Here's a question for this esteemed group that I couldn't find in a quick search (though did see one guy who converted a race car to a T566). Did Jag ever make a manual transmission for these cars? I hadn't thought so until I was doing a NADA look-up recently and an option box appeared on 2001 or 2002 XKRs for manual transmission. Anyone know if any were made, and if so, approximately how many?

I had even searched various European country Jag websites a while back thinking some country over there must have offered this given their customers would have more likely demanded it but never found any. But it also occurred to me I may have only looked at XK8's and not the XKR's.

 

Not one production xk8(r) was ever built. There were however prototypes including an XKR-R that was also equipped with a LSD. Clarkson from Top Gear did some serious hooning with it in one episode...and loved it!

 

I saw a Top Gear a few days ago that showcased an XKR-R that had a manual. It was a Jag project car. Looked identical to mine.

 

Elite performance once made a manual conversion for a XK8, but I don't think they ever made it commercially available, the car has changed owner several times...
Currently NormanD (member of www.xkec.co.uk, his car featured in Jaguar World Monthly from May 2010) is working on a conversion for his XKR, and I think he will also try to make it as a kit.

 

Yes I did it to my track car and I gave Elite alot of the info back when they were first trying it I also have a friend who has a manual XKR with a T56 who again I gave a lot of information.

A lot depends on what you want to achieve, for ultimate control you need to bin the ECU and start again but this has a few knock on effects, e.g. instrument binacle

You can change clocks and keep the instrument binacla 'almost' looking standard but also change gauges that actually work and not give you just an idea what the engine is doing, I am going on mainly about the temperature gauge ( I use the word gauge loosely).

Good thing with a stand alone system, like mine you have 3 maps to go through at a click of a switch or a touch of a screen Road, Race and lunacy including full throttle gear changes...

If however you want to keep the car more standard then you will have to get a hold of one of the magic black boxes Elite developed to fool the TCM the gearbox was still there.
At the end of the day the mechanical side of things is easy, the electronic side is a bit more of an issue.

Main reason I dumped the idea was cost.....And I think Norman will struggle to keep the cost low enough to do an off the shelf kit. Even if you was to do a larger portion of the work yourself you would still be looking at $12-$15K.

It is a lot easier now days as to when I did it originally fitting a XKR engine with the T56 into my XJS Monaco 12 years ago, Aston Martin with the AMV8 will save you a lot of time, if you could lay your hands on one you could swap everything over a 4.7 V8 manual, now that would be cool

 

Now that's a thought, look for a AMV8, throw away the shell and use the engine/transmission

Only now I link your sign , welcome here , it slipped my mind that you already had done someas I was thinking of kits.

Kudos to your work Xkracer :icon_imnotwor thy:

 

Thanks, XKRracer, I had seen your post earlier on the subject of conversion. I also agree about the best way to do it with an AMV8 for a street car, and a rear transaxle for a race car (just as the Trans Am guys do).

I guess the NADA guys were fooled by that Top Gear episode. And if you were wondering, checking the manual transmission box deducts $500 from the value of the car!

Doug

 

I have actually been in the XKR-R and it is very ....shall we say unfinished.....to give an idea the LCD screen on the speedo was throwing up so many errors and warnings it was not funny.

They actually used the same set up I did even down to the same clutch I did which I hasten to add was something I had specially made up for me by AP Racing which was a twin plate semi organic affair from the XJ220 and had the hub plates changed to suit the input shaft on the T56.

The rear of the car was changed dramatically using an S Type rear suspension set up with shortened drive shafts to take the Aston Martin Vanquish diff, a very expensive route.

Getting back to warning messages, before I changed my instrument binacle it always made me laugh with the warnings it gave....'incorrect part fitted' was my favorite closely followed by gearbox missing lol and it still managed to do this with the original ECU removed the TCM removed and half of its wiring, quite amazing really.