Love your ride, great job!

What offset are your wheels?

 

Underpressure, have you considered removing the heat trapping plastic engine cover and placing in a Eurotoys' low temperture thermostat?

 

slideshow801 - Forgestar wheels are custom made. I could email them and ask them what offset they used for my 8.5" wide fronts and 10" wide rears but I do not know. I just told them the width I wanted, and they took care of the rest. And they did a damn good job too - its pushed out to edge of fenders, yet stays just enough insude to have zero rub or bump issues.

bfsgross - engine bay make-over is next, I have some ideas in mind that will be shown in the future once done . For now, I am leaving the cover on to hide the unsightly hardware that came with the intake elbow. As for the lower temp thermostat, I did not see its benefits worth the theoritical risk some people said have occured to them in various forums (mostly in Mustang & Corvette forums) as I researched the topic in which people claimed lower temp thermostats made their cars run rich. If I knew someone to be able to tune the ECU on these cars right, I would be doing a lot more work for performance gains (including 3lb pulley instead of 1.5lb)

 

A lower temperature thermostat only lengenthens the time an engine takes to reach normal operating temperature, not lower it! Once it opens, say at 170*, the coolant will still circulate and heat up to the "standard" or normal operating temperature that it is designed to run at. The only way to run cooler is to increase the cooling capacity. A lot has to do with the ambient temperature also. But as many have found out, a malfunctioning cooling system can still overheat on a sub-zero day.

 

I think all wheel specs would be stamped on back of wheel

 

I run a low temp thermostat on my STR without any hiccups. Like what Cat Aman Do said it just allows you alittle more time before reaching normal coolant temp. The other benefit is that it cost less than the OEM thermostat.

 

For those interested in genuine new style type R badges, see the link below. Once the link is dead, the username of the seller is doctor_jaguar. My only complaint is that he is located in Haifa, so shipping was super expensive. I could have probably saved some money by taking more time to shop around, but the fact they are genuine/new made me go for it.

JAGUAR XF XFR XK XKR SUPERCHARGED R TRUNK BOOT WING BADGE EMBLEM NEW GENUINE | eBay

 

Dave from Jaguar in Georgia (formally Nalley Jaguar) has been providing the larger XFR "R" badges to STR forum members. We spoke yesterday and will be contacting me shortly.

 

When David from former Nalley Jaguar sent me my three second generation "R" badges, they were all ready to put on with double sided tape already applied. If any members here just want to waltz into their local Jaguar dealer's part department and do this themselves, here is some help...

Product Hierarchy:
XF Range
EXTERIOR FITTINGS AND SUNROOF
BADGES AND MOTIFS
BONNET/FRONT FENDER MOTIF
XFR
R version
From VIN S20753
C2P22603 - Badge


Obviously you will not need need pieces #5 and #6 (to be honest, I do not even know if you need #4, and I am away from my STR to look closely at it to determine if you do).

So just take this exploded diagram with you with the hierarchy info above, and put it on via double sided tape

Or alternatively, you can just write down the parts number from the picture below and take that to your dealership with you

 

That does look really good! I'm not a big fan of the wheels themselves, but you pulled it off pretty well!

 

Yeah, that car looks sick. I just got one and can't wait to star modding it. I am not sure where to start as I have a couple of maintenance things to take care of first. It looks great in white!!

 

Thanks, the cops seem to like it too, as I've been pulled over twice this week lol. They must think big wheels = drug dealers. Not me I'm just a boring attorney lol

Post pics of your ride and ask us anything about modifying your car. We all have stories of our trials and errors so you can learn a lot here!

 

Old thread, just stumbled upon it, worthy of a revival... Gorgeous car!

I recently got a 2002 S Type 3.0 V6 and love it. The last road car I owned that I really "got into" was an MGB I restored over 20 years ago. Since then it's was beaters and family wagons until the Jag stumbled into my life.

The 400hp of an S Type R keeps calling out to me.... it would be pretty much your car in black - beautiful job mate!

 

Where's "UnderPressure"?

 

Thanks for the kind words eggman! I'm curious if your user name is after the Beastie Boys song "Egg Man?" my friend's father had an MGB when I was a kid and I always had a spot in my heart for it, and still do.

bfgross - I'm still here and do a quick check daily! I've just been too busy to participate because I started at a new firm and have been slammed with work, plus some personal issues I am trying to work past. I had to change one of my HID ballasts over the weekend and meant to do a write up with parts number but I had so much to do over the weekend that I just switched it out without taking pics and doing write-up .

Once I get past all the current craziness in my life I will be back and more active again!

 

eggman - where in canada you located?

underpressure, your STR has really fueled my desire for a set of 19" forgestars... BAD!

 

That is a really nice 03 STR.

 

@GT42R: I am located in Vancouver.

@ Under Pressure: Eggman actually comes from the fact that as a kid I had an egg shaped head hehe (started as eggboy). Later in life I became "egghead" which was fitting as I ended up working in the technology sector. Once I had kids I graduated to eggman.

Regards the MGB... My father worked for British Leyland. When they closed their facilities in North America there was a bunch of parts they got super cheap. My dad brought home crates of the stuff and it turned out we had a near complete racing engine for an early 70s MGB (and a few racing suspension parts). I bought a 1972 MGB beater, stripped it down and we built it back up using the racing parts. We never got to a restoration of the body parts or paint, so it looked like a demolition derby car. While the speedo was a lil inaccurate I am sure, I topped it out just under 130mph. At those speeds it felt a lot more like a Cessna in the turbulence wake of a 747 than it did any sort of car, but it was a ton of fun to drive. I eventually sold the MGB to fund buying race cars. My daily driver became a V8 station wagon running on 6 sometimes 7 cylinders, but it was capable of towing a race car up and down the west coast

More than 20 years later I recently came into an '02 S Type on a whim.. My wife and I were down to 1 car (Subaru Outback wagon we bought new in 2000). I had been driving whatever cheap car came our way for a few years and my most recent "luxury beater" had died. My Dad called me and said he found an S Type that was a borderline write off. There was no way the dealer was going to be able to sell it with the underlying accident damage it had. I told him not to go near it, but he called me back and said he bought it for $3500. I went to the dealership with the mission of forcing them to take it back under the pretence that my 87 year old father was not in a position to make a car purchase decision. However... as soon as my butt hit the ivory leather seat I fell in love with the car hehe. I ended up having to replace both sides of the front suspension and get the frame jigged back into shape, but I knew a place that was reliable and they did a great job on it. I've been picking away at the little things wrong with it, but the car is actually in very good condition. Next project is plugs, coils, imt o-rings etc. I am hoping that fixes the misfire and at that point drive "like new".

It's been a blast back to my youth... owning a car as an "enthusiast" rather than something that was cheap or free and has power windows and locks . But now that I have an S Type 3.0 V6 I am really drawn to the S Type R... these really are "gentleman's cars", I love the clean look of yours. And I love the idea of a 400hp V8 in a luxury sedan. The wife.. not so much

egg

 

@Under Pressure - what % you've tinted your windows?

 

Great looking wheels make a statement