Hey guys,

I am brand new to the forum and to the Jaguar community. To make a long story short, I had an opportunity to purchase a 2010 XKR. The car was part of a theft crime and was not covered by insurance. Therefore I have a mechanically sound but physically scratched up and dented car. The moment I saw it I thought to myself “ Man it would be fun to have a jaguar track car”. I own a German car auto repair shop. So we have the ability to tinker as much as we would like. I’m coming to find that there are not many sources for performance parts on this car. Sure there’s power and exhaust upgrades. But suspension and brake options are relatively limited. Do you guys have the names of suppliers for suspension products? We will be putting on a Moton coil over kit. But I would love to have some adjustment for camber. Rear control arms? Front camber plates? Also, does anybody know of a supplier for performance brake pads and rotors? Any additional information you have regarding largest tire size and common failure points on these cars is greatly appreciated. To reiterate, this is a full-blown track car. This will not have an interior. It will have a roll cage. It will not be driven on the street. Thanks so much for any help you have! I look forward to updating you guys on this project as well if anyone’s interested in performance upgrades for the track and how well they work.

 

factory alcon is the only option for a real bbk, it takes all of the cool pads from the usual suspects. you can buy the old S-Type R (brembo F40) calipers and stainless pistons in them but you'll need to find a way to put larger discs on them. rear camber is only adjustable with a drill if you know what i mean. you will go real negative real quick when you lower it, front camber has a little bit of adjustment with the eccentric bolt.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27483739393...IAAOSwcXhgzD6l

i'd recommend getting these before they're gone. very hard to find and piece together

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333787867...4AAOSwmFJfro~K

 

Reach out to jahummer, he has made many track mods to his car.

 

As kj said jahummer is the man when it comes to track prep

 

Also the F-Type ceramic brakes will fit, the fronts are direct bolt on and often appear on eBay but they're expensive. Alcon Mono6/Mono4 is also a good fit, but harder and harder to come by for Jaguar. Turning a stock grand tourer X150 into a "real" track car will be quite a project and after market is quite limited. Swallows Racing in the UK is likely your best source as they are both a Jaguar race team, own a number of the Palmer Sport X150 face cars and specialists supplier, offering coil over kits, brake kits, manual transmission conversion kits, exhaust, etc.

I've done this and you can search for a number of my threads on the process.

Of course, if the chassis is all your after, you could gut everything and fit a Corvette drivetrain, LS motor and transaxle with a Motec ECU and weigh in around 2600 pounds.

 

Thank you for the Info. Staying away from carbon brakes due to cost. Alcon’s seem like the correct choice. Is oil or coolant temp am issue with these? On our BMW’s, cooling system upgrades are a necessity.

any idea where I can source a set of track wheels? All the options I find are more on the luxury side. Not an easy bolt pattern to find

 

The PCD's not as much of a problem as the offset and the staggered fitment, at least for off-the-shelf wheels. Most wheels makes though will offer custom drilling and offsets so it's not as much of an issue as you may think and if you're after true light weight track wheels it's a given you'll order custom wheels. Also the Alcon calipers whilst not as large as some, are mated to 400mm discs which are larger than most and therefore clearance can be a challenge.

 

Try Oz racing they can make it to your desired specs .

I know the Emil Fry GT3 run 18s however they use AP 6 piston with a 375mm disc the palmersport GT3 use the factory Alcon with 20" senta wheels so I'm unsure if a 19" lighter wheel would work with that particular brake package.

 

Senta wheels are probably not a good choice for a 2010, the rear offsets are wrong for the 5L cars.

 

A stepped barrel wouldn’t clear, but a 19 with a non-stepped barrel would, I believe the clearance needed was 436mm.

 

Hi,

Lots of things was already mentioned. Have not gone through entire topic and all answers, but I have MY10 5.0 XKR - not a hardcore track car (still most of a time on streets), but definitely more than stock ready.

Couple of my thoughts below.
1. Stock brakes will not work on a track - I suggest Alcons from older XKR (6 pots front, 4 pots rear). In case of a 5.0 liter engine you will need to make special adapters for rear knuckles to fit them (OEM adapters works only on 4.2 rear suspension). Two piece rotors (400 + 350 rear) and you are home with brakes.
2. Engine oil is an issue - too hot, too quickly. Currently working on additional oil cooler. Will post some details once completed (hopefully in next couple of days). But long story short - external 12v pump, bore in a sump, additional radiator.
3. Sway bars - have these orange sway bars from Korea (take a look on a forum for Jaguar XF performance sway bars) - definitely they kill joy-riding and improve handling / stiffness.
4. Gearbox is surprisingly slow - only a swap could solve this issue. Don't want to be the first, but 8HP can be potentially fitted as a swap of 6HP...
5. Suspension - I have full XKR-S setup (yellow shocks and the rest) - have not driven on a track with standard, but I assume it helps... But it's the last point on my list.

Stock power is okay (I have mine tuned to ca. 600hp but it's not a game changer). All in all it is a very nice car. Probably too nice for hard track pushing.

Fingers crossed!

 

This thread is dangerous, it makes me want to mod my car, especially the brakes. I do not track my XKR-S regularly, but I've glazed rotors (front and rear) after 3 days of "mild" track driving. Rear brakes are the worst since calipers are so small and they tend to run hotter than front. For now, I am just going to install slotted rotors, could not find any alternatives in the US for 2-piece light-weight rotors (like GiroDisks). Looks like I can source them from UK though, will do that the next time. Excellent content in this thread!

 

Thank you for the info. I Figures cooling would be one of the largest issues for this car. I have been looking into options already and will likely install an additional or replacement oil cooler. I will report back with our choice.
I will look for the Orange sways. Are all XF sway bars a direct replacement?
Transmission wise, we assume hte transmission will need some attention soon. Preferably we would 6-speed (clutch) swap it. Not sure how intertwined the programing is on the engine/trans. I assume this would be hard to do. But first we need to make is have traction before large upgrades such as that.

This car will serve as a driver education vehicle for my employees. Power is more then adequate for our use until we see a need later on.

We finally got the car running and suspension restored from some abuse it took during its theft. Interior and non-track needed item's are going to be coming out soon and will be fore sale if anyone needs a full black interior.

 

I might have gotten lucky. Found a dismantler who has Alcon brakes (3 of the 4) for sale. $550.00 shipped. Waiting to see if they show up correct.

 

Ad cooling - take a lot at my thread - been there, done that - might be a useful direction to consider.
Ad sways - not sure, but this one fits well, so would bet they should (most of parts from 5.0 S/C XF fits well to X150 5.0 S/C - suspension, ECU etc)

 

I like the oil set-up.

Where did you source the wishbones? I assume you had them custom made? Do you have renderings or someone who can reproduce them?

 

Sounds like a fun project. The XKR 5litre from the factory is very tail happy, which is fun going sideways but not fast on a track, plenty of lifted off snap oversteer as well.

Spend time on track focus suspension setup.

I would look at 18inch or even maybe 19inch lightweight rims as you have more choices on R-compound tyres in 18inch sizes.
If you have access to a machine shop, I would look at brakes calipers from Porsche Cayenne / Audi Q7 RS as they are Brembo 6 and 4 pistons and are cheap and plenty on eBay. Make an adapter bracket to suit. I think the Porsche run 360mm rotors and they go up from there to 410mm?

The automatic ZF 6 speed transmission is slow by today standards compared to a modern dual clutch or even ZF 8 speed. With traction control off, first and second gear are practically useless as all it wants to do is spin up the back wheels or go sideways with less than 50% throttle!! So its fast in faster out, if you can carry corning speeds and get the traction down on the track.

I would use a larger transmission cooler, and look at better transmission fluids. The ZF lifeguard transmission fluid is only a semi synthetic which is fine for spirited street driving and autocross but will not cope with the constant high heat of a racetrack lap after lap conditions. I run Amsoil transmission fluids as it can handle the abuse and the fluid does not break down from heat. As you know heat is the number one killer of transmission fluid and ultimately the transmission itself. Same with the e-diff, your track day will be over once you over heat that diff.

Good luck, and go to a weigh bridge and find out the true wet weight of the car once its all stripped out!!

I've done plenty of trackdays on motorcycles that I purchase as writeoffs and turn them to track only MC. I personally wouldn't and couldn't afford to put my NICE toys on a track as I can't control myself to push 10/10ths and bin it at the end of a straight into a tyre wall!!! In Australia anyway there is limited or no insurance on vehicles that are on the track.

 

I've the uprated orange front and rear sways fitted but not been to the track yet so can't say what difference they've made. Also filled the transmission with full synthetic BG low viscosity ATF fluid which meets Lifeguard6/ZF requirements and noticed no ill effect. AS soon as the latest round of upgrades are done, I'll be re-flashing the TCU with a new custom map which should increase power, shifting speed and lower operating temps.

 

How does the TCU reflash lower the transmission temperature?? By less slippage between shifts?
I should ask Cambo that ahey!