I bought my XKR last spring and had fun driving it all of last season. The car is an 04 and had 14K miles on it. Being low mileage it physically looks new with no issues. I contacted the original owner and asked about maintenance like fluid changes early in the spring. He changed the oil every 2,ooo miles and never did anything else.

Being well overdue for fluid changes at 11 years old, I started with the coolant. I has posted previously a photo in another thread about nothing coming out of the Super Charger Radiator drain. On investigating, I found the Intercooler packed full of Coagulated coolant. My INDY that is a former Jag Dealer Tech. told me with that type of coolant it was pretty common and the Jelling with age always worked it's way to the high point, being the intercooler.

I bought a hand operated fluid pump, disconnected all of the intercooler hoses and sucked what I could get out from every angle. Then flushed it and got the system running freely.

The Intercooler used to get hot enough to fry eggs on after an agressive drive. I took it out for a shakedown run today. I was behind someone doing 50mph and punched it to pass. It scared the crap out of me with the instantaneous hard acelleration that had been muted by HOT intake air.

The moral of the story is ... if you feel that your XKR is lacking power, pull the top plug and make sure that you don't have the same problem. Hot intake air is not conducive to efficient combustion. I noticed a big difference after the sytem was working poroperly.

 

To be completely sure that your intercoolers are working properly it's a good idea to remove them from the car and look inside the air cooling internals. You will likely find out that the inner surface is covered with junk from the EGR system and condensed baked oil. These deposits act as a heat insulator and lower the intercooler efficiency and must be removed.

 

You can also remove it, use radiator flush with hot water in it. Shake it crazy, empty out,then flush with the garden hose.