RE: Holy smoke - Jag's 70s diesel flirtations
Discussion
chrisemersons98 said:
VladD said:
Actually he's a newbie because he's new here (hence the term new-bie) and probably doesn't know that PH started as a TVR site. HTH. 
Actually i didn't know PH started as a TVR site, sadly my memories of TVR's are mostly unpleasant, which is why i find it hard to understand the fascination now.Sorry chaps i got you off topic.....
MadmanO/T People said:
In America, it was a slightly different story. Back in the '70s and '80s, there was a veritable cottage industry built around dropping Chevy 350 cu.in. (5.7 litre) V8 engines into Jaguars. Not because the smallblock Chevy was easier on fuel but because (according to legend) the six and twelve cylinder Jags of that era were so damn unreliable!
Every now and then, I still come across an old Jag with a Chevy V8 conversion over here.
I think it was a mix of that and the maintenance for the small block V8 being much cheaper and easier.Every now and then, I still come across an old Jag with a Chevy V8 conversion over here.
andymadmak said:
Didn't British Leyland also look at doing a diesel version of the Rover (Buick) V8? I seem to remember they had major difficulties with refinement so dropped it after a while. I was told (possibly wrongly) that it was so as to prevent THIS engine being used in a Jaguar(rather than the petrol V8 version) that the XJ40 engine bay was deliberately designed to be too narrow to accept a 90deg V8 - but would accept an in line 6 and a 60deg V12!
This is true - it's at Gaydon.The ohv engine would in fact fit - they just said it wouldn't. Like they said the petrol version wouldn't fit the Stag, so they'd have to design their own.
Of course, management took it at face value, apparently...
mat205125 said:
Max_Torque said:
When Jag diesels are as good as the German ones, then they can start crowing on about it. Until then, get your heads down lads you've got some catching up to do..........
Really?Have you tried the V6 JLR 2.7 diesel?
andymadmak said:
Didn't British Leyland also look at doing a diesel version of the Rover (Buick) V8? I seem to remember they had major difficulties with refinement so dropped it after a while. I was told (possibly wrongly) that it was so as to prevent THIS engine being used in a Jaguar(rather than the petrol V8 version) that the XJ40 engine bay was deliberately designed to be too narrow to accept a 90deg V8 - but would accept an in line 6 and a 60deg V12!
I heard that. The Rover oil burner was known as "Project Iceberg."Edit
Beaten to it. As you were.
Edited by wildcat45 on Wednesday 14th November 19:28
Max_Torque said:
When Jag diesels are as good as the German ones, then they can start crowing on about it. Until then, get your heads down lads you've got some catching up to do..........
The diesel engines do lag a bit, but luckily the germans don't do suspension (at all) or character (very well).
peteA said:
Well...just to complicate the petrol vs diesel issue...would it be fair to say that we PHer's would 'generally' all prefer a petrol engine but with the mpg of a diesel?
Autocar intimated a week or two ago that petrol engines' mpg was starting to close on diesels now.
The original article does serve a couple of useful purposes though:
1. Remind us how much better diesels have got. Even mid 90s they were still dire, and look at them now.
2. Remind us how much more efficient petrol engines have got. I was reading the fuel economy figures of 70s/80s V12 Jaguars in a big Graham Robson car encyclopedia the other week; I can't imagine anyone buying anything other than a supercar that got early teens mpg nowadays. Anything less than 30 is a bit painful.
andymadmak said:
Didn't British Leyland also look at doing a diesel version of the Rover (Buick) V8? I seem to remember they had major difficulties with refinement so dropped it after a while. I was told (possibly wrongly) that it was so as to prevent THIS engine being used in a Jaguar(rather than the petrol V8 version) that the XJ40 engine bay was deliberately designed to be too narrow to accept a 90deg V8 - but would accept an in line 6 and a 60deg V12!
Landrover did some V8 experimental diesels in FC Landrovers for the MOD in the 70s/80s saw them sitting at Aston Down about 17 yrs ago all totally shagged in true MOD testing fashion needless to say they looked liked they failed testing.Johnnytheboy said:
2. Remind us how much more efficient petrol engines have got. I was reading the fuel economy figures of 70s/80s V12 Jaguars in a big Graham Robson car encyclopedia the other week; I can't imagine anyone buying anything other than a supercar that got early teens mpg nowadays. Anything less than 30 is a bit painful.
I saw a very early immaculate XJS (P reg IIRC) pull up in the local retail park a few weeks ago, in a very 70's shade of green. It was a pre H.E. model. To run a car like that as a classic must mean you are on first name terms with the local petrol station cashier, let alone when it was new and possibly being used more often, in the wake of a fuel crisis!tobinen said:
VM diesel motors were sh
te in Jeeps in the 90s so would've been a disaster in a Jag.
I had a boss who was soooooo desparate to get a company Rangie in the 90's that he ordered a diesel one (the V8's were too expensive). The contrast between the luxury image and the god-awful racket was quite something. As for the performance....te in Jeeps in the 90s so would've been a disaster in a Jag.I know that the latest ones are a vastly different proposition, of course, but that particular combo of car and engine was dreadful.
Johnnytheboy said:
Autocar intimated a week or two ago that petrol engines' mpg was starting to close on diesels now.
The original article does serve a couple of useful purposes though:
1. Remind us how much better diesels have got. Even mid 90s they were still dire, and look at them now.
2. Remind us how much more efficient petrol engines have got. I was reading the fuel economy figures of 70s/80s V12 Jaguars in a big Graham Robson car encyclopedia the other week; I can't imagine anyone buying anything other than a supercar that got early teens mpg nowadays. Anything less than 30 is a bit painful.
Today in the US every auto maker still offer gasser only, no diesel options offered. We are given versions with gas/petrol power that real world return low to mid teens city at best to high teens to low 20s highway. VW is the only auto maker that has continued to offer high mpg diesel power offerings for most of the last 25 years. Even VW stopped selling diesel powered versions here twice in the last 25 years, no diesel offerings from 87-89 and from 93-96 by any auto maker.
Drivers like me would really love to see some of the current diesel offering sold everywhere else around world but not here. You want ptrol only, move to the US!!!
Edited by binberme on Thursday 15th November 08:29
Seems to me that huge amounts of technology have been applied to diesels to make them perform more like a petrol, so lots of turbos and huge pressures etc. which of course means that the days of the bullet proof diesel are long gone and they seem quite problematic at high miles, but they offer similar levels of performance to petrol though of course with relatively poor economy, comparable with early diesels rather than improving on them.
So now, to get the economy of diesel, much of the technology that diesels use seems to be going onto petrol, making them more economical but resembling diesels? I ponder if at some point we'll end up with effectively the same engine and simply adopt one fuel type?
So now, to get the economy of diesel, much of the technology that diesels use seems to be going onto petrol, making them more economical but resembling diesels? I ponder if at some point we'll end up with effectively the same engine and simply adopt one fuel type?
andymadmak said:
Didn't British Leyland also look at doing a diesel version of the Rover (Buick) V8? I seem to remember they had major difficulties with refinement so dropped it after a while. I was told (possibly wrongly) that it was so as to prevent THIS engine being used in a Jaguar(rather than the petrol V8 version) that the XJ40 engine bay was deliberately designed to be too narrow to accept a 90deg V8 - but would accept an in line 6 and a 60deg V12!
The V12 didn't fit. It cost Ford a truckload of money to turn the XJ40 into the XJ81 so it would take the big twelve and then they only sold it four a couple of years (plus a couple more as the X305).The AJ6 block was designed to be 'dieselified' at some stage. Of course, it never happened, but it probably lends something towards the engine's reliability.
Oh, and the reason cars didn't really improve on 50 mpg over a decade or two is because they massively improved their emissions instead (I mean proper nasty emissions, not CO2).
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