Jaguar Super V8 Project

[alec.e]

monthefish said:

Ballpark, how much did you pay for yours?

I paid about £9k for mine, excluding wheels and new interior, etc. Fortunatly, been able to sell off surplus parts on ebay to offset some of the upgrades. To buy a basic spec Facelift XJR would be well over £10k (and increasing in value), let alone find a X358 Super V8 with the extras.

Edited by alec.e on Friday 19th August 21:30

[alec.e]

Well the exhaust has been done, serious kudos to the guys for working from 10am to 11pm on it! I believe the 200 cell cats have made the biggest difference, it feels stronger than before, evidenced by the traction control light flashing more.
Now it sounds like a ferocious wild cat! Sounds epic on wide open throttle, sadly, the (existing aftermarket) back boxes are way too small to work with the new setup, meaning the exhaust booms and drones about 1.5 to 2k RPM. So it will have to go back again to have them replaced with some quieter ones, hopefully then will be just right!

A video:
https://youtu.be/1kxQ5OvSP0o

[alec.e]

New chambered backboxes installed on Friday. Had a very nice car themed weekend in the XJ, covered about 530 miles and used just over one tank of fuel, averaged 34.4mpg on the way down. Saturday was my bi-yearly visit to Santa Pod with my friends off the Jaguarforum and Sunday was the barge meet organised by 0a.

On the whole a very enjoyable weekend, only issues were a check engine light (due to new cats) which seems to only appear randomly... and some rain at SP, resulting in traction issues for everyone.

[alec.e]

Just returned from the US, the land of V8s! visiting family in Indiana & Michigan.
A random Dodge Viper meet:




My Cousin's 1966 Buick Riviera, 7.0l! I briefly drove it and is like a boat on wheels Very cool car!


Gilmore Car Museum Michigan(recommended)


Not much done lately, just the occasional blast locally. Took some new photos today:

Edited by alec.e on Wednesday 2nd November 21:40

[alec.e]

Who said V8s need to be thirsty?

Edited by alec.e on Wednesday 2nd November 21:40

[alec.e]

45 miles driven very steady, incredibly boring and not really representative of regular use, but interesting to know.

[alec.e]

Tempted to take this off the road for winter to do some preventative maintenance, thinking off leasing some workspace.

Jobs to do:
-Strip down engine bay and remove supercharger
-Send supercharger off to Powerhouse for refurbishment, including new bearings and oil. Possibly look into porting and polishing.
-Replace 'valley pipe', a coolant pipe which runs inside the V of the block, under the supercharger, very prone to bursting...
-Finish painting engine bay in hard to reach areas, so no primer is visible.
-Respray oil coolers gloss red
-Respray engine strut brace, either gloss red or black.
-Replace coolant header tank
-Replace various gaskets, seals and hoses as needed.

Now the big one, do I de-LPG the car? I absolutely HATE the extra wires and plumbing in the engine bay and I never use it anyway. Thoughts please!

[alec.e]

Thanks for the replies guys. Parking is no great difficultly with front and rear PDC, I also have the rear view camera too.
Regards to LPG, I don't ever use it (and neither did the previous owner who fitted it) due to soft valve seats, there is flashlube and valve saver, but still cautious... Does seem a shame to rip out a very expensive system.

[alec.e]

LeighW said:

Not that it probably matters to you, but what difference (if any) do you think it would make to the saleability? I'd personally avoid an LPG car.

As an aside, my Sovereign just threw the first largish bills my way. Local Jag indy - service, replace iffy parking sensors (two rear, one front), new rear pads, replace J gate with second hand unit (old one was occasionally sticking in Park), £955. Two days later, I noticed the whiff of warm brakes which turned out to be the left rear caliper sticking. Another £369. Hopefully it'll behave for a bit now.

In a very bored moment, I decided to go through the Jaguar Voice training (reading 25 phrases from the handbook to the car) - I mean, who doesn't talk to their car? - and only three and a half years since I bought it. Now I can do such amazing things as press a button on the steering wheel and tell it what temperature to set the climate control to, instead of having to reach over to the dash and pressing a button there. Useful eh?

Interesting regarding resale value, you are not the first to say they would avoid a LPG car, mind you this car would never be bought by a Jaguar purist who cared about originality .

Glad the car is on the mend, they can try your patience at times, but worth it in the long run!

I am ashamed to admit I too have never used the voice control either, just seems like too much of a hassle compared to the excellent Ford Sync and Siri. Maybe a job for tomorrow?

[alec.e]

cosworth330 said:

Great thread, just read it from start to finish. Those pod times 13.49 @ 105mph are very respectable.

I would remove the lpg kit if it bothers you. Buying a car with lpg conversion would put me off for some reason. You may be able to sell the whole kit on for a few quid?

Thank-you. The 13.49 time was before the 200 cell cats and exhaust were done, she is now doing 107mph over the 1/4 mile, so waiting for a dry day next year to properly test.

Hopefully the LPG kit would be worth a few £100 pounds on ebay, I believe it was a quite expensive BRC system.

[alec.e]

Bought some spare grey sun visors to re-cover in black suede as past of the headliner re-trim.
The suede should be arriving in a few days, so I had a go at painting the vanity mirrors black to match.
Completely striped, then sprayed satin black. New black foam damping pads and I re-created the original airbag label, by working with a photograph of the label on Adobe Photoshop. I printed it out on gloss label with my colour laser printer.









I have to say how pleased I am with the result on such a tiny detail which no-one will notice, but it makes it feel OEM and factory.

Got some tiny T5 white LEDs on order to replace the mirror bulbs.

Got the MOT done yesterday, passed with no advisories However, I noticed after I returned home that one of the rear plate bulb holder is corroded, so connection is temperamental, so could have failed the MOT. Slightly disappointed on the emissions results, going from 0.000% CO to 0.245% idle since fitting new cats, closer to the limit than I really wanted.



As mentioned in previous update, the supercharger will be coming out for preventative work, I decided against doing it myself and instead have booked it in to The Jag Specialist in January.

[alec.e]

Stedman, yes I agree, competitive pricing too.

Oa, thanks as always, I will see how easy removal is when the supercharger comes out.

[alec.e]

Work has progressed on the sunvisors, one side nearly done. The mirror is yet to be fixed in place, until the LEDs arrive. I am generally happy with how it turned out, not so pleased with the top left hand indent as it is very difficult to stitch up neatly. Thanks to my mum for helping me with this.





Very surprised how much softer it feels now, the originals feel like cardboard in comparison.

[alec.e]

A belated thanks CdeG!

Cracking on with re-trimming some more interior parts:

[alec.e]

Enjoyed spending boxing day taking the front end to bits


Note the rust on the crossbar??

Headlamps wetsanded and polished again:


Ready for paint, I painted some areas which Jaguar left primer on black cars.


All done New fixings used or reused and resprayed if still clean.


Getting very OCD now... I cleaned all hidden surfaces with Autoglym Vinyl and Rubber Care and touched up the flaking paint on the radiator. I want this car to be as close to new as possible, very keen for a full respray next year, inc door shuts.

Looking forward to sorting the oily mess on top of the engine when it goes to the Jag Specialist.

The interior work is halted, until more suede material arrives.

[alec.e]

Some more bits done, thought I would add a bit of bling to the engine bay by polishing the cast alloy intake which sits above the supercharger. I bought a spare one off eBay, they will be swapped over next week.
As you can see, it comes as a very rough cast finish, painted black:


After much grinding a sanding, somewhat smoother:


Hours or further sanding and polishing later, I added the V8 badge:

Yes I also did the underside

My bonnet catch was rusty, so sanded and repainted:


I finally found a set of lambswool matts in the correct colour, brand new from Creamer Jaguar, sadly closing . Only paid for them yesterday and they were here this morning, very swift service! They are from a S-Type, hence slightly different shape, so will need to be trimmed and re-bound at edges. Luckily they are oversized, so enough material to work with.


They are unbelievably soft, the std ones feel like cardboard in comparison. My cat approves

[alec.e]

0a said:

Great to see an update on one of my favourite cars on PH Alec, and happy 2017!

As usual some great work and attention to detail. What are your plans for the Super8 for the rest of the year?

Thank you very much Oa/Alec, very kind of you! All best to 2017 to you too, a shame I missed the latest meet, but it looks like you all had a great time. I have lots of jobs I would like to do, but have given up trying to list them in some sort of order, you know how it is . My short-term goals this month are sort engine bay and finish interior trim.

I would like to be on the look-out for 2nd car later in the year, but probably a 2018 purchase. The criteria is manual gearbox, rwd, 6-Clylinders ideally and most importantly fun to drive. A 996 would be ideal, just a little pricey for me...

How's your car search coming along 0a?

[alec.e]

Thank-you both. I will get some pictures of the new interior trim, once fitted. Hoping to find time to re-cover some more pieces this weekend.

Browsing eBay, to keep-updated on values, I spotted this very rare beauty for sale! A Japanese import, only 27k!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jaguar-XJR-Super-V8-Port...OYAAOSwA3dYamMS

[alec.e]

0a said:

I think that's rather overpriced!

I don't really so think so, yes it is expensive, but when you consider a normal Super V8 is worth about 8k with 100k miles or so, this one has only done about 27k. This is also the Portfolio version, only 265 were ever made!


"400W Dolby Surround Sound system with 15 speakers
Conker coloured leather
Alcantara headlining
Polished alloy shifter surround
Black Walnut Veneer (but this could be specified on other cars for $$$$)
Cherry Black paint (Winter Gold also an option, but most were done in black)
Huge polished exhaust finishers

Plus the previously mentioned goodies;

Machined alloy power vents in the front wings
Polished 20" Callisto wheels

The other options (full electric split rear seat, rear screens, DVD, etc) were available in the standard Super V8's."

http://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xj-xj6-xj8-xjr-x...

[alec.e]

DodgeRam Van Man said:

Strong money but as you say it's extremely rare. I don't remember ever seeing another Super V8 like that for sale.

But it's another of these where the seller doesn't seem to know whether it's an XJR or a Super V8! I would have thought a Super would have Wooden heated steering wheel and wooden gear shifter, although maybe the original owner specced it that way.

Some interesting (that's debatable I suppose) minor changes from my 2004 Super V8 - I see the boot handle is different and offset from centre, and the washer fluid bottle seems to have completely changed location (mine is near the front of the car not near the windscreen).

The other thing I always wonder about these X350s is that the button panel above the touchscreen had blanks next to the Heated Seat buttons right from first production but was only populated with the cooled seat buttons on the X358. Jaguar clearly had designed it for extra buttons in there right from the start but wonder why it took them so long to make the cooled seats available - something I would have expected to see on a 'Portfolio' version like this.

There are only a handful of Super V8 Portfolios in the UK, most went to the US. There is one in the Jaguar section at Gaydon. The Portfolios never had a wooden steering wheel, only leather for some reason...

Yes you are correct on the washer bottle and boot handle, there are actually a ton of very tiny changes for the good (and some for cost-cutting) on the 2005.5 onwards cars. Sadly the cooled seats are x358 onwards only, even the Mondeo had them!

Yazza54 said:

I love this thing, proper murderers car.

Cheers!