I scheduled the 2000 XKR in for some maintenance yesterday. Oil change, transmission fluid and filter change, full lube job, plus I had them install a drain plug in the rear so that fluid could be changed out as well. Falconworks said that my car had no drain plug, so that means that the fluid is 144,000 miles old! That's now been dealt with.

More pics and a video will be added to this thread through the weekend.

While the Jag was at Falconworks, I had them install an in-trunk CoolingMist.com water/methanol injection system: Water Injection, Methanol Injection, Alcohol Injection Systems | Coolingmist I also had them utilize the throttle body mount from the original intake and marry it to the XK8 unit so that I've got the best of both worlds (no noise baffles and a better mount to the throttle body). The injection system will use 50/50 mix of water and methanol (already have it ready to go).

The Mina rear exhaust delete kit showed up today as the repair shop finished their work, so they let me get it to them for a quick install before I picked the car up. The Mina package was VERY well packed and the quality is high. Performance Exhaust Mina Gallery for Jaguar XKR There are more parts than pictured, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. I'll post more pics and a Va-ROOOOM! video very soon! I still have the rest of the stock exhaust in place, this kit just replaces the rear mufflers with a straight through pipe.

The Jag now has a true cold air box with K&N panel filter and extra intake snorkel, 50/50 water/methanol injection, and the muffler delete kit. What do you think... perhaps the horsepower level is somewhere around 420? The next big step will be the twin screw supercharger kit from Avos in the Spring of 2013. Aw, YEAH, baby!

 

Neat stuff. Interested in your experience with the water methanol kit and what boost level you end up setting it at.

Also wonder if the cat will cough out a big hairball the first few times you use it. There are probably many years of EGR crud in the intake system to be flushed out.

Bet she will just run better and better.

 

The report on that will have to wait until next Friday. Ugh. The shop had to get some other important work done to get customers rolling out the door prior to our 3 day holiday. I'm scheduled for that install on Thursday.

I can say that the rear muffler delete seems to give a slight bit more power than standard. The sound is cool! Video later.

 

This video is better for hearing the louder whine from the supercharger due to having dual intake snorkels on the air box with a K&N panel filter. I'll have to shoot a video from outside the car to let you hear what the Mina exhaust delete pipes sound like.

 

This clip has a bit of the exhaust note bouncing off of the side of the mountain...

 

Convertible top and windows closed. Supercharger whine with dual intake snorkels, K&N filter, no silencer tubes on the intake pipe; Mina rear muffler delete kit for the exhaust note:

 

I'll be doing that upgrade some time this winter.

 

Wahoo! The water/methanol injection is being installed right now! Pics and a report later.

 

Pics of water/methanol injection kit:



The photo above shows how the XK8 intake pipe is now better and more securely adapted to the throttle body. The water/methanol injector is seen in place with the supply line feeding it.




The photo above shows how neatly the supply tank and pump fit into the trunk using a custom manufactured support bracket, custom designed to fit the irregularity of the trunk floor and hold the tank perfectly. It will be easy to fill the tank. I test drive the beast tomorrow afternoon!

These kits are just under $300 from the manufacturer, or as low as $255 on eBay with auction bidding: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Water-Methan...05%26rk%3D1%26

 

Very interested to hear about your result from the water/methanol kit, I'm wanting to do one of these myself.

I see you have set the injector right above the throttle body where the intake makes the down turn. Do you think you will have any problems with water collecting on the inside of the intake pipe when injecting right in the bend?

On the on the other hand, it may not matter much when the ambient temp is 110.

 

Hey Jeff, pretty cool, I have been reading up on the water methane Kit.
Did you install yourself?
if not what was the cost of install, did that include a engine tune up? Did you advance the timing?
Are you going to run methane or alchohol?
What about MPG does that go up or stay the same?

Want to hear more.
Thanks for taking the time to show us all on the Forum.

Happy Motoring...

 

ccfulton: The water/meth mixture (50/50) will come in at about 4 psi, staying on until it drops below that level. There will be a high velocity inside of the intake piping that should prevent water build up. We'll see! I will learn through experimentation if I need to adjust the boost level upward a bit toward 5 or 6. It's all about the fun of trying. Falconworks did all of the install work for me. I had recently had a tune and fresh spark plugs put in, plus an oil change. No other adjustments were made. I had to get to a meeting yesterday afternoon, so the install isn't complete and still needs to have the power hooked up. That happens today. I asked for their best highest quality install. They have machined a few parts to get things to fit better, such as the tank's support brackets. If it all turns out well, I've spoken to them about offering this as a kit so that they could supply the support brackets to others. My car is the guinea pig. I won't be in the middle and will merely refer folks to them. Their works would be to supplement the same style of injection kit as mine. It's hard to see in the photo because most of it is hidden by carpeting, but the support bracket that they made is pretty cool and much better than using the standard supports and a whole bunch of goofy washers to try and level things out.

vettegood: Howdy sir! Please read the above in addition to the following. I'll use a high grade of 'windshield washer fluid' that is rated at 50 degrees below zero. It is 50% methanol and 50% water, pre-mixed. It's actually on the cheaper side here in Tucson because the national auto parts chains have it in stock, sitting on their shelves too long. No one in Tucson buys the stuff since it almost never gets cold here. It's always on sale! It is supposed to be $7 per gallon and frequently goes for $3.75 per gallon. Should the need arise, I can simply fill with distilled water. The idea is for the injection to only come into play when I give it a lot of throttle to pass someone or go 'sporting'. It probably won't have an effect on the miles per gallon at all. In fact, it might get worse simply because I'll probably be having more fun hitting the throttle more frequently. =) I do have a project coming up that will address the miles per gallon issue. It should prove to be interesting. The install cost is a bit high due to using a high quality Jaguar repair indie to perform the work. I didn't want a shade-tree mechanic doing it that didn't know the car. Everything is tucked away out of sight and custom parts were made to adjust to the car's character/needs. The install cost is a bit high at around $1000 but they have done a professional job. I could have done it myself, but it would be nowhere near as professional and I would have become frustrated since I'm so busy with other things. Keep in mind that part of their charges to me include making custom mounts that allow for a perfect attachment of an XK8 intake pipe to my XKR's throttle body. It used to be secured with cable ties and now it bolts on.

 

My 'butt dyno' tells me that I've picked up about 20 hp. It's not a huge amount, but I am also testing. I got to drive it for the first time this afternoon with the water/methanol injection fully operational. It is currently set to come on at 7 3/4 psi. Will the performance improve with greater or lower psi? Only a few experiments will tell. Am I running an injector that is too large? We'll have to experiment and find out!

Initially, I thought that I'd have a bit more punch, but I am not disappointed. I've run a system like this with a supercharged rotary engine in a Mazda pick-up (still have it) and seemed to have slightly better response, but rotaries tend to respond to performance upgrades better.

The mixture that I am currently running is a (claimed) 50/50 mix of water and methanol. Will my result be better with my own mixture? Will it improve when driving on a hot dry day (it was humid and rainy today)?

The power is VERY smooth and there is definitely more oomph. After my current tank gets low, I'll run with pure water to see how that performs. More results later.

 

Today, I took the supply tank to 'low' on the methanol mixture then added a gallon of pure distilled water. It took a few WOT runs to blow through the 50/50 mix of methanol/water that was in the supply line to the injector. After that, I did 3 runs of WOT with the injection supply being mostly pure water, so perhaps 5% was methanol.

So far, I've been BLOWN AWAY with the power increase. It seems to have far more power on water. I think that the methanol may have been creating an environment wherein the fuel mixture was too rich due to its presence. The water is cooling the intake charge, going through the supercharger under pressure, and becoming steam during combustion.

There was so much more power on my last wide open throttle run, just 15 minutes ago, that the tires were jumping up off of really little bumps/lines in the road, going a little bit faster while in the air, and chirping on the pavement as they came back into contact with the roadway. I need more seat time to get a better feel for this, but I may now be seeing approximately 35-40 more horsepower out of this injection unit like I was hoping.

Now that the system is installed, my huge expense to have this extra power is $1 for a gallon of distilled water that may last a week and a half to 2 weeks, depending on how I drive.

The photo below is of the boost control switch. It is mounted under the removable panel on the driver's side under the hood. A hex key inserts into the small round opening to twist and adjust boost on/off. The fine techs at Falconworks realized that this micro-swith had to handle all of the power that went to the injection pump. They decided that it wouldn't last very long in that fashion as it came from Coolingmist.com. They connected it to a power relay switch to greatly extend the life of the boost switch. The injection fluid supply line now follows along the same path as the engine's gasoline fuel line. It is a very professional installation.

 

Cool project!

Have you upgraded the pulley or is your boost stock? I'd be somewhat skeptical about increases in HP from water injection on a bone stock XKR. If it was me I'd get a dyno run to see if there's any real difference, the butt dyno can be deceiving

 

Stock pulley. I'm on my smart phone right now, so this is a short response. The butt dyno is, of course, always inacurrate, but I've gone through this 3 times and before on other vehicles. I can feel a worthwhile increase in power. Water injection typically has a greater effect on boosted engines like the XKR has. I always appreciate input!

 

Why would you not want to use methanol?? I see using were using washer solvent without adding anything to it. The people @ Snow Performance said to use the lowest temp washer solvent with no addative. They said by using 3 bottles of Heet dry gas in the yellow bottle in an empty gallon container then the rest the premixed washer solvent to fill the jug you would then have 50/50. They claim one of the advantages of methanol is it increases the octane rating allowing the car to not retard the timing under a load. I ran water meth for about 3 years & agree you can feel it come on. Why are you using a boost style sensor when you really want something that measures engine load? Your system is set to come on @ 7 psi which seems high. Is the system linear so it starts to come on @ 7 psi. If so when do you see full injection? Do you have a light in the car to show when the system is activated?

 

From above:
Q: "Why would you not want to use methanol?? I see using were using washer solvent without adding anything to it. The people @ Snow Performance said to use the lowest temp washer solvent with no addative. They said by using 3 bottles of Heet dry gas in the yellow bottle in an empty gallon container then the rest the premixed washer solvent to fill the jug you would then have 50/50. They claim one of the advantages of methanol is it increases the octane rating allowing the car to not retard the timing under a load. I ran water meth for about 3 years & agree you can feel it come on."

A: The meth mixture seems to have the vehicle running too rich. Adjustments up/down will be made over the next few weeks to determine the best mixture. So far, the distilled water is offering greater power vs. using washer fluid that is 50% methanol.


Q: "Why are you using a boost style sensor when you really want something that measures engine load? Your system is set to come on @ 7 psi which seems high. Is the system linear so it starts to come on @ 7 psi. If so when do you see full injection? Do you have a light in the car to show when the system is activated?"

A: I actually plan to lower the psi 'ON' level tomorrow. It is currently at 7 3/4 psi. I will adjust to approximately 5 1/2 psi and see if the effect is positive. I do not use a light indicator. I do not use a progressive spray. It is full on until it turns off. It works just fine and is far more affordable than establishing a progressive system. I have used full-on racing systems in previous vehicles and I now enjoy a more simplistic driving experience without the need to make constant updates and changes, etc. I am already quite pleased with the result and will have some fun with minor adjustments. Next year, I'll have Avos' twin screw system in place. That will be fun, too! I will probably drive the Jag around at a more conservative power level, around 550 hp or so. I no longer enjoy trying to find every single possible horsepower level that can be found... I just want to have a whole bunch of it and have more fun driving. If weeks of messing around, testing, and replacing systems with other slightly better systems means that I could get an extra 50 hp out of the final set up, I simply won't care. I'll simply have fun driving around with a LOT of power, at 80% capability, not needing 100%. I will be the old fat guy in the neighborhood with a cool car that drives it everyday... with a big grin on his face.

It is good for folks to post about even more sophisticated systems so that other members can learn and consider their own options.

 

The XKR seems to be gaining even more power, the more that I go WOT and use the water injection unit. I may re-introduce some methanol again after another tank of distilled water. I am also preparing to lower the boost level to 6 psi for the ON position (currently at 7 3/4 psi). I blasted away from a stop light last night, then, further down the road, talked to a fellow in a pick up truck that had witnessed the fun. He was so excited about the car! He asked various questions about what was under the hood and kept going on about how awesome the exhaust and the 'turbo' sounded. =)

Let me tell ya... after I put on Andre's twin screw supercharger, this car will officially qualify as 'stupid' fast. That'll be fun! If this water injection unit is only making, say, 30 hp or so, imagine what adding about 150 hp will be like. Aw, YEAH!

 

The local tire dealers are quite pleased