This popped up in my market place feed. Somehow the algo knew I'd be interested in this. It's apparently a Maserati Quatroporte IRS.

Clearly Jag based with a few notable changes.
Here's what I see...

- Frame reinforced in many areas
- Remote Bleeders
- Vented rear discs
- seems to be some sort of articulation in the trailing arms.
- seems taller with more travel
- Hubs look much more stout

 

The handbrake pads look much more accessible too. Appears only about 2200 of those cars were made from 1979-90, so not a very common rear end.

 

Rob Beere Racing has vented disc conversions as well as Easy Bleed (remote) bleeds system. I wonder if he got the idea off Maserati.

 

Lamborghini used Jags rear suspension set ups too. Typical F1 mentality. Gotta copy from the best.

 

I was very surprised when an 86 Maserati Quattroporte showed up at my local self serve junkyard. I recalled this thread, so I took the rear end today. Observations are the same as icsamerica above, but I also noticed that the calipers have a spacer plate, very much like the other vented rotor conversion kits out there. The wheel bolt circle on the Maserati is smaller than the Jaguar, so Jaguar wheels will not bolt to it. That's probably fairly simple to change hubs for the Jaguar parts. It will be interesting to compare to the Jaguar IRS.

 

Boy, that looks like the mother of all cool upgrades...looking forward to hearing how it goes!

 

I have made a few measurements, and the cage mounting point width is the same as an XJ cage ( Jaguar made the IRS in 3 different widths: Series 1 E Type, S Type/420, and Mark 10/XJ6/12 and XJS), the inner fulcrum shaft to the hub carrier shaft is the same length, so the wishbones should be the same length and the hub carrier shaft to the wheel flange face is the same as Jaguar. I have not measured the distance between the two inner fulcrum shafts under the differential.

The wheel bearings are different sizes from Jaguar as far as I can tell from Rock Auto, so I am not sure if I can adapt these hub carriers to a Jaguar hub. It will probably take pressing them apart and spending some time with a bearing catalog. Worst case I can redrill the flange and put the studs on a different bolt circle. The Jaguar is 4.75" and the Maserati is 4.5" bolt circle.

The differential has a large amount of backlash, so it will need to be changed out or rebuilt. It's a 3.54 limited slip unit. That ratio combined with a 3 speed automatic ( the Chrysler 727) and 4 x 2bbl Weber carbs might explain why the Maserati was rated at 8 mpg city and 10 mpg highway!

The radius arms are adjustable for length, there is a threaded portion and a jam nut under the rubber bellows, very similar to a tie rod end. I'm guessing that was just a fine tuning to allow for body build quality variances?

 

THANKS, I was wondering about that and those adjustment can be used to manage and correct thrust angle.

 

I pushed back the bellows to see the threads. To a very limited extent I suppose you could use it to adjust the driveshaft U joint angles too. Although Jaguar used the mounting feet bolted to the side of the differential to adjust the upward pitch of the pinion. I forget the numbers, but I think there were at least 3 different angles depending onto the cars. I remember E Types, S Type and XJ6's are all different.

 

Interesting. Who's gonna be first to bolt this up to an XJS?

 

What are the real advantages over the Jag version? Perhaps the reinforcements are the only thing I can think of, but would mostly come in handy if the car was producing high torque and horsepower, like a chevy swapped XJS.

 

For me the reason I took it was the vented brakes and strengthened hub carriers. I intend to put this under my Daimler DS420, and with 6,000lbs to stop I wanted all the brake I can get. The limo has a history of the hub carriers cracking with the extra weight, so a strengthened version will be an advantage for me.