Progress has been exceedingly slow because I only have an hour or two a week to work on it, but the V12 engine swap in my 83 is at the half way point. I've made modifications along the way in hopes of avoiding some of the typical problems these cars have.

I've removed the A/C (it's a convertible and I live in the north, whats the point?) and changed the Lucas alternator to a Delco 78 amp. I'm also removing the mechanical fan and replacing it with electric ones.

I did take pics of what I've done so far and will post if anyone is interested.

 

show the pics! :-)

 

I"ll post them Monday

 

Here is the car, an 83 XJS with 28,000 miles and a blown engine:










And this is the replacement engine:

 

Very nice! It's great to see someone take such interest in fixing a car like this when most would have scrapped it! Do you know what happened to engine #1?

 

When I got the car ($1495), nobody knew what was wrong with it. I found water in the crankcase, so I pulled the plugs to do a compression test. When I filled the radiator, all the water came out the plug holes. As I've removed the old engine I found numerous problems. The waterpump was seized, there was several small coolant hoses that were split, the radiator was blocked with leaves, and there was a white powder-like substance in the bottom of the hoses which I'm guessing was probably stop-leak.
Rather than spending a lot of time pulling the engine apart, I found another motor from a 49,000 mile motor ($100) out of an 85 that had a small engine fire. The burned hoses and wires were no big deal because the ones on mine are intact. But as long as I have it apart I'm making a new fuel injection harness out of teflon wire.

 

Great stuff Jamey and thanks for the pics.......project looks well on and I'm sure you'll have a nice ride at the end of it.

Please keep us updated and share the experience all the way through.......we're here for you if we can help as you know

 

So here are a few more pics I took this morning. Slow but steady progress.

I've removed the airpump and air tubes, then tapped and plugged the intake manifold holes with set-screws. Yes, I know the head and block look corroded, it's actually just crud that I will wash off once the intake is bolted into place. I didn't want any moisture getting into the cylinders.

 

So I've got my teflon wire, connectors, shrink tubing and soldering iron...now I just have to build the fuel injection harness. I just find myself looking for reasons to do other things...lol!

 

Keep us posted Jamey.....maybe a vid of the new ride up n running too?

 

yay wires and euro headlights!!! I rarely ever see them except on mine.
I have alot of respect for you , this is the kind of car most people put a chevy 350 in and you are doing what it deserves instead. if you had the extra money I would've said you should do a manual conversion while everything was out but it will still be an awesome car anyway.
nice work!!
the intakes look cool and you got a sweethear deal on that old engine, you are gonna have a nice car when its all said in done for really not much money, it's just the work you are putting in most people aren't willing to.

 

IT LIVES! I poured a little gas into the intakes and it fired up for a few seconds! I haven't tackled the wiring harness yet, it's hanging on a knob waiting for me, so I guess it's time to start on that. I bypassed the AAV valve and plugged the intake manifold. I won't be using the car in cold weather anyway and even if I do it's easy enough to work around.

I discovered the oil cooler lines need replacing, they aren't leaking but the outside shell is cracking so I might as well replace them. I'm thinking of just having a couple hydraulic hoses made up with the same fittings rather than buying factory lines. I may relocate the cooler if anyone has any suggestions as to where a better placement for it would be?

 

thats great!! As for the oil cooler ..no idea, but i wouldn't put it somewhere that sacrifices getting better airflow to it than the radiator. The V12 has more problems associated with running hot than not being lubricated well. You think there is room to mount it on the front of the cross brace?? I know the PS line runs there but maybe if you made some brackets up...itd had the airflow down there all to itself.

Are all your brake lines green?? This seems weird to me because I thought they were all just coated whatever the color the car is, but mine being BRG i wouldn't know if they are normally just green anyway.

 

Yes, all the brake lines are green as far as I can tell. The underside of the car is undercoated and the lines are covered. As near as I can tell they are original.

 

were those intake parts you were talking about made by spectre??

I went to 3 different stores today and saw them at each. The cheapest was pep boys and most expesnive was autozone.
advance and pep boys had these generic brand plastic baseplate things but i have no idea if they would fit. Pep boys had a Spectre brand one that cost alot more but it was metal. I hope the metal one fits but i need to do some measuring and go back.

 

I can't remember if they were Spectre or not and I haven't had time to go back and check. They were plastic and I wondered if they might be better at resisting heat transfer then metal. Either way I'm sure it will work better than stock!

 

there was stuff on them i cldnt tell if they were plastic. The all looked chromed, so they may have been.

the baseplates were gray plastic but the spectre one looked like aluminum

 

I guess I need to change the title on this thread. Yesterday I fitted the new injector harness and after a little timing change the ole' girl fired to life! Unfortunately I had to shut it down almost immediately because of a hole in the oil filter. But she's ALIVE!!!!

 

This looks very familiar to me.
Good call on removing air injection, did that few years ago, a lot less clutter on top of the motor. I gutted my air pump, so now it is just a pulley for one of the belts.
Who are you gonna pick for electric fan kit, there are two guys on ebay that make them? I built mine out of old BMW 5 series fan, but it looks like crap.

 

I removed the airpump entirely and changed the alternator to a AC/Delco. At the moment I have the A/C pump off and I'm not sure if I'm going to put it back on or not. It's a convertible and if the weather is hot I'll just have the top down anyway so it seems like a waste and the engine will run cooler without all the A/C stuff.
I'm going to buy a 16 inch 2100 cfm electric fan from the local parts store and use the original shroud to mount it. I'll probably upgrade the aux-fan as well and put them in tandem.
Right now I'm trying to smooth out the idle. I know the timing is off and I'm pretty sure a few of the plugs are oil fouled from the oil I put in the cylinders when the engine was in storage.