It is unfortunate that Jaguar has stepped out of the racing in the US. Would be nice to see a GT type running and even the sports car class. F1 went by the wayside and all they have now is formula e.

 

Just a few updates. Working on my headlights, changing them up again. This time removing the cheap DRL lights I installed last year and painting the entire inner housing black. I forgot to take a pic of the finished black but Ill get a pic of that later. I got them sanded and primered in the pic. I know what many of you are thinking, there will be no chrome or reflective shine in the light to help the headlights, well you dont need all that, they still perform the exact same, ive tested it.





The first step is putting the headlights in the oven, crazy huh! lol Ive done this with with a few vehicles when needing to separate the housing from the lens by heating up the glue. I learned the hard way my first time by having the temp at 350 and literally melting my headlight lens and warping it. So now I preheat to 250 and only have the headlight in there for 10-15 minutes. Works perfect and not hot enough to ruin any OEM plastic (it will melt cheap chinese plastic like from my LED DRL I installed). Just make sure your only using the bottom burner and the headlight is up as high as you can make it away from the heating element. Remove all the metal snaps on the housing, remove the little headlamp sprayers and then use a flat screw driver to separate the housing, it will slowly pull apart in minutes. Let it cool off and then you have access to everything inside.





Also a warning to EVERYONE with an XK!! Here is a pic of my headlight wires, no JOKE! All of the rubber protection from the wires was so brittle it was off and the wires luckily were not touching each other. I read somewhere about this issue with the XK before I bought my car and now I see it in person, its crazy my car hasn't been in flames. So I will be completely cutting, installing heat shrinking, and making sure its all reconnected with nice connectors. So it might be a good idea for you all to take out your headlight and open the large caps to see the wiring inside, just to make sure yours isnt as bad as mine. My car was in Florida heat most its life so that may be the issue, idk.





And here is my little model XKR. I wrapped it with actual car wrap, scaled down my design to fit the 1/24th scale. Its VERY obnoxious.. and I like it. LOL. I also added the large swan neck wing which I know many people hate, but I also like it and its my car. :P My local plastics place just got my 1/2" plastic sheet in today so I will pick that up this week and start on my custom front and side diffusers/splitters. They will have nice routed edges and look professional, at least I hope I can pull it off.

 

That wiring looks like the wiring in my 96 Mercedes C220. It was "biodegradable". What a ridiculous idea...I had to rewire the entire engine bay.


I hope my Jag wires are not like that.

 

It's from the UV rays thrown off by the lamp and maybe ozone too. Mine had brittle insulation as well but only on one wire.

 

For those concerned about melting their headlamps I've used 170 deg F for 15 minutes with good success. Read this thread for pictures and disassembly detail https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...adlamp-110636/

 

You could always copy this guys work...


Not sure if the juice is worth the squeeze though.

 

Ive watched that video, seems like too much of a mess for me.. lol..

 

Not much for pictures on the updates, been so busy with the car that I havent taken many pics. What I got done this weekend was change the color of the headliner to black (instead of the dirty stained tan). Gutted the entire carpet and seats out and completely sound deadened the entire interior. I installed the new wheel covers leather red/black cover and some red iodized paddle shifter extenders, they look and feel amazing! The new wing arrives on the 16th, its a 67" wide swan neck wing made for a new Nissan R35 but with my buddy making me new legs and leg mounts for it the wing will fit great. The headlights "were" finished, they looked new and amazing for a day until the clear coat decided to crack, so I will redo them again. Fender flares from Clinched still havent arrived but I was told rumors are they start shipping the first batch today.

I will update with more pics this week and the progress.

 

How much does that sound deadening weigh?

 

I was going to ask that too until I saw your post!

 

The entire box which I used on my entire car was 50 SQFT and I would guess it was about 30-40 lbs, heavy but not crazy heavy. Its not near as thick as you would think and it can easily cut your fingers so wear gloves when installing.

Here is the link to the exact item I bought.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rockmat-50-...lZnhH9&vxp=mtr

 

Was your XK noisy enough inside to warrant sound deadening? It's the first time I think it's been mentioned in a post.

 

Ok I have more than one answer to this question. First the sound in the car is really quiet and impressive compared to many vehicles I have had. Now where it was not impressive is when I remove the rear passanger seat pad to install my daughters booster seat. Yes she actually fits perfect in my car, she is almost 5. Once that rear seat pad is remove holy #h#t its terrible, so bad that everyone who rides in my car even mentions it. Now that is one reason I went with sound deadening but the most important reason is my 15" subwoofer is going to rattle everything and by adding the sound material it literally stops all the rattles (from the outside) and also makes the inside much quieter and makes the entire system sound better. Now this is if you install it all correctly. I have installed this on a few cars and the difference is so good that it makes you question why they dont use this quality material in the factory when putting together these vehicles.

 

I noticed when I went for my OEM muffler that with the little vanity cover on the hatch off that I got a ton more exhaust drone coming from the back with my custom exhaust then I did with it installed. Stock //R muffler was dead silent in comparison

Oh yeah, little PSA. Your oven rack is installed backwards (from post 82). Don't want the missus to pull too hard and wear something too hot.

 

So I just placed an order for a brand new beefed up 250A alternator since I will have so much stuff running the battery down on the already crappy battery issues we have with these cars. I have bought beefed up alternators a few times for previous cars but this is the only car I have actually read people saying its a bad idea, hmm.. not sure why. Its not overpowering anything its simply giving it 220 AMPS of charge and at a much lower RPM. Instead of having to kick in the RPMs to over 6k to start getting a higher output this one kicks in at 1200 RPM and below 1200 it idles at 110A.

Anyway its a direct bolt on replacement so I will see how well it works. I will probably replace the main battery cable with zero gauge if needed for full performance of the alternator.

So I have to ask, has anyone else put a beefed up alternator in their Jaguar?

 

The car controls the stock alternator and shuts it on and off as needed.

If the new alternator can do the same I'm not sure there would be a problem, I think you'll be the first to find out.

At full throttle at 4,500RPM my XK shuts the AC off and is probably shutting off the alternator as well, waiting to charge until part throttle or lower RPM.

 

At least in the x350, the wrong alternator will throw a dash light.

What makes it "wrong", is the question. I don't know how the ecu controls the x150 alternator enough to say beyond a guess, but both models use the same engine.

The guys on that forum go nuts trying to get the light to go off after swapping out the alternator, enough that they will seek out a donor alternator just to get the light to go out. So it will be interesting to see if you encounter the same (hope not).

 

I believe the 4.2 cars use a normal old school alternator with the exception of the "decoupler " type pulley assembly. Litens OAD? Decoupler Pulleys
There is no connection to the ECU similar to what the 5.0 cars have. That being the case the voltage regulator will determine the rate of charge. Others can chime in if they know of a difference .

 

Testing the new wrap colors and finish, decided to go with glossy instead of of a matte. And once those widebody fenders arrive its time to cut those lovely nice stock fenders up.. doh! lol