I have a beautiful 2003 S-Type R that needs a new motor, I unfortunatly threw a rod through the block. I do not have the skillset or money to replace.

 

Horrors! Sorry to hear that. How many miles when it happened?

 

ouch! Sorry dude...

 

Bummer! Another on bites the dust! Please post the mileage. There recently was a thread where it was being discussed how may STRs had thrown rods.
Yours may be #4 or #5.

I have started the rebuild of an 03 STR I purchased a couple months ago with 4 thrown rods, 2 more spun bearings and block is toast.

You have 4 choices.

1. Sell it as is for probably between $2500 and $3500.
2. Part it out.
3. Put a lower mileage 4.2L SC engine in it $2500 to $5000 + labor.
4. Rebuild the engine to new condition $5K to $10K + install labor if you don't install it yourself.

 

I Have A Motor If You're Interested..03 STR Parts Car Just Sitting Around...


EDIT: Curious As To Why You Posted If You Can't Afford To Fix..Are You Phishing For A Sale?..

 

Better Yet, Sell Me The Car And I'll Swap Motors.

 

Hi- the Jaguar S-type R with the blown motor (rod) has 124,000 miles on it.

 

My 03 hadd 117K miles.

Everyone wants to know what you plan to do with the car???

 

I do not know what to do with at this point...cost of repair is expensive and the small town shops are intimidated by the job. I might have to just sell and cut my losses

 

Let's talk! Likely going to have to sell

 

Post Some Useful Pics If You Could..

 

I don't need a 3rd STR, do I?

I am in the process of building up a 4.4L Rover engine for my 03 that has the blown engine. To build up this engine to my standards, it will will cost me $7K to $12K, depending on how much influence AVOS has on me. KB TS kit.

I decided that I would only put in a running SC engine out of another jaguar if it has less than 50K miles on it and I can get the maintenance history.
In general, it seems that low mileage engines command a lot of money these days. $4K to $6K.
I missed one with 46K miles that went for $2,600 on ebay. It was gone within a day.

In my 03 STR restoration, I will end up with more $ in the car than it is worth.

 

Yes but it's been a very entertaining build and I have learned a lot from your long story.

Do you think you can take to completion? It’s been a while already.
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Is it a lack of not changing the oil and filter on time? overheating problems in the past and showing up now? I am planning on selling my 3.0 to an STR but this thread started to make me double think the upgrade.

 

I am forming the impression with STR's that proper maintenance is only part of what contributes to the longevity of these engines. I am sure that "how" the owners drives the car makes a bigger difference in engine life.

Does the owner push the engine while the car is still warming up?
Does the owner floor the engine on a regular basis?

Using the car's power on a regular basis will shorten it's life versus a driver who baby's the car and seldom pushes the engine in the superchargers power band.

Besides getting maintenance records, how does one find out "how" the car has been driven during its life? (It is so easy and fun to drive STRs hard. It can become habit forming.)

This is one reason I purchased my first STR with about 10K on a new long block and rebuilt supercharger, and am rebuilding the engine on my second one. this way, I don't have to worry about blowing an engine with 100+K miles. I don't have to worry about how it was driven in the past. I know what I am starting with.

 

Hard to say but running the engine hard before it warms up is one possibility?

Since it always has been a rod that let go we might be heading towards replacing the rod bearings at 100K miles or so just for preventive maintenance?

I came from a Ford SHO and they were high revving engines with a 7K red line. If the rod bearings were changed at 100K it would never throw a rod. But the bearings that came out all had the top halves with the copper showing. The rod bearings on that car were only about $40/set and you could change them without doing anything besides dropping the oil pan. So a pretty easy repair.

Has anyone inspected the rod bearings on any of the STR engines that blew up? I bet it would be very interesting!
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Has anyone inspected the rod bearings on any of the STR engines that blew up? I bet it would be very interesting!

What rod bearings? There was nothing bigger than a quarter on bottom half of the 4 rods that broke apart in my engine. For the 2 rods where the bearing spun, wasn't much left of them but thin burnt rings floating around the crankshaft. The last 2 looked OK on inspection, no copper showing.

 

Well sounds like the rod bearings don't wear much at all.
Good to know.

That sure was a massive failure as I have never seen 4 rods go all at once!
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I'm leaning towards neglect and I'm willing to bet most are from oil starvation.

 

That or overheating somewhere in their past.

I had a Ford Contour V6 that spun a rod, but the only thing I could trace it back to was an overheat that occurred before I ever owned the car (found that in the dealership records after it blew up).

It started with a slight rattle that slowly got worse and worse until it finally gave up... probably 20k miles after a got the car and a good 10k after the rattle started.

There are too many of these AJ motors pushing 200k miles to think there is a real systematic problem and not a confluence of unfortunate events.