ask how I did this!). Finished up with a real pain and ran a compression test on ALL 8 cylinders. I did not do a leak down test as the compression was great on all 8 cylinder with only a tiny improvement when I added a bit of oil to each cylinder and re-ran the tests.

So now what? I had my tuner (VAP) and a Jaguar tech giving me advice and both of them said there was a good chance I had purchased and installed counterfeit parts. The injectors are around $100 each from Jaguar and I got a set of 8 for $300. They were In Bosch boxes and marked with what I thought were the correct numbers. Bosch is OEM supplier of Jaguar injectors so I figured I would go directly to the manufacturer of the injectors. Since both people were pointing at possible injector problems. I removed the injectors I purchased. I then sent my OEM injectors out to be cleaned and balanced. Weird thing about this is none of my OEM injectors showed any problems on the bench?? Yes some did not flow as good as others until they were ultra-sonically cleaned but all 8 were still good and in range?

Took a week or so to get them back. Now I reinstalled the OEM injectors with new plugs in all 8 cylinders. Car STILL did not start! Just cranked and cranked. Held the gas pedal down to shut off the injectors but that made no difference. Did not know what to do next and I tried starting it off and on over the next several days. Well what do you know but for some reason on the 3rd day the engine stumbled and started!! MASSIVE white smoked coming out of mainly the drivers side tail pipe. So thick you could not see across my shop. I have worked on cars for decades now and I have never seen an engine belch smoke like that and for so long! 15 minutes of revving the engine trying to clear the smoke out. Finally it cleared up and now the engine was running fine and maybe even a bit smoother with the balanced injectors?

On to the next problem. Got a check engine light for the drivers side catalytic converter. Low efficiency. Again both guys helping me pointed to the same cause. I had apparently flooded the drivers side cat with fuel because of the injectors hanging open. When the engine finally started all the fuel had to get burned up damaging the honey comb inside the cat. Jaguar wants $2200 for ONE cat! Removed the cat to take a look and no damage was visible? Replaced the O2 sensors since maybe they were damaged too? I don't know. Messed around with various things and finally got rid of the code. How I don't know! But I did replace a bunch of parts and drove several hundred miles.

So with this long sad story I would now recommend sticking with the expensive factory injectors. But I still can't understand how injectors go bad but then are OK. I mean I am running the same injectors that went out on me. Will they go bad again? I don't know. Why did they go bad in the first place? I don't know. Car has well over a thousand miles on it since with zero problems of any kind and it's driving just as nice as always too?

If your sitting in the drivers seat. The left hand bank are cylinders 2-4-6-8. The right hand cylinders are 1-3-5-7. So with your codes I would plan on replacing all 8 plugs and injectors.

Post back how it goes too.
Sorry for writing a book!
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Thank you for this long description, I've been taking it into account with the decision I made (more on that later).. but long story short is to clean the OEM injectors like you recommend.

The Jaguar parts guy sent me this, it's not the firing order but CYL layout. Can anyone confirm this 100% for me please.

 

Well I still get confused on this sometimes? Lot's of variation.

Here is what Jaguar has in the service manual;




Here is a simple one I copied off the forum.




Here is the worksheet from the service manual when I did the compression test on my 5.0L SC engine.




As I posted above what I use is when sitting in the drivers seat. The LH cylinders are even and the RH cylinders are odd.

Not sure I answered your question?
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Yup ok cool, so I was working on the correct cylinder then

The car is at the mechanic now having all the injectors pulled and ultrasonically cleaned!

 

Can you post where your getting the injectors cleaned?
When I did mine there was not too many places to choose from?
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Were you using injector cleaner every so often? Some people claim that regular use prevents injector sticking. I've been alternating between Redline SI-1 and Chevron Techron. I also try to use Shell fuel, as it is the only fuel my other Jaguar runs correctly on.

 

Could the grade of gasoline have anything to do with it ?

 

Anything is possible?
Yes I also used Techron and BK44. Did they help? Who knows but it's easy and not a lot of money so I did it several times. I never noticed any changes. I buy gas where ever and have never had any problems. I do use premium but I have heard of people trying to get by using cheaper grades?

One other suggestion is the injectors will come out easier on a car that has been run hard? I do drive mine hard and I race at a standing mile running about 175 mph each time. Did that help? Well maybe it did as I was able to pull all 4 injectors on both sides of the engine out by hand using the fuel rail as a handle. Did not require the slide hammer tool at all.
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