after about 3 weeks of running bad it finaly thru a code to let me know the #2 coil was miss firing. pulled the car in the garage changed the coil. now it will not start, it turns over it has fuel(40psi) and spark but will not fire up.
could this be a crank sensor? if so where is it located.

 

after 3 day of setting and on a tip from my jag mechanic I changed out my 2 month old AutoLite plugs for a set of NGK plugs. it finally fired up, seems it was completely flooded.
on a side note those AutoLite plugs I pulled out looked like they had run for about 50k. ill never buy another set of those, not even for the lawn mower

 

They may have encouraged "bore wash" (see other threads about what it is and how to fix).

 

is mine an engine with the Nikasil liners?. bore wash kind of makes sense given the quick start up and shut down.
the car was produced in the 1st half of 2002 but im unsure of the date. i had read somethings about the liner in the past and was hoping this car was beyond those issues.

 

All 4.0 S-Types can suffer bore wash (though it tends to be fairly rare), regardless of nikasil.

Only way to know whether you have nikasil (not that it probably matters by now) is to find the engine number - see the existing threads for where it is and how to understand it.

 

As JagV8 mentions Nikasil is a separate issue. This is another reason to go with the 2003 and up cars. More so if you have a V-8.

Bore wash is when the oil is washed off the cylinder walls and you no longer have good piston ring seal. This results in little to no compression. So you had spark and fuel but not enough compression to get it started.

When Jaguar updated the 4.0L to the 4.2L one big improvement was the installation of piston oil squirters. These are small tubes that aim oil under pressure to the underneath of the pistons.

This does two vital things. First is gives very good piston cooling which is mandatory on any supercharged engine and Jaguar released the STR when the 4.2Lbecame available.

Second the oil under pressure splashes off the underside of the piston and onto the cylinder wall continuously. So even with a very short start and stop sequence the cylinder walls are always bathed in oil. Without the squirters the cylinder walls are splash lubricated and it takes a while for the oil to get splashed about enough to coat the cylinder walls.

So if you think you have bore wash there are two ways to get the car started. Keep cranking the starter with your foot to the floor. This shuts off the injectors as if the engine is flooded. It can take a LONG time cranking too. You probably should hook up a battery charger and give the starter some rest time every once in a while.

Second way is to improve piston ring seal. Take the plugs out and squirt a teaspoon or two of oil in each cylinder. This will be much quicker to start but it's not all that easy to pull the plugs either.

What I do is floor the gas pedal get the engine cranking and have someone shoot a bit of starting fluid in the fresh air intake to the engine. The starter fluid lights off real easy so you have a much higher chance of getting it started.

As you found out once the car starts you are out of the woods and should be fine. If you had Nikasil then the lack of piston ring sealing becomes permeant and the car gets harder and harder to start until it won't start anymore.
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thanks for the great feed back guys.
in fact my wife was the one who used the first method to get the car started. as stated I put the new plugs in the night before. I tried to start her up but apparently gave up to soon. this morning I was all prepared to call the tow truck. the wife went out twice in the morning trying to get it started with the mind set "in not going to pay a mechanic (its her car you see, and I just dumped a ton of cash in my Jeep so this bill would have been hers) she called me at work to say she cranked the crap out of it and it finally caught and started.
thanks again

 

A repair that is free is always good!
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