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Well, one of my big ambitions on my 99 XK8 car is to upgrade the exhaust, and I went with a big bore modified stainless steel system (rear mufflers omitted) supplied by dcrautooarts, where Dave CR came through. Link to his website below. https://www.xk8-parts.com/2016/10/ja...-gallery-page/
It took a while to finalise my order as I specifically didn't want an annoying V8 growl and/or a loud drone on long freeway drives when the top is closed. But if I'm driving with the top open, it's game on!
Still the order finally arrived (see pic below). I'm taking the opportunity while the old exhaust is off to put in new Catalytic converters (as the originals are still on the car).
Great timing as I'll see if I can rent a garage's car lift somewhere in the island of Bahrain, so I can do the work during the upcoming Ashoora Public Holidays.
Hey that looks like fun, only advice i have is to take it to an exhaust shop and have them weld flanges onto each part you ever want to disassemble later for servicing the car.
The $10 it takes to install a flange is very worth it after you have been alligator wrestling the exhaust pipes because the previous person installed them with clamps.
Would like to hear what it sounds like after it is done. My car is bizarre to me as it is completely silent upon operation. Would like to remedy that a bit.
Appreciate that the X100 is designed to be a comfortable GT cruiser so there was an emphasis during design on keeping sound levels down - central silencer, intermediate mufflers and rear mufflers. My exhaust is working fine, but rusting out a bit, so I've taken this opportunity to change the exhaust note, and upgrade to stainless steel material.
It took a couple of months to finally secure the car lift, at my local mechanic Santosh's garage, and the new stainless steel exhaust system is finally in! I didn't feel too bad modifying the existing system, as a previous owner had already modified the system by removing the rear mufflers and put in twin tail pipes.
The YouTube series, by John, has a good run down on the base exhaust system of the XK8. Link below.
Sorry, I didn't follow Mad Hatter's suggestion of welding in flange connectors, as I didn't have any confidence in the quality of stainless steel metal work here in Bahrain. Once my system is in, it probably won't move for 10+ Years.
I had the problems John noted in his YouTube video - aka the rear over axle pipe restriction.
As John says this strange flattened pipe restriction is for the Jag factory installation so is easily remedied in my new system.
Also with the right catalytic converter out, I finally could replace the engine ground strap with new. You can't access its bolt on the bell housing otherwise (another great design feature by Jag - LOL!). This is something I've been planning for years and the old strap is marked "One time use only"!
Swapping out an exhaust is definitely a job made easier with a car lift. Nothing really too challenging with simple base tools and a lot of WD40 to get the old system out. There were a few problems.
As I'm in the Arabian Gulf, there were no sensors in the catalytic converter, which was a bit of a surprise to me. I had to get bolts to screw into the holes in the replacement units to seal them up. If anyone wants my old catalytic converters let me know, but bear in mind, the sensor holes are welded up.
The existing support bracket for the catalytic converter wouldn't fit the new unit. It took a bit of bending in the vice and the "persuader" (aka hammer) to beat it into a reasonable fit.
Existing Bolts took a lot of effort to get out esp. we rounded off the bolt heads.... F$%k!
Had to put new bolts in, once the bracket was bent to shape.
Also access to tighten the nuts on the top of the catalytic converters is from the top of the engine bay and the air tunnel and coolant reservoirs had to come out to allow us to tighten them.
View from the top of engine bay, air tunnel removed, to tighten these bolts on top of catalytic converter.
Still job done and I'll give the car a week or so to settle in, especially for the alignment of the single tail pipes in the slot in the rear bumper. I'll report back later on the exhaust sound notes, but it definitely is better already. Should be good, as the top down driving weather is here in the Middle East.
I am actually getting ready to drop the transmission on my car and have the studs out of the manifolds to cat flange, but haven't gotten anything else under the car done yet. Any advice? I don't have a lift or torches and am dreading having to remove enough exhaust to get the transmission out. In the end I might just say **** it and get the cutoff wheel and take it to an exhaust shop to patch it up later haha.
Well from what I see, to remove the transmission from below, the Catalytic Converters and the central silencer will need to come out. There’s a support bracket above the intermediate mufflers that will need to be loosened to do this. This is “blind” hand work, but otherwise not too bad. Easier for two man job though.
View from below
Good luck on that one. No idea on the prop shaft or bell housing disassembly though. Obviously this wasn’t what I needed to do! LOL!
What is actually you you need to do on the transmission? Probably worth a different thread though!
The new system followed the same route but by replacing the intermediate muffler the pipe could go straight through. See pic below (Caonex’s right hand is the new smaller silencer. )
As the weather in the Middle East is perfect for top down driving, I’ve been enjoying the soundtrack of my AJ-V8. But.... Recently there’s been a rattle....
It’s been a few weeks since I did the install of my new S/S exhaust and it’s “bedded in” so I looked around under the rear to see what the issue could be. Simple job lying on your back, and didn’t even need to jack up the car.
The single tip rear right tail pipe wasn’t sitting correctly in the slot in the rear bumper. I could see marks where it was hitting the rear bumper.
The problem was the rubber hanger supporting the exhaust pipe, as if I loosened the pipe clamp and aligned it using lots of WD40 and “alligator wrestling effort” - it would be right. But basically the rubber hanger was too short and stiff. I’ve a L322 Range Rover so looked under that to see what hangers they use - so I thought maybe I could use another hanger version .... found from a dead Range Rover from a scrap heap. Pic below.
The LHS is the original Jaguar hanger and the RHS is a part from a L322.
So I’ve put this modified hanger in. Pic below.
Let’s see how this works out. Bit worried as the L322 part isn’t as strong as the Jag part but it solved the immediate rattling noise problem. But I’ll need to keep an eye on it.
Well, one of my big ambitions on my 99 XK8 car is to upgrade the exhaust, and I went with a big bore modified stainless steel system (rear mufflers omitted) supplied by dcrautooarts, where Dave CR came through. Link to his website below. https://www.xk8-parts.com/2016/10/ja...-gallery-page/
It took a while to finalise my order as I specifically didn't want an annoying V8 growl and/or a loud drone on long freeway drives when the top is closed. But if I'm driving with the top open, it's game on!
Still the order finally arrived (see pic below). I'm taking the opportunity while the old exhaust is off to put in new Catalytic converters (as the originals are still on the car).
Great timing as I'll see if I can rent a garage's car lift somewhere in the island of Bahrain, so I can do the work during the upcoming Ashoora Public Holidays.
David, since this install do you notice and drone at Highway cruise speeds? Any issues?
Still keeping an eye on the threads here. I miss my XK8 and will always have fond memories of the Jag.
One of the best things I did was put on the new exhaust and CATs. Definitely noticed a performance improvement and the sweet sound of a rumble when overtaking at speed with the top down.
Definitely worth all the time and effort for me. Only down side was realization of my initial concern that the gentle freeway drive at 100kph, there was an exhaust drone that annoyed my wife in the passenger seat when she wanted to sleep. For me driving I have music on so never really noticed .
It seems unlikely that any different brand or make of exhaust that removes the rear 2 sets of 'cans' could not drone. There's so little physical variation between brands, unless it's some totally unique routing like under axle or something or a greatly different diameter which would be unusual. Quality of material shouldn't matter too much since it's the air and flow, not the ringing or mechanical resonance of the pipe itself.
I have the Adamesh stage 2 and it's a nice exhaust and sounds great but drones a good bit. Some may say it doesn't, but that just means they aren't bothered by it. I'm looking into trying to add a J-pipe resonator on mine to see if it can help. There's a decent amount of room behind the axle but I'm not sure if there's enough, or if having it that far back in the system with no muffler behind it will really work - but worth looking into - something like this
99 XK8 - new stainless steel exhaust
