I've always had performance cars my whole life, my first car was an 84' RX7, sort of like an XK8, rear wheel drive, only 2 seats, lighter weight, a rotary engine...it went like a bat out of hell on the back roads, faster than my experience so far with the Jag. My last car was a 95' Buick Roadmaster ( think the better knwon Impala SS ), with a Corvette Engine.....Complete opposit of the RX7....BIG, HEAVY, Luxo Mobile, with when worked on with the below....oodles and oodles of HP & Torque, I put all new Bilsteins and Hotchkiss Lowering Springs and Cop Tires on it...but I'd never brag it handled like a sports car....but with the below work, I could lay a strip in a cloud of smoke and give a solid chirp in 2nd gear, and a slight one when it hit 3rd.....I'm not in any way a mechanically gifted guy, but I watch a lot of YouTube videos, and read the forums to learn what I can, and can't do without special tools...Other wise I bring it to the shop. Tools like expensive shock and spring compression tools don't pay off to buy on your own.

I never thought I'd own a Jag, I had the RX-7 as a twenty something year old, the Roadmaster when the wife said " you need to get something you can put babby seets in...how about a MiniVan...I kringed and said there's gotta be a better solution" and now the Jag, that the teens can either find their own ride, or ride one at a time.

However, upon getting a really good deal on an XK-8, and the past work ups I've done, I'm a little dissapointed to read that there really doesn't seem like there is much you can do with these cars to " soup " them up a little. I've done quite a bit of researh on the Jag Forum. And seen posts saying - Whell you can clean the MAF - Manifold, new Synthetics, new O2s get the lattest ECM Flash from Jaguar...Spend a couple of grand on getting a new exhaust put in for a few more HP....One forum member said unless you want to swap the engine out or do many thousands of dollars of $$$ of custom majour work like velocity stacks....that there isn't much you can do ??????? WTF !!!

What about things like I did to my Impala like lower temp thermostat, 3.73 gears, new Posi, ECM flash ( not a customized $ 1k flash..std ) 3.5" 3500 RPM torque converter, overgapping the spark plugs, headers of some kind that are worth the investment....None of these things would really make that much difference alone, but added up, turned my "boat" into a tiresmoker with pretty dammed good back road handling...For you guys that have had these cars for years...If you had to do it " all over again " with a budget of 2-3K...what would you do ? Don't go tell me to buy an XKR, I've got my XK8 and I like it, and don't have the extra 10K for one anyway...I'm not cheap, but want results worth a reasonable investment...Advice Please

 

You had an RX7?? I have Lusted after one of those since Forever!! I am so Envious! I would have added it to the fleet which I've driven the wheels off of! HOOWEE!

I fear no matter what you do to your Jaguar it will Never stack up to your past rides. They were built to a completely different end purposes for entirely different markets.

Welcome to the forums from ElinorB.
(';')

 

Welcome aboard.

 

Thanks for the welcome...Re they were built for completely different end purposese for diffferent end markets, comment...That's the whole point of joining a forum, taking a base car, with potential, spending time and money and love, and making it what YOU want, the RoadMaster was basically a Cop Car / Impala with leather seats...However- shorter gears, higher speed Torque Converter, headers, flash the ECU, a POSI rear end, cold air intake and a couple of other tricks...made this into " My Car " kick the rear end out whenever I wanted, gobble the highway up when I wanted to punch it...Loads of Fun...The one mistake I made though...spent more money than I should have maybe customizing it, then one day got rear-ended...The other jerks insurance company would only give me book price...don't want to make that mistake again...We sink money into our car as " good investments " for our grin factor, baby them, sink love into them, wax them...talk to them..dream of them...if the " other guy " hits you, and totals your car...sorry sucker, you ain't getting any of it back...book value - thats it...3 years of dreams and busted knuckles and credit card charges down the drain...don't go over board..I keep telling myself this...but seem to get sucked down that path anyway.

 

Welcome to the forum XK8CAT,

Good to have you with us at Jaguar forums and thanks for the great Intro.

Follow this link https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xk8-xkr-x100-17/ to the XK8/XKR forum for help, advice and information. The 'HOW TO' thread at the top is a good place to start for info on regular issues.

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Enjoy the forums.

Graham

 

Welcome.

There will be a way to do what you want.

Back in the day, "upping" the V12 was deemed to be limited, but with a bit of this, and some of that, mine always seemed to have a slight edge. NOT a barn stormer by any means, I agree with Elinor, but just that "edge".

The electronics driving the modern internal cumbustion engine are limiting what we motals can do, in MY opinion.

Now the mighty V6 S Type is just fine for me/us as Jaguar made it, my how times change.

 

Welcome to Jaguar Forums XK8CAT,

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Enjoy the forum.

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welcome to the forum- enjoy!!

 

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