This will be the full story start to finish updating it as progress continues.

Welcome to the thread where I will be completely changing the look of my Jaguar XK60. I know this is not for everyone and some will be pissed at what I actually do to this car. To you I say sorry but you may want to back out of this post now if its going to upset you that much. To the guys/gals who are interested, curious, or love the new stance look thats out there then welcome!

I will start form the very beginning, so if you like reading here you go. I bought an 07 Jag xk60 from Miami Florida, drove it back to Waterloo, Iowa in an epic road trip with my wife. Also celebrated our honeymoon on Daytona beach with the new ride. The compliments and people asking me about my car where amazing, made me feel really good about my purchase. Before I bought the car the previous owner had it lowered with H&R pro springs (2" rear, 2" front) which slammed the car for a really aggressive look. The tires were about 1/2" away from the fenders. There was no rub and it drove and handled amazing! The previous owner also put a set of STR 607 20x10 +22 offset rears and 20x8.5 +35 offset fronts with brand new NITTO NT555 G2 tires, 285/30/zr20 rears and 245/35/zr20 fronts. Now as much as I love these wheels there is two things I absolutely did not like and needed changed. First the front wheels had NO concave, completely flat and that just looks goofy to me. To look at the rear and see a really badass concave rim looked amazing, and then you look at the front and cringe on how goofy it looks. Second the front wheels were tucked in so far into the wheel well that it didnt match the rears that were just 1/8" away from the fender, tucking in perfectly. So I searched out to buy two new rims that match the rears. NOBODY would sell me just two wheels, they wanted me to buy an entire new set and that was not happening. So for now I bought spacers for the front to at least bring the wheels out to the fender. I bought 1.5" spacers which honestly looked good but where 1/2" wider than I should have gotten. It worked and it still looked good but now I could tell the front wheels just stuck out a tiny bit farther then the rears. I still had no rub and it drove fine with the spacers.

Here are pics of the car from the dealership.






Now that I got the wheel look as good as I can the next step was to mess with my headlights. The lens are 10 years old and show the wear. I tried a headlight restore kit and it improved it just a tiny bit, but still they looked like ****.

I own a vinyl graphics business for 10 years now and been in the vinyl wrapping industry for almost 20 years so I said why not just tint them. I bought Vivvid smoke headlight tint and had my wife wrap the headlights and tailights. She did a great job! I trained her well. lol This certainly make the headlights look new again, hiding most of the imperfections in the plastic housing and at the same time giving it an aggressive look. The headlight did however get a little dimmer from the tint so I bought some super bright 8000k (bluish) bulbs and wow it brought the headlights back to life!






Ill continue the story soon here....

 

What, that's it? Need more... Beautiful car!!!

 

So after owning the Jag for a month Im driving down the road in my city and I see what I thought was a DB9 from far away. It was badass and I got to the stoplight near it only to realize it was a XKR! I immediately did all I could to follow him, getting to every stop light and then losing him again. Eventually after 5 minutes of driving I seen his car pull into the mall parking lot. He was obviously trying to see if I was trying to catch him because he pulled into the parking lot waiting for me. Thats when I met the awesome Dan Henderson who is also on this forum. His car is a beast!! with double the horsepower mine has and with 22" wheels. He had the bumper I wanted, the front middle section painted black like I wanted to do since I bought it. I was pretty jealous.. We are still friends and plan to do some Jaguar meetups this coming summer. Here is some pics of that day.







BTW my love for the style of the DB9 is what got me interested in the XK. I couldnt afford a DB9, but I sure as hell could afford a XK so I went for it!








Now I have been a youtuber for awhile and I also follow many big car youtubers, Im actually friends with a few of them. I seen everyone doing the yellow headlight tint and fell in love with it immediately. Now I knew I would get a ton of crap for doing this. Locally with the police and also with everyone around me. Almost everyone hated it! But I didnt care, I loved the look. The funny thing is the headlights actually were green because my blue tinted bulbs combined with the yellow tint gave a green glow at night.

Now my car has been good at this point with no issues with the cops. Althought I have tinted windows (illegal) and no front license plate (also illegal) I have never been bothered by them, they just stare and then look away. The FIRST night with my yellow tinted lights a cop turns around and follows my butt for about 1 mile. For sure going to pull me over..... well I got lucky. He didnt pull me over and turned off for some uknown reason. This happened one more time a week later with another cop, followed my ***, then eventually backed off. Im not sure if my age and good driving record played a role into it when running my plates or if luck was involved. But I do know this. besides my window tint and no front plate the yellow film is NOT illegal. The yellow colors and green colors from the headlights are NOT illegal and NOT emergency colors. I asked a cop about it and he said he has no problems with that as long as you can see my headlights and tailights from 500 ft away.

Here is the pic of the headlights. As you can see in the pictures there is something in the headlights. My dumbass installed switchback daytime running lights into my headlights. Now at night these look amazing! In the daytime not so much, you can clearly see something foreign and stupid in the lights, just doesnt look right. They will be removed this year. To do this I had to put my headlights in the oven for 20 min then separate the lens from the housing. Ive done this with many previous cars, very easy to do and also very easy to ruin them if you dont know what your doing..

 

In the previous pic you can see two new things. My tire stickers and my painted front bumper middle section.

The tire stickers are from tirestickers.com and are the good thick ones that are permanent. I LOVE these! Just something about rolling down the road with these really sets them off.

The headlights btw are going back to dark tinted again, probably removing the yellow. That will make many of you happy im sure. lol

Now to the painted middle section. Let me explain why I did this. For one since the day I got the car at the dealership the first thing I said is I want to wrap or pain that middle section black. Then after seeing Dan Henersons painted black I knew I had to do it. But there was no way I was going to paint my nice bumper and I didnt want to spend money for someone else to do it.

Then came the day my wife and I were driving to our favorite place to get SUSHI, I love me some SUSHI! I let my wife drive as I always do when she asks. Well we pull into the parking lot and into the parking space and guess what... she slams the front end into a nice big nasty curb. She panics and looks right at me with a look ive never seen. I said its ok babe just back up and lets go eat. I didnt even want to look at the damage. I actually forgot about it until later that night when we got home. I went into my garage and yep, the front end was scratched really bad. No actual damage though.

So that night I decided to sand that part of the bumper down, mask off and paint the front end. After all I know sometime in the near future Im going to buy a bumper from a 2010 XK anyway.

Also in that last pic I have black stripes going down my hood in that groove. I did this just for fun as I have lots of vinyl laying around, thought it might look cool.

Now on to what this post is really about, the change to my car. The biggest project I have ever ventured into with any vehicle I have ever owned. In the past I have owned over 20 cars in over 20 years, many of them custom builds with body kits, wheels, and so on. Many first place winners at car shows and all types of vehicles from a slammed honda accord to a big wheel H2 hummer.

This is the big turning point for me wit this car as its winter and I really want my car to have the look I have been wanting all along. The stance look. The liberty walk/rocket bunny deep concave wheels, wide fenders, bagged look. To fund this project I added up all my cost to get it done all at once and raised about 12k selling many of my personal arcade games. Btw I am a big arcade game collector and also have a barcade business here in Waterloo, IA. I keep busy with many different businesses, and entrepreneur if you will.

Here is a shot of my other passion, my arcade games.



Here is my new printer, I sold my large 54" printer so now doing car wraps can only be done with prebought wrap as my new printer is only 30" and not big enough to wrap a car with.



And here is my frist step into what will soon be my most epic build. The quickjack BL-5000SLX.

 

So where do I start? This has been many months of planning. Many months of going back and forth with several companies to help me do this project. There will be many separate projects involved in this build that I will document for anyone who is interested or if you wan to do this to your car, im here to help or be the dumb guinea pig to do it first and maybe last. LOL.

Here is the look I am going for. Love it or hate it, its what I want. Ive seen many in person and I love the look. Just like when I was a kid and had lamborghini posters and at that time those were the coolest looking rides you can get, this new look to me is the most badass you can get. Its just my opinion so please keep the hate to yourself if you have a problem with it. I am NOT going to give my wheels some crazy negative camber (I am not a fan of that look).




These are the steps that need to be taken.
1. Fix all my old suspension. My ball joints, bushings, rotors and breaks are shot. They all need replaced, front and back. Replacing just the joints are near impossible without the proper tools, so I bought all new arms, tierods and so on. Just replace the entire part to make things easier.
2. Figure out the new wheel fitment, spacers or adapters needed.
3. Figure out the type and size of fender flares.
4. Completely gut the interior and install the sound deadening material throughout.
5. Find a company that will produce a one off custom air ride suspension. (air struts) with a really nice controller with presets and ability to control it with my phone.
6. Upgrade the audio system, front and rear speakers, sub and amps.
7. Wrap the car (I have already picked my design, a really dark digital camo). But this may change when the time comes to wrap it.
8. Remove the 07 bumper with the xk60 front body lip and buy and install a bumper from a 2010-2011. Or..... just convert the entire front end to a 2015 XKR-S. (might have to sell a few more games for that one, haha)
9.. I cant think of anything else, But im sure there is something I am missing.

So lets start off with number 5. The air ride. This has been an ongoing battle with 2 separate companies. Telling me one price then changing, then saying it cant be done, then saying it can be done and so on... What a nightmare!!

I have installed hydraulics on vehicles before so this isnt my first rodeo. Air ride is however different (and better in my opinion). After 4 or so months of back and forth emails I finally went with Airbagit and they are producing my custom air ride setup. The setup with the nice controller, dual compressors, 5 gallon tank and 4 air custom made air struts come to about $4000. Now since they screwed up the price and there was much battling back and forth the final price shipped to my door was $3200. The air ride setup is supposedly completed (building new struts) and will be shipped to me very soon. Its a direct bolt on kit which in theory should be easy to install but we all know how that goes, nothing is ever easy.

Now normally they will make your strut setup be at factory height when the bags are half filled. From there your vehicle will lower 3" down and 3" up. With my setup I made them design my struts to be the same as my lowering springs setup. My normal height is just above the fenders like it say with my springs. Then from there it goes down to the ground (literally) and up 3" for me to make it about 1" above factory height so I can actually drive over large bumps and so on.

Here is a sample of what strutbags look like in case you dont know. Mine of course look different as they will look more like our factory strut.



Here is the controller I bought for the setup. It has 5 presets. One preset is when the vehicle starts it rises up to the normal height. Another preset is when you turn the car off it will slam to the ground. The other 3 presets will also be whatever I set them too, one for driving height, one for lowered straight line driving height and one to raise it all the way up. You can also control each strut individually, or side by side, or front to back... which I will never do. Im not going to be filming in a Dr. Dre video any time soon.




After installing all the new suspension parts I will install the air ride setup, that will have to be the FIRST thing I do. I will need my factory wheels so I can lower it, test it and adjust it. Once my new wheels arrive then that when teh crazyness happens, cutting fenders, installing fender flares and so on.

BTW I do not spell check these post, Im typing all of this fast and just trying to get the story out, its not going to be perfect, Im no editor for a magazine or newpaper.. lol

 

On the fender flares. Are you going to integrate them into the fenders or are you going for the screw on approach.

 

Good question, this has also been a battle between my wife and I and some friends on what looks better. But here is my quick answer. Bolt on fenders, you will see the bolts on the outside, showing you the bolts like a truck fender flares do. The look of fenders molded/intergrated into the body look amazing but it is so much more work. Not only that but when you go this extreme there is a high chance of your tire hitting your fender by accident and your molded fender will be damaged pretty bad, ive seen this happen a few times in person. The bolt on is more my style im going with, the rougher tough look, not as modern and sleek as the molded look. Also if I screw up a fender its much easier to replace a bolt on, even if its a custom made bolt on.

In the past few years its been a huge deal with Wataru Kato (owner of Liberty Walk) creating this look. Taking brand new super and hyper cars and hacking up the fenders just to get this new look with bolt on fenders. Many people are pissed and disgusted with whats happening in the car community. But personally I love the look, im on the same side of the fence as Kato, its unique and aggressive. Yes you are hacking away at a perfectly good fender, but its nothing different then what many of our fathers did to their hot rods back in the day. Each generation has its stupid mods that are hated and loved by many. haha..

I hate the negative camber look so I understand how people feel about the liberty walk bolt on look. But I respect anything anyone does that actually puts lots of effort into their project regardless of if I like the look or not. Ok done rambling..

 

So as the air ride setup is being shipped lets move on to the wheels. For any of you with an XK and who have looked into fixing up your ride you quickly realize there isn't much out there for us. Especially with wheels and body kits. Everyone thinks this is an old man car, not to be touched. But just my car lowered with wheels proved everyone wrong at the last car show I went to. Over 300 cars and I am not one to brag but my car was one of the most viewed and loved. All day long adults taking pictures with it, kids going crazy and wanting to sit in it. I think they thought it was a super car or something. There was pimped out BMW's, Audi's, Mercedes and even a LOTUS! But for some reason mine got all the attention. Im not sure if its because nobody has ever seen a modified Jaguar or what the deal was. I can tell you that many people think its a Aston Martin, some even think its a Maserati at times, haha. But going to a gas station to me is an adventure, almost every single time I get asked questions about my car or kids going crazy over it. I love the attention as its fun to put a smile on kids faces when they sit inside, reminds me of my childhood sitting in my first Lamborghini.... even though it was a replica.

Anyways, I am getting completely side tracked here rambling on. I spent the last few months talking and forth with several wheel companies on getting a deep concave or big lip set of wheels with no luck. The options for us at 5x108 is terrible, there is like 10 different styles on ebay (some are cool, many not) and other sites there just isnt much out there for our bolt pattern.

So after almost giving up I found a few sets of wheels I did like that were NOT our bolt pattern. Now this becomes an issue because this means I have to use adapters and now my wheels may stick out farther than I want or need for the fenders to work.

I actually ended up with 3 different wheel designs I liked and funny thing is each wheel were designed for lifted big trucks with big aggressive tires. What!? A wheel made for trucks? This has to look stupid you would think. Well here is the two options for deep concave/big lip rim. You buy a custom made 3 piece rim for your car and spend $6000 and up on a set or you get a one piece rim thats $1000-2k a set. The custom 3 piece would be nice as you can get the made with your bolt pattern but holy crap Im not spending 6k! So this left me with a one piece rim and as of the last few months some styles have been coming out that actually look pretty amazing and similar to a 3 piece, the only issue is the bolt pattern is designed for a truck.

Doh! always something, I know have to include adapters into my build. This really puts a lot of stress on me to figure this all out. Now adapters/spacers are actually safe if installed correctly so thats not an issue, its just the negative offset wheels combined with adapters will make this tough to not stick out "to far"

I spend so many days and nights, weeks, months trying to figure this out. My wife thought I was insane just staring at pages of wheels over and over. But then finally some light came through and I got an email back from a company called Dropstars.

I messaged them at 10pm central time and in 5 minutes I got a reply. I asked them if they can make a custom set just for me with my bolt pattern. Well I got a response in just a few minutes, I was in shock!! I talked back and forth with this guy for about 20 minutes and he was going to look into it for me. Well then all of a sudden this happens.....

I looked at the persons name I was talking to and it was MYLES KOVACS!! To many here that name probably doesnt mean much but to me it was a big deal. This is the president and Co Founder of Dub Magazine. A company I have loved from my younger years with the lowrider culture, big wheel culture and more... I just could not believe it was him that was helping me. It really made my week thats for sure.





Now when it was all said and done he couldnt get a set with my bolt pattern, Im guessing the manufacturing process would have been a pain or they didnt have a blank rim to drill my pattern into IDK. But I ended up going with a company near me in Wisconsin called customwheeloffsets. These guys have been amazing to work with! They answer quick and gave me a great deal on my rims. I went with the Dropstars 654bm (bm stands for black machined). I went with 12" -44 offset rears (crazy I know) and 10" -25 offset fronts with the same brand new NITTO G2 tires I had on my other set of wheels. Tires rated at 186mph made for super/hyper cars even though Ill never go that fast, haha.

Here are the rims.








Now that the wheels are ordered it was time to get the adapters which I already had that figured out before the wheels were ordered. I went with a 1" custom made 5x108 to 5x5 with the correct center bore sizes. Got these from Adapterkings. With my tire calculator I will be 3.8" farther out then I was in the front and 4.2" farther out then I was in the rear. So in reality my tire will stick out from the fenders 3.5" in the front and 3.9" in the rear with the 1" adapters. Yes I know this sounds crazy, but its actually an average distance for the widebody fenders with the look I want.

 

To get an idea on my wheels sticking out compared to others the liberty walk GTR's wheels stick out 8-10 inches! Now thats crazy! Of course they sit flush in the fenders with the widebody fenders.

Now my current wheels are 5x120. The previous owner drilled out the holes on the rims to make them fit which is actually pretty common im finding out. Using wobble nuts they fit perfect and when tighted correctly will work 100% and be safe. My car drove more smooth than any car ive ever owned, even a brand new car. lol This set of wheels will be for sale after my air ride is installed if anyone is interested. I just need them for the configuration of my suspension, test and so on. The tires believe it or not have less than 6k miles on them, still pretty much brand new, never even seen a burnout. TPMS sensors inside, tire sticker lettering on one side, as well as spiked lug nuts if you want them. lol I will also probably be selling my nice struts with the lowering springs. They are the adaptable struts or whatever its called, that stiffen up when in Sport mode.

 

Lets move on to the wrap, what design will I do? This is almost as hard as the crazyness of cutting my fenders. There is so many designs I like, do I have something custom printed, do I buy a predesigned wrap? I will be wrapping the car myself which ive done several times on other cars so thats no big deal. So far I am leaning towards two options. A digital camo look, or a brushed aluminum look. Right now the majority vote is the digital camo the Porsche has in the picture, except without that weird design on the side of it. The brushed look I would either go brushed black or brushed silver.

I would also be wrapping the fender flares to match, this helps the look of the flares not look so akward, makes it look more factory? hard to explain.

I also was considering a white camo look of some sort, at least thats what my wife wants me to do. haha

If I go the brushed look I can use Vivvid vinyl which is so much easier and better to work with. If I go with digital camo I have to go with Metro Restyling camo which I believe is 3M and that's normally an issue because 3M has an issue of causing permanent lines in the vinyl when you re situate it when installing. But with camo it may not be noticeable anyway.

 

You'd fit in if you were driving in france. Yellow lights over there

 

Ok the last post on how far I am with the build. I used to work at a car stereo/tint shop in my early 20s so I also have experience with this as I have kept up with the latest technology every since. So.. We all know removing the factory stereo is pretty much not an option. So I purchased the AudioControl LC7i line output converter so I can convert my audio signals to a higher level for amps to be installed. This is the cheaper unit at $120 compared to the $300 units out there that for sure have been tested to work with our Jags. I think this one will be fine though.

First I have lots of stereo equipment in my garage and I might as well use it, many of it brand new. I have a 15" kicker L7 solobaric in a box that is way to big for my car. So I am removing my spare tire and fiber-glassing in a box using the spare time well as the new box. I will be about 1-2 cubic feet under the recommended size for this sub that doesnt matter as this will produce harder hitting bass and Im not going for sound competitions anyway.



Now I have to keep in mind that I need to fit two small air compressors and a 5 gallon air tank in here also. The air compressors will go on the left and right side behind the carpet hidden away. They will not get to hot because they dont get used much as they are high flow and two compressors instead of one. Plus with a 5 gallon tank the air last awhile when used.

My first step which I am in the process now is removing the interior door panels, seats and carpet. I am installing 50 SqFt of Rockmat sound deadener under the back seats, the floor, the doors and maybe in the truck if there is any left over or if I buy more. I actually fit my daughter who is almost 5 years old into the back seat by removing the seat cushion and installing her car seat. When I do this I am amazed on how much noise is heard coming through the metal floor where the seat pad used to be. Try it and you will NOT believe it, its almost like there is a big hole in your car and you can hear everything. I will solve this issue with the sound deadening material. I have done this every car I build up because its one of the most important things to me in my car, no road noise. For anyone who has not done this you are missing out big time. Ever been in a new high model BMW? You cannot hear any road noise, its almost scary, haha. I have been able to reproduce this with my tahoe, bmws, and even my H2 hummer with big tires just by using the sound deadening correctly.




The speakers were a hard choice because I know the rear speakers are very shallow, not much room. So I test fitted some old speakers and figured out what would work and then ordered my new ones. For the front doors I went with a kicker component set, 6.5" with 3/4" tweeter. For the rear I went with the shallow thin profile 6.5" kicker D-series 3 ways. I have not yet figured out the middle speaker, I dont even know what the hell is in there yet.

For the sub amp I am using a kicker 1200.1 that will blow my rear window out combined with that sub if I turn it up all the way, which I wont do... maybe.. The rest of the speakers will be running off of a JL audio 4 channel amp until I figure out what kicker amp to buy to match things up. All together there will be 2000 watts of power. Plenty more than I need as my factory was good enough, but I said why not and bought it all anyway.

Now for the big issue. The stupid battery. I had a new battery put in at the dealership, well it lasted not even 5 months, went bad and wouldnt charge. This seems to be an ongoing thing with our power hungry monster jags. So I got a new battery and it cost me almost $200, ridiculous! Well fast forward a few months later with our negative temps and guess what? My battery bulged and died. My fault as I forgot to plug my trickle charger in for 4 days, that combined with the cold killed it.

The place I bought my battery from (farm and fleet) said no problem we will replace it. Well after a week of waiting for my new battery they call me up and say sorry we cannot warranty it as it came back to life. The battery has to be completely dead for us to warranty it. This is total BS as I have it on my load tester and it works then goes dead, then works then goes dead.. so I have a **** battery. Now I am thinking of a way to totally FUBAR it so I can return it and it wont "come back to life" on me.

With all that said how in the hell can I run 2000 watt system with the already shitty electrical system in our cars? By using a big *** 30 Farad capacitor. In the past these have been the ultimate battery life saver for me. From stopping the headlights from flashing, the wipers from slowing down, to just making my battery never die. This will solve my battery problem as good as it can get. But.. I do know I will probably have to rebuild my alternator to make it push out many more amps so I can be for sure not stranded somewhere with a dead battery. Im already **** out of luck with no spare tire. haha..

 

I like the white camo too.

 

Well... I like some of the tinted headlights you did.

Is that your arcade room in your home?

 

Thats my arcade setup in the bar. I had a gameroom at home but sold almost all of it to fund this project. I can get more games later if I decide to put together a game room again.

 

Personal opinion, but the 'white camo' has sort of a 'Holstein cow' look to it, not something I'd put on a nice car.

 

lol! It sort of does! Now that design will never look right to me.. ***scratches that one off the list...

 

But it makes the car look like it really moooooooves!

 

Someone's got to say it....
Holy crap man! Where did you find a woman that will put up with your 'hobbies'?
I love my wife, but if I told her I was gonna take a saws-all to the Jag, she'd be kickin' my *** out the door!

 

LOL, its a compromise, I let her do what she wants... or I just say Im doing what I want whether you like it or not. As long as we still pay the bills and put food on the table for my daughter (ill starve if I have to) then my wife and I leave each other alone.