...but at least you'll get a nice purr from the kitty right? I took a look at the air boxes today and noticed the driver side box has a sensor attached to the horn. Where does this sensor once the horns are off?

Side note: my oil pressure gauge seems dead...doesn't move. any experience fixing this?

 

The oil pressure senders are quite trouble prone on these cars. To check the sender (It's at the back of the engine, in the V, behind the throttle tower) take the wire off the sender and ground it briefly, ie touch it to the block. Have someone watch the gauge while you do this. If the gauge bounces around, it's the sender. If the gauge doesn't move, it points towards the gauge or wiring. I know from other posts that the earthing on the instrument clusters are not great. Are your other gauges working ?

I had a leaking oil sender, which we replaced. The new one lasted 3 days and ruptured, spraying oil everywhere. The next one didn't leak, but also didn't work. 3rd time lucky. Hopefully I've used up all of the bad oil senders and you will get a good one if thats whats needed

 

I had a slightly different reasoning for removing the air pump and rails. There are no regulations in my state for a car that old (83) and I wanted to clean up the engine bay to make it easier to work on. I also removed the A/C and the cruise control.

I can now change spark plugs in about 10 minutes.

 

@Jagvilly

Just drill a hole somewhere in the body of the box and mount the IATS with a nut. Take the sensor to the nut & bolt aisle with you. I think it was a 10mm thread but not sure.

I rewired and mounted mine way back by the intake to the AAV to ensure good airflow, but I doubt that's really necessary, I'm sure anywhere on the box is fine.

 

So does a "Type R" sticker and a grapefruit-shooter exhaust!

 

I've used K&N filters but doubt that I'll ever do so again. If there was a horsepower gain it was minute.....one of those things where I end up asking myself "Do I really feel a difference, or am I kidding myself?". Never could meaure a fuel economy improvement, either.

In fairness, I suspect some the K&N air intake *systems* might work well. I've only used K&N filters; not the full air intake systems

Of course there's still the "they last a lifetime" aspect of K&N filters, and that's fine. Although, here again, in my case air filters last darn near forever as we have so little dust.


Cheers
DD

 

When I was racing stock cars back in the day, K&N sponsored us. We tested a ton of things on the dyno. K&N made no horsepower gains. Also after one race there was a sandy grit in the air cleaner. Never ran them again. Just ran their stickers. Also talking to our design engineers the surface area is much smaller on the K&N filters so they need cleaning much more often than a paper filter.

 

I took the passenger side air intake off. Gonna take the driver side horn off once I get the nut I need for the temp sensor to be moved. Can't wait to see if I get at least a little purr out of my kitty.

 

I'll soon be replacing that stupid air filter housing on the '96 4.0.

Very little is passing through most of the cylindrical element. The housing is well made, and it's a shame to see it go, but it's more complicated than it needs to be, uses filters that are a pain to buy, weighs a ton, and never quite removes and installs as it ought to.

I'll keep the sealed in-line concept, but the shop a few doors down tunes Focuses, and they are very good. I watched them hit 650whp on one of their cars just the other day. Intakes are one of their specialties, and they sell kits for Fords.

They've had a look at the XJS, and reckon they can probably do something a bit more sensible in there, without losing the factory's cold air intake concept. The intake may be enlarged or relocated, but it will still pull from outside.

Remember, a cold air intake pulls air from outside the engine bay... A heat shield and open element isn't the same.

As for the factory design, it just doesn't work properly. Normally, I'd not expect much from an intake alteration, but in this event, significant performance may be gained.

And I'll know, because it's going to be tuned and tested on a Dyno by people who do it every day. No BS "seat of the pants" feelings of power.

The results will be unimpeachable.

Now, the best compliment to an intake is an exhaust, but I'm really not keen on messing about with mine. It's in factory perfect condition...

I'd hate to butcher it, so some serious custom pipework and some bits with Borla on them behind the cats may be called upon if the gains are expected to be worth it.

These guys don't screw around, and we intend to see just what the AJ16 can do without surgery.

 

Getting back to the original thread.

I've fitted the Growler System.

They do add a little "very nice" induction noise during hard acceleration, and probably a little more power. In normal operation there is no added noise or power. Again, I do believe there is some small gain in power by the seat of the pants measurement. Over all I would say that the addition was worthwhile. The awful looking original air boxes are gone, & there is more space around the engine.

Overall, IMHO, the engine bay looks better, sounds better and the car goes a little bit faster.

They are well built. I bought the polished version.

The crappy castings of the inlet manifold become more apparent though. I am tempted to get the AJ6 company to rebuild and mill the manifolds for the better manifold breathing and get the 6l look with rebadging.

 

I wasn't sure where to tack my comment, however here is good as any of the other comments. There certainly were many opinions, pro and con.

I too have a set of polished Growlers with K&N's, and was given a good deal by the manufacturer. The gear went together easily enough, instructions were very good. I do like the look, and the extra space around the engine is a bonus. The induction 'growl' is nice, and it may just be me, but I believe it does have a slight better pickup under acceleration.

I hope to modify the exhaust slightly this summer, probably remove the rear cats and the extreme rear mufflers/resonators in favour of a larger tailpipe with better looking tips.

 

Not entirely sure why but the usual modification to the exhaust is to remove the centre box, not the rear silencers. I thank that if you took the back boxes off it would be way too noisy; sounds good with the centre box removed though.

 

Steve, Do you mean the rear Cat Converter plus the center Muffler, leaving the rear Resonators/Mufflers?

 

Yep, that's right although none of my V12s have been young enough to have cats in so I don't know about them.
Taking the centre box out frees up the exhaust flow a bit as well as making it sound good.

 

I'm so looking forward to My kit from Brian Welker, I too will be removing exhaust system to modify so do you have any mufflers, or are you straight out the back?.

 

remember the V12 is a massive air pump. so if you want improvement, it will have to be at both ends. Intake and exhaust the Growler alone will do just that.... Growl.... if you want your kitty to pounce do the exhaust. I will cut off all cats install 2 high flow cats instead and remove either resonator for straight pipe and put a couple of magnaflows on. I found that learning to weld has been my greatest advantage. A happy kitty likes to run

 

Gents
I simply disconnected my air pump as to free up as much plumbing in the V as I could, its just crazy how much is in there to to start with. The Air box’s I simply removed the fronts as shown in the pics, the car growls and definitely sounds good under throttle. Unlike most others I replaced the rear silencers with straight through resonators (Hotdogs) and the car sounds pretty good, one thing with mine it was never fitted with cats and the mid mufflers are quite small. The front off the motor actually sounds better and is louder than the exhaust. When I build motor(2) a things will be different.

 

I got three miles per gallon better mileage by cutting back the air horns to about 1 inch from where it comes out of main air intake housing. I think I gained about an inch or better air intake. On the left one I cut it just in front of sensor allowing the clamp. I then made two cuts in the firewall on top of radiator and run flexible clamped hoses out of engine bay so it gets a direct flow of clean air not from engine bay.. It sounds the same, but every mile saved is ok with me and it looks neat and tidy..

 

jeez, dont cut the air horns unless your car is a basket case, take them off or get a second set to hack up.

 

You're responding to a six year old post