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To recap: I bought a 2000 XKR at the end of July, the car was very well cared for but not "owner cared for", you know, the dealer or mechanic did all the work so everything was by the book. The car has 87,000 miles and was a bit worn but like 40,000 miles worn not 87,000 miles worn.
I'll keep this post updated as the project moves along and post pictures below.
Done so far:
- Basic tune up. Oil change, new plugs, quick once over
- new purge valve to eliminate the fuel smell in the cockpit
- Fixed the above mentioned secondary fuel pump issue so it is pulling much stronger now
- installed a manual switch to operate the real qtr windows
- installed jag wrangler remote top control
- converted the useless headlights to HID
-installed new leather (tops online.com) skins on the front seats and console.
- installed leaper ghost lights by the door splash lights
-started building a cold air induction kit...yea, cutting a 3" hole in your new car is FUN
So I am spoiled by my daily drivers back up warning sensors. My car has no system and I have a bad habit of backing up until I hear a beep. Others have mentioned adding aftermarket sensors with a foil tape that goes behind the bumper cover so no drilling is required. I didn't want to spend the $100+ for the kits I saw but recently discovered a great web site when I was shopping for a 3D printer for my son. Check out Gearbest.com. Gear Best sells Chinese products, many are knock offs of US made goods but they do serve a purpose.
It took about an hour to install, I just stuck the ribbon to the underside of the bumper as far up as I could reach while lying on the floor, ran the wire up through the rubber grommet and behind the trunk trim. I snaked the actual 'speaker' into the driver side rear seat trim by the back speaker but it is SO loud that I am probably just going to move it back to the trunk. I need it to alert me, not scare me! It only warns me of things about a foot behind the car but for $10 it will keep me from hitting my mail box, my garage door or my trash cans.
When I have the trim out of the car I discovered that the trunk lights - which suck by the way - are cheap, crappy, 1960's looking bulbs! Since I love cheap lighting upgrades and am super happy with my HID head light conversion I jumped back on Gear Best and ordered up 2 LED bulbs for the trunk.
They arrived today, fit perfectly and throw off at least three times moe light - and very bright white as opposed to the yellow of the old bulbs - way more than enough light to actually allow me to see! At $1.33 each how can you pass.
I did buy a few more thing for the projects to offset the shipping (use the DHL option its a few $$ and delivers in under a week) like a back up camera, some 12 volt powered USB ports, a car cover for the upcoming winter storage, and some Ford window switches. All in all, the quality is better than I expected on everything I bought so far, especially considering the cost of the items.
the pulley was on when I bought the car so I can't say, but I am very happy with the power of the car for what its worth. In fact, once i get the cooling system up to snuff, I may even upgrade the upper pulley a bit for just a little extra low end grunt.
Thought I would check in after the winter. I had the car in storage from about Thanksgiving until mid-February. Since I brought it home I did a few more projects.
Door sill lights (actually did this last year) but don't think I had any pics of it. Found these on eBay for a few $$, drilled into the door panel and tapped into the courtesy light wring. About a 10 minute job since I had the door apart installing the JagWrangler remote top option. I get some comments on the lights and my kids LOVE them!
BTW, if you have a convertible, install that remote top kit! Besides having remote control of the top you can also roll up the windows remotely even if the top is up. I consider that a must-have.
Next up was a back up camera using the existing nav screen. The camera was under $10 online and I was lucky enough to get a new in box PAC VCI-X for a great price. I installed the camera under the plinth and mounted the VCI in the trunk next to the sat/nav controller. It seemed like an easier place to cut and splice wires and with other plans in the works to dump the factory radio it will be in the vicinity of the battery and amp for future upgrades. Considering the age of the screen, the picture actually looks really good.
Next up was to finally get rid of that HORRIBLE cone air filter drawing air directly from the hot engine bay. I won't dwell on the negatives of breathing in hot air but I will say I have seen intake temps over 180 degrees when stopped at a light in the summer. This is my second attempt at a true cold air intake. The first was last year and made with aluminized steel. It was so heavy I needed to attach mounting tabs and that put too much stress on the couplers as the engine moved. I made a new one a few weeks ago out of 3" aluminum and a generic cone air filter. The cone is in the front bumper so it only draws nice fresh air and after a few early spring drives the intake temp has not climbed over ambient, regardless of how hard I got on it. The tube is still powedercoated red as that is how I received it from the vendor but once I do a bit more tweaking I'll paint or powder coat it something more fitting. I may also tig weld the center splice and get rid of that coupler near the shock tower once I am 100% on the angles and alignment of everything. At least for now I can still move things a bit if needed. I still plan to add a catch can but needed to finish the intake to figure out where I have room for it.
Lastly, if you have a good eye, you saw the water/meth injection nozzle plumbed into the intake tube just before the throttle body. I was able to get a stage 2 Snow Performance water/meth injection kit off CraigsList at a really good price. I figured with the hot summers, a heavy foot and the plan to go one step smaller on the stock upper pulley, this can only help.
I wanted to keep everything looking as stock as possible so the controller was mounted under the cover near the ECU.
The tank, pump and solenoid are in the trunk where the spare tire used to be so they are totally out of sight and I still have room for my golf clubs.
Looks like a normal trunk.....
but it has a secret!
I mounted everything to a board I covered in felt. Since I lost my spare tire, I 3D printed a few brackets to hold a can of fix-a-flat that I will mount in front of the water tank and I'll fab another bracket for a fire extinguisher and possibly the jack.
I installed some 25mm wheel spacers on the front and back. The stance looks better, the wheels fill out the wells a little better. The ride is a bit more twitchy though so the jury is still out on them.
I also finally got around to installing my lower supercharger pulley. That was a bit of a project going slowly so I dint damage anything but I finally got it off the factory pulley needed to be machined and it was a hair to big for my lathe so off to the machine shop. A few hours later and she was all back together. Now that I know how to do it I could probably knock that out in a few hours. It was worth it, car feels a lot better in the lower rpm ranges. Totally worth it.
Lastly a little project I have been working on for the past several months on and off. More to come.......
great work! You might find this funny...I quickly scanned your post and was overwhelmed that you had accomplished so much in only a little over ONE (1) month...read closer and saw that it was one year and one month...still great progress.
wj
I installed some 25mm wheel spacers on the front and back. The stance looks better, the wheels fill out the wells a little better. The ride is a bit more twitchy though so the jury is still out on them.
I also finally got around to installing my lower supercharger pulley. That was a bit of a project going slowly so I dint damage anything but I finally got it off the factory pulley needed to be machined and it was a hair to big for my lathe so off to the machine shop. A few hours later and she was all back together. Now that I know how to do it I could probably knock that out in a few hours. It was worth it, car feels a lot better in the lower rpm ranges. Totally worth it.
Lastly a little project I have been working on for the past several months on and off. More to come.......
they are H&R spacers. I bought them used from another member on this forum. The fit and finish was 100% perfect, they are hub-centric which is an absolute necessary in my opinion. The cheap "spacers" that just space the wheel from the hub are dangerous as the wheel rests on the lip of the hub and the bolts just apply holding pressure. If you remove that lip then the lugs are doing far more work than they were designed to do. I don't know anything about the other brands but can 100% recommend H&R.
Hi there, it looks as though you have been going the XKR as I....We are currently pulling the engine to do some work ( timing chain upgrade etc... ) but my main focus after all the upgraeds we have done is that the ECU is still not able to be tuned at our dyno. We pulled with minor upgrade 321 RWHP which makes this the slowest car we own...so we desperatley need some type of source to play with the ecu...any thoughts?
Hi there, it looks as though you have been going the XKR as I....We are currently pulling the engine to do some work ( timing chain upgrade etc... ) but my main focus after all the upgraeds we have done is that the ECU is still not able to be tuned at our dyno. We pulled with minor upgrade 321 RWHP which makes this the slowest car we own...so we desperatley need some type of source to play with the ecu...any thoughts?
Lee,
Please let tell us what year and what size Engine the Jag has....? Can't answer all those questions until I know.....You know, Like it's a 2000 XKR with a 4.0 or is it a 2003 XKR with a 4.2...That helps a lot when it comes to ECU's....
so just a quick sneak peek. I took the cat out of winter storage last week (damn Chicago winter would't end) and first order of business was to test fit all my new dash panels. I modified the center panel to hold a 7" touch screen car radio then had a full set of panels hydro dipped with a burl pattern. The hydrodipping turned out really good considering the actual dipper didn't do a very good job and I had to spend a LOT of time re-spraying, sanding and buffing out the clear. Its not hooked up yet, but I want to live with it for a few days before I commit to removing the rest of the radio and installing the shifter trim panel and window switches.
I really wanted a red tinted crazy burl wood pattern but I never considered the steering wheel. If I can find another set of panels cheap I may re-dip them again with something more walnut burl looking so the steering wheel matches better. For now it will just be nice to have a useful GPS/MP3/Touchscreen system.
09-01-2016, 04:25 PM
another "My 2000 XKR Build Thread"
Lee, What is it?
