I got a private message from a member here this week, asking about the motor in my car, which was built by Gran Turismo Jaguar. He was interested in having them build one for him as well. I told him that he missed the boat, because GTJ had changed their name and business model, and were no longer in the Jaguar performance business, but, that they are now making awesome flywheels for many performance cars under the name Fidanza Flywheels.

Responding to him made me decide to do a little web surfing, because I remembered that there was still a fragment of the GTJ website floating around out there. As they say, anything posted on the internet is forever (just ask the panic-stricken clients of the cheater's website, Ashley Madison. LOL) Anyways, along with finding that fragment I was looking for. I found something much better right here.

At first I thought someone was capitalizing on the GTJ reputation in order to sell a modern replica of Old Number 19, so I contacted them to get the true story. What I got back was a personal email from the legendary Lou Fidanza, himself! If you don't know about Lou, you owe it to yourself to do a google or wiki search for him.
To make a long story short, Lou has fired up GTJ again, and has started not only building carbon fiber clones of probably the single most significant E-type in history, but, he has also started offering performance parts for Jags again.

There isn't much info on their site about anything other than the car at the moment, but, Lou told me more things are on the way, and I imagine he will list those things as they develop. I also invited him to make a reintroduction post here and on jag-lovers, to let people know he's back in the business of making Jags go insanely fast. Hopefully he'll take me up on that.

Welcome Back Lou!

 

hi me again i think the V-12 jag will make a come back they are out there and cheap great design F1 smooth and i like the look people get when they look at it. great engine just to much crap on it modern computer can due all that in the size of a cell phone .with a little work a killer combo durable badass . iam buying and extra to play with iam a machinist and want a single supercharger a get a LT1 look FAST crank trigger and coil packs i will work the bugs out as i go .reuse the old into new intake etc. as i said before Jagzilla is neat i want mine to be like it but my own.

 

The problem with trying to use a single supercharger on this motor is the same reason that the really trick, long-runner crossover intake designs are so impractical for it, and that is: spark plug placement. For some reason, the engineers at Jaguar decided to put the spark plugs inside the vee, instead of on the outside of the heads. At least with the Pre-HE motor, the plugs are more or less vertical, whereas on the HE heads, they are slanted inward, so that you have to remove almost everything inside the vee, just to check, or, change the plugs.

Unless you plan to go with a Paxton, Procharger, or some other centrifugal supercharger, you'll find it easier, and more practical to use two smaller superchargers mounted on each side of the motor (not to mention that it looks cool as Hell...think Hot Wheels Twin Mill).

Here are a couple links to articles about the only one I know of currently in existence. I knew the original owner who built the car, Sadly, he passed away several years ago, and I nearly bought it from his estate about 6 years ago. It has been on ebay a few times since then.

Bradley Smith XJS in Detail

Jag-lovers - Jaguar World Monthly articles reproduced with permission
(3rd article down the page)