Now that's funny.

That would be a priceless photograph...this kind of surgery would scare me to death. I'll be cutting out larger apertures for updated rear lights soon, and that will be scary enough.

 

That engine bay needs some work

Strange how on later XKs Jaguar even left off the plastic strut caps and stud caps, shame really as something as simple as that makes a good improvement

 

Yes, but as an indy, you wouldn't wear gloves and you'd spill liquid all over the place, so I wouldn't let you do it

What are these caps you mention? Maybe mine were just lost. I would love some of those chrome strut covers you make.

 

Well of course I would need your supercharger to put my coffee mug on and probably forget to clean the ketchup up that has oozed out of my bacon roll

LOL

I do have a pic somewhere......




Oh look at that, one of the caps is not fitted properly, must of been an indy!!!!

 

Hmm, must get myself some of those. Just out of interest, how much are your SS strut covers?

 

What the hay! I just checked my engine compartment and see it doesn't have nice little plastic covers on my strut nuts and center cap--I need to go shopping for the upgrades. I know some little accountant sleeps well at night knowing that he saved 5 cents per car!

 

They are £175 the pair, also they are made from Aluminium. I can produce them from SS but it will cost more.

I also have a second hand set of the plastic ones.

 

That's why I'm having the body shop do it.

Thanks for the photos, Frog. I'll show them to the body shop manager for reference. I do like the position of the grilles in the photos.

 

Hood louvers arrived today from Massey's Auto Parts (excellent people btw, highly reccomend!). Anyway, I lol'd when I realized they're made from PLASTIC! Clips and everything else are all in good shape good though, should look great.

Did anyone else assume they were made from METAL?

 

I did...a dangerous assumption with just about any car part these days.

 

Plastic has definatly been the rage with the automobile manufacturers for quite sometime now.

 

It's a lot cheaper to mold out of plastic than fabricate out of steel. Almost all large manufacturers use plastic now days. What might look good on the XK8 would be the old fashion louvers cut into the hood, located towards the back, like the XKE. A few Rod shops have the louver machines.

 

Always knew they would be plastic

 

They're not there to keep the engine compartment cooler, they're to reduce front end lift when you're driving 100 mph+.

 

Now who told you that???

As far as I have been concerned they have always been there to reduce heat from the engine bay, they serve no purpose as far as aerodynamics are concerned!

 

I'm pretty sure I read that in some XKR sales brochure or video or something.

When they were going at high speed there was too much lift in the front and too much rear wheel pressure causing the steering to become a little squirrely so they added the vents so that any lift generated in the front end would be released through the hood vents, and hence their placement up closer to the front end instead of near the back of the engine compartment... It's for air flow from under the car, through the hood and out...

Where did YOU read that they were put in to reduce heat?


Edit: Come to think of it, there are only two reasons why hoods are vented that I can think of... the first is for cold air intake / ram air and the second would be to reduce lift. I can't think of a car that has hood vents just for cooling, but there are plenty of examples for intake and to equalize air pressure...

 

Wait, wait...The XK8 is perfectly capable of reaching 100mph+ within seconds of the XKR, so why doesn't it have louvers?

 

It is because the supercharger generates a lot more heat under the hood, so it was vented out

 

Yeah, because just about every supercharged car ever made has additional vents for cooling... oh wait. lmao

Make up another one.

Seriously though, in my research after buying my XK8, I read that the corrections to the body style for high speed handling included both the tiny rear spoiler and the vents to the hood.

And I'm not a freaking idiot, I didn't read and absorb information that was either questionable or unreasonable. Sheesh.


@ Skidmark... I've taken my XK8 over 120mph and my XKR over 130. The XK8 gets scary at 120-ish while the XKR just begs for more. Have you even pushed the speed limit on yours?

And it's hard to compare the XK8 to the XKR, even though they're the same body style. They drive completely different from each other.

 

Gotta go with Tony (XKRacer) on this one.

After all, he's built his entire career around these cars, does some incredible work, and is always here (on the forums) with solid answers.

Plus, I gotta say, heat-release through the louvers makes sense. Normally-aspirated XK8 engines put out a lot of heat...XKR engines significantly more. That heat's got to be vented somehow.

I'm certainly not a aerodynamicist, but I did spend several years with Automobile Magazine and Michelin, working with scores of race teams and performance shops. I can't think of any way the hood louvres would reduce front-end lift in any significant way.

I am also a former marketing guy, however, and I CAN imagine a scenario in which a copywriter comes up with something like that.