Not much progress to report - still just loading up the beast for weighing. I managed to get the AC condenser, supercharger intercooler and fans all ahead of the radiator, but don't think the XJR dual fan setup is appropriate for the narrow Mark 2 nose. I can't figure out how to adapt the 2 fan wiring of the XJR to a single larger 2 speed fan. In the XJR a control unit feeds the fans in series for low speed and parallel for high speed - which doesn't seem to lend itself to the 2 speed dual coil fan motors out there. I posted my dilema on the XJR site so hopefully someone there has a fix. One thing at a time.

 

Doug,

That interior is looking great! I really am impressed how you got that modern Jaguar center council to fit and look so clean! great job... You are one heck of a fabricator.....keep up the passion

 

This must be one of kind car , very neat job so far

 

Doug,
I think the car will be about 1500kg,
with about 800kg up front,

 

Hi Doug,
Are you putting ABS from xjr to your mk2 . Did you have to change the stub axel's? just can not get my head around it. Any info be great.
thanks. luckie

 

Doug may I suggest you take a look at Cooling Components Inc. shrouded fans. I have fitted these to a coupe of hot rods where nothing else would fit. They are powerful, quiet - far quieter than SPAL and very shallow. The maximum depth at the fan hub (deepest part) is a mere 2-5/8". There is a lot of 'mythique' about cfm with electric fans, but basically if the fan motor does not draw sufficient amperage it cannot produce the suck (or blow) in my experience. CCI requires a 70 amp relay. I am paranoid about cooling and these fans have been proven to be just the ticket.

Cooling Components: Satisfaction Guaranteed

 

Thanks for all the positive feedback, guys - it helps, especially at those times you're thinking 'why the heck did I ever start this stupid project.'

Luckie, the front ABS wheels from the XJR need to be machined to fit the splined hubs of the Mark 2 at the inner bearing seal where the water deflector is normally pressed on. The stub axles and uprights don't need to be modified except a bracket needs to be attached to the upright to hold the pickup. The black marker in the picture shows what needs to be machined from the ABS wheel. I'm guessing the machinist will also take a few thousandths off the hub surface to make a proper press fit.

Thanks for the fan lead, guido - those look like some of the nicer aftermarkeet fans I've seen. One of the tech guys in the XJR Forum recommended I stick with the OEM fan setup. He indicated that direct air flow through the narrow Mark 2 grill isn't necessary as long as the fans can pull sufficient air, and that's not an issue in this case. This also lets me avoid breaking into and modifying the fan ECU or adding relays and diodes to operate an aftermarket unit. Since I barely know what an ECU or relay or diode is this is a good thing.

The beast is off to the shop next week to tig up the exhaust system and be weighed. Those guys put my fabrication work to shame, so I also have them modifying the front door window frames to accept the ugly but functional XJR mirrors. If any of the hot rod folks know a good source for custom safety glass I'd appreciate any leads.

 

Last days I saw a Opel Zafira A 1997, here is the mirror attached to the window guide, in that way the front window could be opened as before.

What is the axle with in front an rear wich we have to achieve in a Jaguar MKII. As I saw the X300 has a front frame, if the suspension is not to wide the chassis rail could be adabted to take the subframe and the axle. I saw something like that on a MKII from Mr. Froehlich in Germany with a complete xj40 frontaxle. At the rear he did it but it was mutch to large and he made large spats, non very beautyfull. So at the rear it has to be shortend but what is the middle wide here? Wich offset of rims could be applied (ET 30?)

After chrismas I can take the MKII shell and X308 in my new garage, one car from Torino (It) the other from Vienna (AU), together 3500 Euro. At the end I had to look for a donor for the sliding roof or to get a webasto sliding roof in GB.

Best Pagodino

 

Doug,


Places like tirerack.com that sell tires also sell the tool to measure what offset rims you can fit and that is well worth the time to either buy that tool or go to a quality tire shop or tuner shop whom can tell you the maximum offsets to use to stuff the maximum width rims.


Also you do know that the MKII can use the IRS as the 3.8S like mine came stock with independent rear ends same as the Jaguar sports cars. You might consider that and if you want to go fancy there is a site I believe for cobra and others whom use the IRS found in Jags and use it for Cobras mainly. There are many whom have already designed full billet aluminum and super strong modifications for the IRS as well as complete new IRS cages and other parts that basically are a complete new IRS using the Jaguar but making it bullet proof for racing applications.

 

Pagodino, the beast off being weighed and I didn't record the f/r track widths I used - they're essentially stock however. I've never seen an XJ40 front carrier planted in a Mark 2, but that would offer some useful suspension, steering and brake upgrades if it's viable. Luckie is also diving into the front end and asked about mods to the stock unit.

With the XJR motor at proper height the oil sump just rests on the cross member. If you're building a street racer with solid or very stiff mounts you could probably get away without modifying the suspension carrier. I wanted the isolation of the stock XJR hydraulic mounts which are extremely compliant and let the motor move around quite a bit. This required reducing the height of the cross member by about half, from 3" to 1 1/2", to allow clearance for the sump. To provide sufficient strength it's important to use heavier plate on top, and the guy who did this for me added an internal vertical gusset down the center running from side to side. It's not a bad idea to use high strength steel here as this part of the carrier takes all the suspension loads.

It's not necessary but I opened up the turrets to provide clearance for longer coil-over shock units. As beautiful as the Mark 2 is it's ride and handling were marginal even 50 years ago. I'm hoping the longer 6" shock travel will allow for a longer and more compliant spring - probably a variable rate setup. This eliminates the original bump stops but these can be added to most coil overs. I'll let you know my corner weights and choice of coil-overs as soon as I get the car back - suspect I'll go with QA1's like Primaz, while you folks have Spax and Gaz in your backyard.

As previously mentioned I used an X300 steering rack since the XJR's was too wide. The X300 has the variable assist feature like the XJR which was the reason for using that rack. It has integral isolation bushings and can be hard mounted to the Mark 2 carrier.

The only other front end mods are uprated brakes and ABS. The Daimler guy is fitting S Type calipers from his donor car, Primaz is using a Wilwood kit and I went with AP Racing, all of which are a big improvement over the little Dunlops and solid rotors of the Mark 2.

At the rear the benefit of using the earlier XJ40 IRS unit is the tubular style lower control arms which are very easily shortened by cutting and sleeving. Primaz mentions the old cage style IRS of the E Type and 3.8 S Type, which has the benefit of a Dana diff that's indestructible plus the tubular LCAs. I wanted the ABS/traction control, integral sway bar and gearing of the XJR unit to keep the stock ECU happy. The downside here is the cast lower control arms which are difficult to shorten and weld properly. Other than that the carrier is easily narrowed, and the tub mods are fairly obvious. As I mentioned earlier in the thread there is not a lot of structure at the back of a Mark 2, so reinforcing and extending the box sections that will carry the new suspension is critical.

Hopefully these additional pics will help. Good luck with your builds.

Primaz, I purchased the cheap plastic Wheelrite contraption for measuring offset and checking clearances. I had to relieve the center of the jig to fit over the splined hubs but otherwise it was perfect for my requirements. I settled on a 17" x 7.5" wheel with 5" backspacing using 245 45 17 Michelin Pilots. If it doesn't increase the cost I plan to order up a single wire wheel from Dayton and mount a tire and try it at all 4 corners. This can then be my spare if I decide to go to 18" or a wider wheel or a different offset - have to get that fender clearance just right so everything looks, well, California cool.

 

Hi Doug
it all looks good,
let me know what it weighed can you,
as I think 1500kg,and 800kg for the front,
thanks,

 

Doug,


You might check again but I bet you could fit a 8" wide rim, which is what I stuffed into the 3.8s?

 

Hi, anyone has the jaguar world april 2013 issue and could scan the beacham artcle for me?
Italian.job67@gmail.com
Thanks pagodino

 

Finally hauled the beast home from the shop. The exhaust system went in without drama. The stock XJR manifolds fouled the Mark 2 footwells, but fortunately Ford used this motor in a smaller Lincoln and fabricated shorter manifolds for that application. This Lincoln used a normally aspirated motor so the manifold outlet had to be cut off and opened up to match the 2 1/4" pipe I used for the system. I'll take some pics when I pull things apart again to prep for paint.

Dave, you were spot on regarding total weight - dry was 3250 lbs or 1474 kg, with a 54/46 front/rear bias. I loaded up with front passengers and fuel (well, 3 50 lb bags of sand over the tank) - this brought gross weight to 3750 lb/1701 kg and improved the weight bias to 51/49 f/r. If anyone knows the weights for the stock Mark 2 I'd like to know - I believe the V8 is actually lighter even after all the accessories like AC and power seats and windows.

I saved the best till last - fitting window motors and door locks, along with all the fuse boxes, relays and harness attachments. Once that's complete we tear the beast down for paint stripping and priming. If anyone knows a good paint guy in the Northeast let me know. Happy New Year everyone.

 

Doug,
Nice work with the exhaust.
Got any images of the power window installation, particularly on the rear doors? I have played with it a little, and it seemed that there is very little space for the motor.

Lin

 

Great job Doug! I look forward to these updates. Happy new year.

 

Doug,


Great job, you are really making this a high quality build. I do highly recommend that you use the Por-15 metal prep then their Por-15 undercarriage paint to prevent rust when you paint the car. I did that on the entire undercarriage with the motor, tranny, exhaust, driveshaft removed when I did the paint and body work.

 

Hi doug do you have exact details of the front struts mods as there is no company in Ireland that does auto engineering that i can find, few machine shops said they could do it if they have measurements and details so if you get chance would you be able to send it to me . many thanks luckie

 

Luckie - I don't have any detailed specs for the front turret mods. The idea is to get enough internal clearance for a 2 1/2" ID coil-over inside. To do this the outer half of the turret is cut off and one with a minimum 2" radius is fabricated and welded on and then capped and drilled for the upper shock mount. I just asked the fabricator to give me a minimum internal diameter of 4" for spring clearance. The lower mount is simply a plate opened up with the shock bushing mounts below. Here are some close up pics that should help. Notice the one of the inside of the turret shows the original mounts for the upper suspension arms were retained. This would be a good time to add some modern hardware that allows for suspension adjustments without using shims (I believe Beacham does this), but I didn't think of that until after the fact.

You should also check with Primaz as it looks like he fit front coil-overs without as much fuss.

 

Not much fab work to show but making progress. I finally ordered up the coil-overs after a bunch of suspension measurement and some help from a QA1 tech. Ended up with linear vs variable rate springs - 14" at the front and 12" at the rear - and their 2-way adjustable shocks. These allow separate adjustment of both the compression and rebound stroke, so hopefully we'll get the ride we're after.

I'm still waiting on the shop for the modified front window frames so we started the power window install on the rear doors. Lin you were right there's not a lot of room in there - with the separate wing windows the main glass is extremely narrow compared to that of the XJR. After a lot of thought we decided the path of least resistance was to cut off the XJR window linkage and graft the Mark 2 mechanism onto the XJR drive. There's no turning back once you start cutting this stuff, so I was thrilled when everything worked out. Alignment's critical so my approach was to cut open the door shell sufficiently to fit the motor and mechanism and then fabricate the sheet metal of close it back up. Next the damn lock mechanisms!

Another car nut just purchased all of my Mark 2 spares including the engine, trans, calipers, seats, etc. He got a good deal on a lot of clean components and I paid for the Mark 2 purchase. Now if only I can figure out how to pay for the XJR and my labor...