[XJealouS]

FYI - we currently have 43 6.0 V12 XJR-S registered on the JEC database. It may well be the case that not all of them are using the JEC Bulletin Board Maybe an article drafted on XJR-S published in the magazine might ignite a dialogue this subject.

Cheers, Rich

That's quite a few. I tried to work out how many on the JEC database but couldn't work it out. There were over 600 made (although 100 went to the US) so I'm hoping a few more have survived.

I'm 'XJR-S' over on the JEC bb so we have spoken before, maybe I should look at pulling together an article?

 

[BigCatXJS]

Ahhh

Please feel free to draft something. I would be happy to help review/edit if you need me to and submit to Nigel our Editor... Just ping me an email.

Cheers, Rich

 

[AlastairCM]

I'm not an XJR-S owner but do have some knowledge on these cars. I own two TWR XJ-S cars which are the forerunner to the XJR-S, some of the modifications to the TWR cars were carried over to the XJR-S by "Jaguar Sport" which was the 50/50 TWR and Jaguar joint venture that launched the XJR-S in 1988.

I've looked at the early XJR-S cars from the perspective of a source of spares and because a number of advertised "TWR" cars are often normal cars with bits bolted on taken from the Jaguar Sport cars. There is a way to tell genuine TWR cars but you need to know the subtle differences between the parts used by TWR for the various options and the XJR-S parts, so I've picked up knowledge on that basis plus from crawling over scrapped XJR-S cars for parts.

If you don't have it, as a starting point you should get hold of the 90 page Jaguar XJR-S product support manual provided to the US dealers for the 100 XJRS facelift cars that were sent over to the US. Although its written from a US market perspective it provides a brief description of all of the differences between the XJRS and a standard XJS, a full parts list of the "SP" Jaguar Sport parts and most importantly a full list of the Zetec fault codes for the ECU. I have a pdf copy.

All of the Jaguar Sport "SP" parts inventory left with Jaguar after 1993 were bought up by Black Country Jaguar some years ago and they do still have some "new old stock", although what they do have left is a bit hit and miss and some of it is in storage. Otherwise it is a case of cannibalising parts from scrapped cars or locating the odd parts that people have tucked away.

There are various sites on the web that can provide some info. There is a registry website for the 100 cars sent to the US and another Jaguar Sport enthusiast website that contains some info. There are also various scans of the Jaguar Sport brochures scattered on various websites and they do come up on ebay from time to time.

Build figures I've seen quoted are for 1100 XJR-S cars built between 1988MY and 1993MY, covering both the 5.3 early cars and the later 6.0 cars, but I've never tried to verify the figures. There was also a scheme (Fitted at Bloxham) where certain of the modifications like bodykits and wheels were available to be fitted to ordinary XJ-S cars later on. That's why wheels and bodykits tend to pop up more frequently for sale.

Happy to try and answer any specific questions about the XJR-S if it's something I've picked up from my experience.

 

[Fizmo100]

I have a 1990 6.0 XJR-s. I don't have a whole lot to add to the discussion, other than i do worry about suspension parts and the Zytec ECU. There was a Zytec module floating round on Ebay for a while (may still be there) for around £800, but I've no idea if it would be possible to install it as I'm assuming it would need programming? My plan in the event of an ECU failure has always been to replace it with a more modern system for one of the manufacturers already mentioned. It takes away from the originality of the car, but if it keeps it on the road and makes no difference to the experience of driving it (or even improves it) then i'm happy.

Suspension parts are the other bug-bear - I had a broken spring a few years back, and as they are different springs to the standard XJS I was a bit worried about how I'd replace it. A quick ask on this forum and I had a PM, two days later I had a new spring. Easy as pie. Think I may have got lucky that time though! No idea where to source one from in future!

I can't compare how it handles to a standard XJS as I've never driven one, but I love the way it goes. The ride is excellent, power is whopping, the noise (with silencer substitute pipes) is great, and it always puts a smile on my face. I've never seen another on the road. I'm in Cheshire, it would be good to pop over to Yorkshire to meet a fellow owner!

 

[nigelstacey]

Hi everyone. I haven't posted on the forum for many years now. I'm the guy with J91 RDU the facelift 6.0 XJRs of Youtube/Clarkson fame.

I hope everyone is having fun with their cars and life is good as well!!

Anyhow... this is a long story...so...I'll try to be very brief

About two years ago the car developed an increasingly frequent intermittent hot start problem. Then one day running at speed the engine cut-out and wouldn't restart. A year later, through a local specialist, I managed to find a guy who had contact details for Anthony Moss, who once worked for Zytek. He diagnosed a faulty sensor in the distributor. I sent him the dizzy (which he repaired) and the ECU, which he checked with the Zytek software to make sure the memory was programmed correctly - it was. He returned the parts and I installed them forgetting to mark the original distributor position - so after a 6 month wait the car went back to the specialist to be put back to TDC, the dizzy positioned correctly and everything wired up. Now it starts but it is over-fuelling on one bank and has a very intermittent spark on the other. The garage have connected up an oscilloscope and the distributor is outputting two good clear signals (12 for sync and 1 for position). But the sync signal at the amplifier is corrupted showing a stepped signal with a DC offset.

We suspect this could be due to A. a faulty ECU or B. me wrongly marking the wires which provide the feed from the ECU to the ignition amp. I'd taken them out of the small black connector which slots into the side of the AB14 amp to resolder.

So to try to eliminate the easy first.... Could someone who has a 6.0 XJRs take me a picture of the connector? What we need to be able to see is 1. the colour of the wires and which AB14 pin they connect to and 2. the earthing connection for the ignition amp.

If anyone could help I'd be very grateful. And a beer or two or ...[n].. would be freely offered to the lucky winner !

 

[Reg]

Hi Nigel,

Can't help you I'm afraid, but nice to hear from you...hope you can get the problem fixed, sure someone will be able to assist..

Cheers

Reg

 

[nigelstacey]

Hi Reg, really good to hear from you. I hope you, family and the convertible are keeping well? Recently bought and XJ-SC V12 to keep my spirits up and fingers crossed I've had a positive experience with this one! Would still love to get the XJRs back in the road though,

All the best, Nigel

 

[xjfactor]

The XJR-s is the Jag equivalent to the mid 1970's R-S and R-T Porsche Carreras - which now make
half a million ++. As such, they are surely the most ridiculously undervalued limited edition sports
model anywhere in the world. My view is that the Zytek system (same as Lister) has been largely
responsible for this. Most cars running Zytek are being constantly over-fuelled (this was an F1 system
re-configured for road use) - ok for bona-fide race cars, but not good for road cars, my Lister ran at 130psi
compression (due to bore wash) - not good ! I also bought a 5.3 XJR-s (& described as such in V5) - a
very low mileage fsh car but otherwise very rusty in some areas - oddly perfect in others, which runs Marelli
(engine luckily spot on & well worth the £1k paid for the car on its own). Having carried out most of the
welding now (to a good standard - but life too short to be quite as meticulous as with Lister), hoping to
get her painted (signal red again) over winter. Front bed was rotted out too, so had to change this as well. Why
not change the 6.0 back to Marelli , probably the route I'll end up going with the Lister (unless I win the Lotto
and can buy myself a Omex ?

 

[nigelstacey]

Have to admit you are not the first to suggest stripping out the Zytek and either going Marelli, Lucas or after-market. I don't think it's worth the expense. There is no reason why the Zytek shouldn't be up to the job - though something clearly isn't right at the moment. But thanks for the thought. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

 

[xjfactor]

Marelli makes more sense because you're staying close to original , and
no reason really why this should cost a fortune to carry out installation,
especially when your old Zytek system should have quite a good resale
value to someone looking to repair their own .

 

[Reg]

Hi Reg, really good to hear from you. I hope you, family and the convertible are keeping well? Recently bought and XJ-SC V12 to keep my spirits up and fingers crossed I've had a positive experience with this one! Would still love to get the XJRs back in the road though,

All the best, Nigel

Yeah all well thanks Nigel, including the convertible, which is running great at the moment, touch wood! Then again she has had quite a bit spent on her over the years, like all XJS's they eat money!!

 

[XJealouS]

After searching long and hard, look what I've found:

 

[drammy]

Jealous
Where did you find this rare set?

 

[XJealouS]

Jealous
Where did you find this rare set?

I've managed to make friends with one of the ex engine builders from TWR.

 

[nigelstacey]

Wow! Jealous too. It would be incredibly fortunate if you were somewhere close by, I'm in East Yorks.

Still no luck with mine. We'd found another pre-facelift nearby, but the wiring set-up is completely different.

 

[AlastairCM]

I've managed to make friends with one of the ex engine builders from TWR.

Don't suppose he worked there in 1987 building the pre-XJRs bigger engines and would like to educate me about all the extra bits that seem to be on my 6.1L that TWR built. Might even be one of his ;-)

Nigel, I presume you've seen the Zetec wiring diagram that was part of the Jaguar dealer support manual for the 100 facelift US cars? It shows the wire colours for the amp connection but not clear (assuming they are the same colours as the UK) if they are in the same order as the actual amp connector. Its shown in order as red for one ECU pin wire (31 output ignition drive), white with black stripe for negative coil, white for positive coil, then a black then white that both seem to join and go to a different ECU pin (51 Ignition system ground). I'll keep an eye open for a facelift XJRs on my travels.

 

[xjfactor]

Only a small handful of people seek to convert their XJS into a genuine performance car with modern day ability. The
expense of doing the job properly becomes prohibitive. It's far more common to see used 6.0 engine cars on ebay etc with
blown head gaskets than with 5.3 units. The cooling isnt up to it, and an ali rad plus 2 kenlowes are the minimum requirement,
ideally with Evans waterless too ....£ ouch ! Then, any xjs 3 speeder is going to be dead-in-the-water head to head vs a Boxter
S for instance, especially half way round a wet roundabout with that tractor 'box...If someone looking for true modern day performance...
a museum piece engine management is not really going to help. £25k + needs to get spent on a serious gearbox, proper suspension,
brakes, engine tuning and decent cooling, exhaust etc...it just doesnt add up financially...but you might just end up with perhaps the best
luxury sports car in the world.

 

[xjfactor]

To qualify my earlier statement, luckily, there are a minority who do see heavy XJS expenditure
as a valid argument, for various reasons. Going back to the engine / fuel management, if TW
were still around and had serious aspirations about winning races in XJS's in 2015, does anyone
seriously think he'd be tinkering around with pre-historic 80's technology now ? No, of course not -
he'd be busy designing something completely modern from scratch. Nothing wrong with keeping
cars original - but you end up with a piece of nostalgia - not something that can cut the mustard
today.

 

[AlastairCM]

XJfactor, as you know I am biased on such things. But I would take issue with why you would want to now go down the route of converting an XJS and spending £25k to get modern day performance unless you intend to go racing or get pleasure from the technical challenge of doing so (actually I would say a decent running XJS still gives pretty good performance anyway, aside from fuel economy, when compared to a lot of standard modern cars).

TWR and Lister did it all to death 25 years ago in terms of an exercise to demonstrate how to modify a standard car to varying levels of performance vs. original feel, does anyone really need performance beyond a fully converted Lister Le Mans? Sticking a manual gearbox with a standard V12, based on tried and tested ratios used by TWR and Lister will give most people more than enough performance for everyday use and get rid of the biggest performance drag on the V12. You don't need to mess around beyond that unless you particularly want to make small less costly tweaks around intake sizes and exhaust, which again TWR/Lister developments provide a template for.

Good and rarer versions of the cars are now worth more because of their originality and unique design, and the value is now in preserving that originality however much a museum piece it is, rather than because of their performance figures. Particularly given the state of UK roads and traffic levels, do we now really have that many opportunities in our daily driving lives to push these cars to enjoy enhanced performance?

 

[xjfactor]

Hi Alastair

I was looking forward to your reply - knew it would be a good one. Well , my last
post - as you no doubt guessed - was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes being a bit controversial
can be a good thing on a forum like this (imo) - as it can and should be a good place to decide
what people are really looking for in terms of their cars performance and attributes. Agree that
Listers were a great concept, but owners experienced a lot of serious issues - cracked rear cages,
serious over-fuelling, endless ripped-to-shreds radius arm bushes, overheating etc etc etc. I think
you can have a 'sympathetic' restoration, where a happy medium can be achieved. I dont think there
is anything wrong with using DB7 or in some cases Polyurethane bushes. Most old V12's - even low
mileage units - have greater or lessor leaks from either front or back (or both) crank seals. Tackling
these is a great chance to also drop in a new water pump, put 4 new belts on, and also....put in an
ali rad with a couple of extra kenlowes blowing from the outside. At least will help look after any bigger
engine displacement issues Very hard to know where to draw a line with budget. I guess anyone lucky
enough to be able to buy - lets say - a new XF - knows that he's going to kiss goodbye to several tens
of thousands of pounds in financing / servicing / depreciation etc , so its probably less of a financial
castrophe to spend out on an asset that is generally rising in value rather than rapidly diminishing.
Prices really are all over the shop. Locally , we have MGmecca - who will completely rebuild your B
starting at £30k and up, then you have higher profile outfits like JD, where you might spend £200k on
doing up a MK2 Jag (albeit very very nicely) ! People are scared to move to Norfolk because of all the
inbreeding etc, but actually it really isnt that bad. You can actually do some really stupid things - like
leave your wallet completely visible on your drivers seat, forget to lock your car, - then find nothing has
happened to it (on a busy industrial estate). People are all extremely friendly in reality (including Police).
The whole region has a very low density population , so you actually can still enjoy driving around the
place, although with a GM400 in your left hand...you'll be using it to wave goodbye to a lot of other
better endowed (mostly plastic) traffic much of the time : )