Hi my name is Kevin, I'm new here, registered because I have a few questions about the 2003 engine.

Basically to put a long story short I had a few too many drinks and got thinking about building a V8 touring bike.... Went eBay hunting and found a decent engine from an 03 XKR with gearbox for a reasonable price. So I'm doing my research, looking at specs, width, length, height including the gearbox which all looks fine.

So my 1st question is this. Where exactly is the intercooler located and what type is it? (Air to air front mount or Water to air between the supercharger and intake manifold)

2nd question. Part of the research has thrown up camchain tensioners and weak gearboxes. What's the situation there?

3rd question, can someone send photos of where the engine mounts are so I can get a better idea of how to mount it to a custom made Frame? The plan is to fully stress the block as a part of the frame by mounting to the front and rear of the crank case and cylinder head.. although if that not an option then rubber mounting in a cradle could be done too.

4th question. The engine and box have about 86k on the clock, besides a service and possible chain tensioner replacement is there anything else I should consider doing?

And finally, what electrics do I need to keep in order to make the gearbox work?

The plan is to bolt a ring and pinion gear to the rear of the gearbox to redirect the power by 90° to allow the use of a heavy duty chain solving problems with alignment, space and the swing arm.

 

I can't speak to your projects, but a 2003 XKR is normally the later 4.2L engine paired with the ZF 6HP26. The engine is largely considered free of the "bugs" of the earlier 4.0L models, including the infamous tensioners (this engine has the metal parts from the factory), The gearbox is also considered very reliable, with none of the earlier bugs of the 5HP24 (A-drum failures, etc). Of course, a maintenance cycle always help.

As a general statement, you can go and educate yourself on JagRepair There is a wealth of information, including engine, electrical, etc. most straight from Jaguar. sngbarratt has a great web site for parts, with great, clear diagrams for specific questions. I also sometimes use eBay as some vendors post parts as seen from multiple angles.

One of the challenges for your project is going to be able to cobble together a working engine/transmission combination in light of the fairly tight electronic integration. For example, the transmission relies on the ABS module for road speed, etc. You will need to familiarize yourself with the 3 electronic data buses (CAN, SCP and ISO9141) and their inter-connectivity/bridges to try and gauge what partial group could be made to work together. You might have to even use the instrument cluster. I realize you might not need to clear the MIL, but you will want to go beyond "limp home mode".

Other option would be a custom ECU for the engine and some other, much simpler transmission...

Best of luck, keep us posted.
PS:: please update you profile to show where you live (City, state or even UK/US) so we have a sense of what market cars apply to you.

 

Not to cast aspersions on your ambitious project, but how many beverages did you consume?

I imagine a sideways mounted supercharged Jaguar V8 with transmission has to be five to six feet wide.

If you do go ahead would this, I would love to see photos of the build. The talent to build such a machine is possessed only by a few.

Have you ever built something like this before?

 

Thats presicely why it'll be mounted longitudinally with a pinnion and ring great fitted to the rear of the gearbox housing to act effectively as a locked diff just to allow the use of a chain and sprocket mimicking the output of a motorcycle gearbox.

I did try to put a long post up before but for whatever reason I got booted out.

So from the research and info I've gathered so far it's do-able. Involves a lot of custom work on the electrical side of things but the majority of the sensors can be sourced from ABS and T/C equipped motorcycles to get the signals to the gearbox, Speedo and ECU so I should be able to retain the Traction control, ABS if I want to and retain the original auto gearbox. Wiring a dash up shouldn't be too difficult with so many aftermarket TFT/lcd dashboards floating about.

I'm waiting until Friday when I can get the measurements of the engine and gearbox to see if it's even possible to do while keeping a low center of gravity (ease of manouvering) simply because I believe I may run into problems with max lean angles and ground clearance.

I've never built anything like this before, I've just finished rebuilding a crash bike (everything including engine and a complete rewire) but I'm aware I face a serious challenge if I go ahead with it.

 

You might not be appreciating the spectrum of the complexity here. These sensors are not directly tied to the gearbox, but to separate control modules. Then these control module makes the _data_ available as digital CAN messages that can be picked up by other modules. For example, the individual wheel speed sensors are attached to the ABS module. By software, the ABS module determines a vehicle speed. That vehicle speed is them broadcast over the CAN bus. From there, the speedometer can pick up the data and update the needle position. Separately, the transmission control module can pick up the same CAN message and start driving the gear selection logic for the solenoids. The complexity is that these data messages, while in the open (not encrypted) on the CAN bus, are largely undocumented and proprietary to the various manufacturers. The electrical diagram lists page after page of such messages (with source and recipient). It is therefore hard to not use the modules that came with the car unless you are planning on implementing some form of a message translation module and do all the research that comes with that.

As a not-completely-unrelated set of data points, check Jaguar Specialties. They retrofit GM engines/gearboxes into the earlier 4.0 Jaguar XK8 bodies and face sort of the mirror image of this situation. Their kit includes such a translation module (so the GM wheel speed messages can drive the stock XK8 speedo, etc.)

 

You may be embarking on a romantic quest. This quest will test your humor and talent. If I were going to put a car engine in a bike, I would use a carb pushrod V8 for compactness and simplicity. If you try the Jag engine, you will never get the thing out of restricted performance! The CAN bus takes a real pro to work with even with everything where its supposed to be. You will need modules all over the place to contribute their info as well as the speedo cluster which is a big part of
the communications. I would have to be way more rich and drunk than usual to try this one.