Finally I have this thing parked in the garage. It had been a week short of 3 months since I left it on the dock in Belgium, once it cleared customs in Sydney it went straight to a local workshop for some much needed work where it had been up on a hoist for the best part of 4 weeks.

It's been an expensive month, between the import costs and the work that's been done, i've just spent considerably more than what I originally paid for the car!

List of work done, in no particular order...;

- Wheels refurbished, straightened & painted
- Mickey Thompson Street Comp 255/35R20's fitted
- All new bushes in the front lower wishbones (from ZF/Lemförder)
- Polybushes in the front upper wishbones (first X350 ever to get these AFAIK)
- Polybushes in the rear wishbones (the front bush only, upper & lower, ditto as a first for the X350)
- New Tie Rods
- New Track Rods
- New Swaybar links front/rear
- Fitted a thicker/stiffer rear sway bar from the 08/09 XKR-S with Polybushes (first ever again AFAIK)
- New couplings on the driveshaft, as a preventative measure (parts from the S-Type, not "available" for the X350)
- New rear mufflers & tips, to replace the collapsed original ones.
- Premium Slotted rotors from R1 Concepts, same as the STR ones.
- EBC Yellowstuff pads front & rear, & new handbrake pads.

Also fitted a 1KG fire extinguisher to the drivers seat, and some heavy-duty tow hooks front & rear, in preparation for putting the car on the track, at the Snowy Mountains 1000, and the CAMS NSW Supersprint Championship

Put the car on a local dyno, primarily to check the AFR's after changing the mufflers, and to see if it would be worth doing a MAF tune, as I mentioned in GT42R's thread, we decided its not worth it for now.

Then I took it to the local drag strip for a shakedown, unfortunately it was stinking hot and the car suffered very badly with heat soak and a bit of overheating. I couldn't better my time in the UK (did a 13.323 @ 105.87) but it showed up that the cooling system needs some attention. It's pretty much overheating when crossing the line at the 1/4 mile. Which is not good, especially considering it'll be going on a track with corners, and the 1000m (5/8 mile) sprint.

So I'll have to pull the radiator & check that it's not blocked up in the bottom part of the core, and i'll probably need to put in a new water pump, thermostat, & change a few hoses. It all looks original on the cooling side, so 9 years & 100'000 miles has to catch up eventually...

In addition, 34by151 is looking into means of fitting a secondary cooling fan to reduce the heatsoak, hopefully we can get this sorted soon, it will be a much cheaper option than going for a Killer Chiller, and should be enough to solve the heatsoak problem for us.

It's amazing what a change in climate can do to a car...

So what's next?

Next weekend is a driver training day at Wakefield Park Raceway, where we have the chance to run around the track with an experienced instructor, and there will also be a couple of chassis tuning experts on hand to give advice. I'm looking for some feedback on how the XJR handles with all the suspension modifications. I'm also curious as to how the new brakes go on the track.

On the Sunday at Wakefield is a Supersprint round, which i've also signed up for.

And then in November it's the SM1000. Hopefully the cooling issues can be addressed before then.

If anyones interested i can go into more detail about the suspension modifications, a lot of it will also be applicable to the STR. The guy who did the work sets up race cars as his main business, was very interesting what he had to say about the XJR and it's suspension.

Long story short, the chassis of this XJR is now as tweaked as it can get without ditching the air-suspension.

Just glad to have the car back, but also frustrated that there's still a fair bit to be done before it's at it's best...

 

Sounds good! I can only imagine the costs with shipping a car around (not to mention the worry!)

 

Are these the rotors you're talking about:
Premium Slotted Rotors

I need front rotors as mine are warped. I have been researching what would work best for me. I found a post that talks about slotted and/or drilled rotors being excessively loud. Have you noticed any increase in noise with these?

 

Good luck with the racing. Any pictures or does it still look stock from the outside?

 

All sounds good Cameron, but expensive too.....

I'm sure you'll keep us updated and add pics too when you can.

Glad you're reunited at last

 

I don't have any experience with the R1 Concepts rotors, but I do have the slotted/dimpled rotors on my '04 XJR and I can't say I like them for everyday driving like I do. Yes, they look very cool! But every time I step on the brakes, I hear this "grind" kind of noise. It's not very elegant. It's was great on my 964 (911) and my Ducati, but certainly not fitting the XJR in my opinion.

I'll be going back to the plain rotors next time around.

Mark
'04 XJR w/118K miles, 70K of which are MY miles.

 

The Snowy Mountains 1000 will be covered by speedweek.com.au

For Aussies this is on SBS1 every Sunday, otherwise can be downloaded from the website after it is broadcast

If i can get away with it ill also have in car footage of the Snowy Mountains 1000, not sure if the camera will be allowed though

Cheers
34by151

 

Yes they are the ones. Can't really comment about the noise yet, haven't even done 100 miles with the new brakes fitted yet.

Looks stock on the outside. I'll try to get some photos today once I wash all the rubber off the back of the car

 

I have posted the Fan Mod here with pics
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...90/#post836479

Cheers
34by151

 

Just re-read this post, I'm lining up some preemptive suspension\bush changes since my car is 11 yrs old now.

Particularly interested Cambo in the rear sway bar change... I've checked out all the parts in the JEPC, they look identical which is great news, but whats the thickness of the XKR-S sway bar? I think I remember reading that the standard is around 17.5mm?
Did this make a noticeable difference? Lastly, looks a bit of a pig to replace, am I right?

 

Have a look in the suspension subforum, I posted up all the different swaybars in a thread there. The XKR-S one is 19mm.

Officially you have to completely drop the rear subframe to change the bar, but my guy was able to do it just by lowering it on the bolts and feeding the bar through. Total PITA to do though.

I had bought this rear bar back when I had the Quaife LSD installed, the idea was to fit it while the diff was out of the car, 2 birds with 1 stone but it didn't arrive in time & I had to wait. Honestly it's an expensive exercise to just do the bar on its own. If you have the diff out you've done 3/4 of the work.

I think it made a difference, but don't forget my original bar was rusted and thinned out. And adding the polybushes & new tie rods in the back also would of helped.

P.S. The poly bushes in the front upper wishbones have started squeaking

 

Ya every car Ive had with those did the same thing. It is a shame you can't get grease nipples at that location.

 

Interesting point re the polybushes - did you put any grease on with them? The set I recently purchased were supplied with a poly grease which I am hoping will stop any squeaks.!

 

poly's have a special grease they use, but it too will wear off and squeak eventually. The hard core track guys take them apart every year to re-grease.

in the miata world, we used to drill and install grease zerks into the arm ends to be able to regrease them. You have to be careful about placement, looking at full suspension travel.

..oh, but then we're talking about sway bars here - are the mounts Al or steel Cambo? Might not want to weaken aluminum by drilling them.

 

Some people favour synthetic marine lower unit grease for poly bushes.

Very thick, very waterproof.

 

I soaked them with a PTFE spray and they went quiet.

 

Cambo
About 18mths ago I purchased Kit 153 from Polybush. I moved house and lost them, now I've found them again and was planning on fitting them. The car has done 170k+ miles and the bushes are knackered. I think I also purchased some other bushes as well, Lemforder I think.

Any hints or tips you might have will be welcome.

Dave

 

The polybushes get noisy and require periodical lubrication...if I had my time again I wouldn't bother with poly.