I have had quite a few high end luxury, sports, and off road vehicles in my life, and been on 1 factory race team, and many private teams. I have owned Rolls Royce, Audi Turbo Quattro Coupe, Euro Turbo Quattro sedan, Mercedes 2 & 3 series, BMW 3 series, Corvette, Porsche 911, 930, 928S Euro & 944 Turbo, Jeep CJ2A & Wrangler, Jaguar XKE, Triumph Spitfire, TR6 and Stag, MGA & MGB, and Land Rover vehicles) not counting all the Ducati, Yamaha, Triumph, BSA, and Norton bikes.

Being a retired Audi, VW, Porsche, Nissan, and Suzuki Master technician, I have been on and moderated several forums. This is the first forum, other than the off road forums, where folks are talking about cutting holes, modifying factory systems, replacing factory parts not even with like patent parts, and just plain hacking their vehicles in any way to get the results they want. I was wondering the reasons.

These methods do not help resale, and certainly not help these vehicles reach the status that their predecessors have. Is it that many Jaguar models tend to depreciate rather quickly(like the mid 80s Audi products), and people are purchasing vehicles they cannot afford to maintain; People not being satisfied with their automobiles performance as they came from the factory; Vehicle design being too hard to work on(which they aren't); or just a lack of respect for the marque like taking an old Ford or Chevrolet and stuffing any drivetrain, interior, or suspension in it. I have even seen Jaguar a few Jaguar XJSs with chevy V8s stuffed in them. Are they that common a vehicle in countries, other than the United States?

I really feel an AWD Jaguar with a Cosworth designed engine will be worth some money someday. In my area at least, the prices are already going up on cars only 12 years old, in good condition. When our dealership moved in 1981, we left 2 XKE roadsters behind the old building, that weren't that bad really, because back then they were worth more in scrap, than trying to repair them. The brakes were a nightmare, the carbs constantly needed adjusting, the cooling system was totally inadequate, and in the 80s, you couldn't find anyone to mess with the wire wheels. Now you can't touch a rust bucket XKE for less than $15000. We even sold a Ferrari Daytona convertible with a blown engine for less than $1000.

I am curious as to the answers this post receives. Don't get angry. I am just trying to see what kind of answers you are expecting from me. If it is modification and performance, like the off road forums, we can get real imaginative. If it is handling and performance, like a sports car forum, we can discuss mods, or if it is a luxury forum we can discuss restoration, and where to get parts for prices that are realistic.......Be cool.....Mike

 

I will admit to one hack or mod job, that almost every Porsche Tech has done. On a Porsche 928 5 speed car I gave the customer a choice when it came to how I could replace their clutch master cylinder. I could have followed the Porsche flat rate time plus 50%, because this problem almost as in 99.9% of the time occurred out of warranty. The Porsche method was to remove the brake master cylinder which was usually going to start leaking after dry bleeding it, while still making it almost impossible to get to the clutch master cyl. and ruining the brake booster a few months down the road causing you to need to replace both the brake master cyl, and booster, and the only way to remove the brake booster on a 32 valve car was to try and slip the left cylinder head off, or removing the engine. In the end this job would have cost the customer over $4200 combined in about 6 months time after replacing the clutch master cylinder. Or I would use a hole saw and cut a 4" hole at the bump inside the LF body structure behind the wheel, and get the job done in around an hour and a half which in my day was roughly $150 plus about $200 in parts and supplies. I would estimate that probably 75% of the 5 spd Porsche 928s running around today have had this done to them if they had a clutch master cylinder replaced. I would then replace the piece, and weld it back in, spraying an under coating on it so as not to cause any rust issues down the line. I have probably bought 9 or 10 928s from owners who were unable to afford the entire operation, and repaired around 40 cars after I explained what I could do for them. If you would like, I can also tell you how to properly bleed a hydraulic clutch and or brakes in less than 20 minutes by yourself, with only a $50 investment, that you could reuse on other cars.......Be cool.....Mike

 

Mrplow, I am one of those that have come up with a few ingenious ideas for the X-Type. The one that most have probably used from my list is the adjustable upper control arm. Personally, I think this should have come from the factory this way to give a little more adjustability to the vehicle. Not some fixed component.

The other thing that a lot have used of mine is converting the headlights over to HIDs. This isn't a jaguar specific thing. Almost every brand of vehicle has had this done on a decent percentage of the vehicles. As for calling it a hack, I would have to argue that. The car was designed around being able to operate with HIDs in the low(dip) beam location. All the owner is doing is a little modification to wire in the ballast vice having the factory ballast installed (which would also require the addition of another ground wire). You can get a good HID kit for $70 or spend $1400 on a new set of HID headlights where the only difference is a black box (ie, ballast) in each headlight. The rest of the internals are the same.

One of the "hacks" that blows my mind actually came from Jaguar themselves in how to remove the oil pan gasket. Their instructions included "drill a hole in the support mount for the transfer case to access......". This wasn't something that someone figured out in their back yard. I am sure if some looking around is done, the TSB that states this can be brought up. To me, this seems idiotic. But, it is also coming from a source that I would consider reliable and not trying to do something detrimental either.

The talk about modifying the transfer case is more a dream of a lot to try and get either a more liable car that can be driven harder or the desire to make the X-Type a true sports car. Why do people up the power on a corvette? Why do people lift trucks? This falls into the same category as I see it.

As for the other ideas floating around out there, you always have the few that want to create something rather unique. This is going to be in almost any car group out there. You just have to smile, see what they want to do and see if it will even work.

By no means do I take offense to what you are saying. There are some things that people do to their cars that I have to shake my head at. But, I have seen these sorts of things done to every model car that I have been involved with.

 

Hey, don't forget the "hack" to change T-Case fluid: drain, tip car on angle, fill until it begins to run out, replace plug, lower car, done... :-)
================================================== =
You dreamed of a big star
he played a mean guitar
He loved to drive his Jaguar...

So welcome to the machine

 

I agree with Thermo in that I can't really think of much that anyone has proposed that would fall into that "hack" category and actually be adopted here. There was a post the other day about someone wanting to do an inline fuel pump. It was more a question than anything. In the end it sounds like it probably won't be worthwhile to the poster for a variety of reasons and in the end it sounded like the poster probably won't do it. That seems to be what most of the stuff is on here. Every once in a while it comes up about putting in a Ford V8 or tricking out a Duratec V6 with a blower or turbo, but I have yet to see anyone do that and if they did I would think that would be some very clever engineering as opposed to a shade tree mechanic hack job. I guess I am just kind of confused about what you mean. Maybe if you could give some examples of what you mean I could wrap my head around it better. I find it hard to believe what is discussed on here is any different than what is discussed daily on virtually every other car forum.

 

With what I am hearing, there are a number of mods, that need to be done because of typical engineer stuff. Other than the off road forums I was on, I was the rebel modifying my car. Corvette and Porsche people are pretty much as a whole purists, that just like to do little things, and ask questions about fault codes.

I don't see much code reading on this forum, and what codes are being read aren't being interpreted for other components going bad down the line, that can't be diagnosed by a code.(restricted exhaust, vacuum leaks, clogged intake) What I am also seeing though is people wanting to go to rear wheel drive to get sportier, or other nonsense with a heavy sedan. I have already had that experience with Audi and the GT series in the 80s. We had an all wheel drive sedan. Granted it was a purpose built race car, that won 11 of 13 races the first year, with a supercharged 2.5 litre 5 cylinder engine, but we were only putting out about 2/3 the horsepower of the big teams from Ford, GM, Porsche(928), and Jaguar, and some privateers.

The following year, there were complaints lodged against us, so the sanctioning body added weight to our car so we weighed as much as the other teams(a lot of weight), like almost 500lbs. We won. They put us on narrower tires. We won. They made our intake inlet smaller. We won. They made our fuel tank smaller. We won. Finally at the end of the season, we were outlawed because of our AWD, saying we had an unfair advantage over the other racers. Our tires even lasted longer, because we weren't sliding all over the track. You can look up the story on youtube I think. It is called The Unfair Advantage, and you see a little bit of me, in the pits, working on the car. The guy with the long hair, weighing about 30 pounds. As you can see from my signature, I have filled out a bit.

I traded my 93 40th anniversary LT1 Corvette, that I had what I called fairly modified, for my 2007 AWD Jag. This wasn't my first rodeo, so I built the Corvette 5.7 Litre engine with twin free flow converters and open exhaust, the crank, rods, and pistons personally balanced to within one gram, 13 to 1 compression pistons, and high lift low duration cam, (because of our emission laws) a real cold air induction coming from in front of the radiator on either side of the grill, 373 posi traction rear end, and an engine that dynoed at an honest 434 hp at the rear wheels without the nitrous hooked up, because I only used it at highway speeds to mess with Vipers, and I didn't want to scatter over $6000 of Chevy engine, with a ZF 6 speed, that a friend made for me all over the table. The Corvette weighed slightly(by a hundred pounds) more than what my X Type weighs.

I traded it not because it wasn't powerful enough, because rear wheel hp is very hard to get over 400hp with, but because I was constantly having my a$$ handed to me, by guys in AWD WRXs, over built Hondas, and AWD M series BMWs and supercharged Quattro Audis, putting out probably an honest 150 hp less than me. The secret is TRACTION. I could not compete, and they all knew it. Now with the X Type you have a 3 litre 6 cyl with dual overhead cams, 10.5 to 1 compression, a 4 valves per cylinder engine designed by Cosworth, one of the great racing engine builders in the world, connected to a 5 speed automatic trans with a very capable sports mode and AWD.

It seems to me, that if I can get this little engine breathing better(more air in and out), do a nice balancing job, up the injector and fuel pressure, maybe taking the transfer case and differentials apart, and have the gears indexed and heat treated, this should be a more than capable turnpike cruiser, without messing with the computer much at all. It is probably running the ignition as advanced as it can for emissions anyway. I wonder how many of these folks complaining are running 91 or higher octane, like the manual says? That makes a big difference, with computerized injection and ignition. I have already noticed that the intake inlet and exhaust is very restrictive, and from what I have seen on various parts sites, the intakes could use a couple days of slurry going through them to open the runners and ports up.

The heads would just need to be matched to the intake ports, when the intake is opened up. They should already breathe ok enough. They do not publish a power curve or hp rating for this engine, but I imagine without putting any real strain on the components you could bang out another 100hp relatively easy with just these minor modifications.

I wouldn't encourage anyone to try the rear wheel drive route with this very luxurious wolf in sheep's clothing. Horse power going to just 2 wheels is not the answer, because this car was not built for drifting, or street racing. If they want a Jag to do that, now is the time to pick up an XJS coupe and stuff a 6 spd in it with one of those kits on the market. Prices are down. We have one a few hours from me, for sale for $2900 with a small block Chevy already in it. It is another heavy car, but it will get tail happy if you push things.......

Sorry for my rambling, but I am on disability now, and after a life of working on automobiles, bikes, industrial machinery, and military vehicles, and teaching automotive technology, and supervision, I love passing on what I know.......Be cool.....Mike

 

Mike, if you think there is something that we are missing in the way of knowledge, then please pipe up and give us some more info. Most of what I know has been learned at the school of hard knocks. If you know some tricks or can explain something better than what someone else has, then please, chime in. Most people here are more than willing to swallow a bit of pride to get more accurate information. I put in tidbits here and there to help explain why things are the way they are. Most of my experience has been with large power plants used for power generation. BUt, a lot of the basics like how to torque, why certain lubes are used, etc apply to the automotive world. The rest of what I know has been just curiosity pushing me to explore something new and to learn something I don't know about.

 

Here we have a supercharged turbo Jag X type. They had to put big wheels on it just to keep it on the ground.

 

Not a fan of BIG FOOT wheels, and the amount of body structure that was cut out. Other than that, I wouldn't mind to see YOU in that car. Around Gary and Chicago we have fleets of those rolling abortions.....UUGGHH!!!!

 

The "minor modifications" you mentioned sound pretty time consuming, expensive and probably beyond the expertise of most members here. If you would be able to do something like that and get another 100 HP out of our cars you would be considered a god on here. Go for it. I'm sure everyone would be hanging on your every word. That would be really cool.

There was a guy when I first started surfing on here named Racer X82 I think. He supercharged his car. As far as I know he is the only one that did anything like that. A lot of people talked about that kind of stuff, but he actually did it.

 

If I do anything other than the cold air intake, and exhaust, it will be when it is much warmer. Today I rubbed out the headlight haze. I guess the previous owner let it sit outside. I used rubbing compound first, spending about half an hour on all 4 of them. Then I used polishing compound for the same amount of time by hand. Then I got out the buffer, and buffed them with a glazing compound. Look like new. Then I got bored and went to Autozone and picked up a duplicolor brush on caliper paint kit, since my wheels show a lot of disc and the whole calipers. It may be a little bright for a white car, but all they had is red.

I had to beat my wheels off, so while the paint was drying I put never seize where the wheels contact the hub. Still while waiting for the wheels to dry, I made a bowden cable for my 928S's cruise control, since it is out of production, and I am not going to pay $185 to some pirate, who has a box of them. I replaced the vacuum actuator in the LF wheel well, and hope to test things when the temperature gets over 20 degrees. Then I buffed out the white on the rust repair quarter, so it at least shines, even though it isn't a perfect match. I will repair it correctly this summer, and maybe give the whole car a repaint.

My car is not a virgin, and it has different shades of white all over it. I may just paint her a polar white, like Ford had in the 80s. It has a wee bit of blue in it, and it makes the color just pop. Not much to do on my beastie, until it warms up, and I can afford new center caps and a beautiful shift knob.....Be cool.....Mike

 

Ford's bean counters made sure that Jag gave as a carfull of weakest links, all held together by some actually brutally good programming.

Actually all of our parts individually are quire capable of more, but when you weasel out too much 'more', whatever the next weakest link is will let you know.

The engine in Jag tune supplies 80-100 hp less than a reasonably tuned duratec...same damn engine. Yes, a decent port and polish will give you a decent improvement in seat-of-the pants, but there is no real hope for the exhaust. If you open it up enough to make a difference, the computer says,"Sorry!"

If you swap out the green injectors for the yellows (the easiest way to wake up a Land Rover Disco II), the computer says "Sorry!"

Slurrying the path is worthless...it doesn't matter how smooth and clean you make it if you can get air in and out!

I have no idea why the drivetrain is so inherently weak...although it is more than adequate for the poer of the existing drivetrain with a 2.5, the 3.0 takes it right up to the limit.

I think most of the 'real' mods you see here are to make the cars more reliable, or better handing...like Thermo mentioned, the factory non-adjustable control arms... WHY?

Hell, how much effort would it have taken to equip the cars with ST225 front calipers (even as an option) instead of the barely adequate ST215s supplied?

Anyway, working on these cars is reasonably fun, and often challenging. Like a Land Rover, you can't afford one if you can't spin your own wrenches most of the time. I rather doubt they'll ever really be worth much, they simply aren't concours material. When they are old enough, there will be enough parts floating around to do restoration, because we are keeping our currently low-valued cars on the road.

As to why we dream, the same reason that I wedged a 440 in a Dart, and late model hemi drivetrain in a first gen Dodge Nagnum, or a pair of turbos on a 3.0 liter mitsu in a minivan...it was FUN! Driven judiciously, that van would get close to 30 mpg on the way to the strip, running the AC full bore, then turn 12's all day long on a pair of slicks. THAT was worth the price of admission!

 

This thread has me baffled.

Not just because of the walls of text that are difficult to read...

No it's more that you have so much experience but find it odd that people are interested in improving or modifiying their cars, or keeping them going "on the cheap"

Yes some of the topics on here are oddball; RWD conversion, can I fit a Chevy V8?, or other random stuff.

But the vast majority are people who want to keep the the cars going, repair them in a cost effective way, or improve the features, function & peformance of the vehicle.

X-Types are cheap now (in the US anyhow) so they are coming into the hands of people who like to tinker. The earlier ones also have pretty high mileage so things start to break, and people are looking for help on fixing them.

Spend a bit of time with the search function and checking out the How To Guides & FAQ's, you'll find people who've rebuilt engines, swapped engines 2.5L to 3.0L or fitted the Lincoln version. People who have overhauled suspensions. People who have retrofitted missing options, and so on.

There is a heap of fantastic information on this forum, and some really impressive work done by knowledgable and helpful people.

Please post up examples of naturally aspirated 3.0 Duratecs making 340hp

 

Sorry for stepping on your dick Cambo351, but after 84 electroshock therapy treatments this is how I write.......They call it electroconvulsive therapy now. I had a great life, and now I am just having fun with what little faculties I have left. It's what I do. It drives my wife crazy, when she opens the toy box to park her Jeep, and she sees another toy, or something I am going to flip, so I can get another toy.

I must have landed on the wrong threads to cause me to make an observation about some of the insanity that you are allowing to take place, probably for entertainment purposes.

Cars, machinery, teaching, and steel mills were my life. I never worked less than 2 jobs at once, even though one was always part time. When I started out in the 70s, I got my taste for British cars, like the E Types and Rolls Royce while I repaired vehicles for a couple of motorcycle clubs, and the Jamaican mafia in Gary Indiana and Chicago. I managed to live through that, and accumulated a lot of friends and connections in business. Things are great. If you don't want me to play here just let me know.

wa3ra, if you block off one of the slits on a Bosch oxygen sensor, the computer won't know the engine is pushing a lot of air. You don't need to build a beast that will over tax the drive train, to pull a little harder on the highway. She just needs to breathe. Calipers and other mods are just part of the fun of improving what an engineer needed to compromise on, because of cost or time.

I do believe these cars will be worth something some day. Hell, we were crushing E Types in the early 80s, and look what is happening now. Even 70s and 80s Rolls Royces are going up in price now, and they were horrible machines.....Be cool.....Mike

 

My mom's Taurus puked it's motor, direct bolt-in was the 3.5 duratec crate motor, 290 hp. You'd need to swap some things around, but that would be a painless transplant. Water pump is a bit unusual, retrofit hoses right on the dealer shelves.


I have an AJ25, so I'm thinking 190 horses, not 240.

Plenty of rodders building 300-hp duratecs, though. Nothing exotic, parts are readily available.

 

LOL, I don't care that much about it. It was more for your benefit. Present people with a wall of text and most won't bother trying to read it. If you can use a computer, you can use the enter key and make paragraphs.

Welcome to the internet. Don't take it too seriously and you'll be just fine.

Everyone is welcome here until they break the rules. You did read the rules when you signed up? ==>> https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/n...gned-up-22253/

My opinion is that only the best examples, and i mean absolutely pristine, low-mileage, fully-loaded, highest-specification X-Types will have any collector value in the future. And there is no way they will be worth anywhere near the E-Type figures.

Just over 70'000 E-Type's were built, and it's a true classic, making all the "Top 100's" and given accolades like "most beautiful car ever made"

More than 350'000 X-Types were built, and it's been slammed by critics and was named "Worst Car of the Decade" by the New York Times.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my X-Type, I wish I could have kept it...but the reality is that the car was derided by many, and even Jaguar has tried to distance themselves from it. The X-Types replacement model, the XE, not a single mention of the X-Type in any marketing. What does that tell you?

Again, just my opinions... enjoy your car, make the most of it, like everyone else here on the forum does. Whether that's just looking after it, or wanting to jam a small block Chev in it...

 

So you're not talking about the "same damn engine" then...

Not much in common between a Duratec 35 (Ford Cyclone engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and the Duratec 30 (Ford Duratec V6 engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) apart from the name and the bellhousing pattern....

 

Mrplow58, seems like you are phishing for a response. That's fine. You seem,going by the first post a very knowledgeable man.

As such you may have heard the expression live and let live. Once a person owns the vehicle it becomes their right/or wrong to be a purist or *******ize what should/could have been a nice car.

Many examples are on here of both types. But I enjoyed the read,more so if you had used paragraphs. Keep up the good work!

 

I'll do my best to break up the wall of words. They may not be paragraphs, but I will split things up....I realize it is every man's right to do what they wish with their cars. I will maybe just comment on the insane members here, without making them feel too bad.

Yesterday was a very bad day for me. It was -4 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was not able to play in the garage. I had 3 grandsons to watch between the ages of 10 and 6, and I ended up watching some show called Spongebob Squarepants for 6 hours with them. There is no amount of psych pills(I take 2 handfuls a day) that will counter act that.

Sorry Cambo351 for the step on your dick comment. You should take it as a compliment......Be cool....I will stick around. If I find something fun to do with the engine, I will put it up.

Very bad cars really do go up in value, if they are well maintained. I can think of a few. Aircooled VW Bugs and Ghias, 74 to 86 emission choked lack of muscle cars, early 60s anything American, Trebants, fire trucks, and more. Hell...I even saw a less than 100 mile YUGO go for over $6000 at an auction last summer.

Be cool....Mike

 

I don't know. To each his own. Once the keys are in the owner's hand, then it's their car and they can do whatever they like. Many mods are something I would never consider decent to do to a car, big wheels, gold flake paint, and such. I'm more of a stock/purist myself. But, if somebody has a question I can answer, even if I don't agree conceptually with what they are planning to do with the car, then by all means I will share my knowledge.

As to whether it's "worth" doing something to an X-type or not, again, it's the owner's prerogative to do whatever they want if the feeling moves them to do so. For example, I have an '85 Dodge Diplomat with a roll cage, 4bbl, high lift cam and sure-grip. Why do that to a Diplomat? Because I already had the car, and why not? It's not worth much, so why not have some fun with granny's old car? Eh? At he end of the day, I do have an enormous amount of fun with it, all 4 doors of it.

Again, to each his own. My ideas for a car would be odd to others, so who am I to judge somebody else's tastes?