Am I the only owner here?

Don Law is it if I could jump in…The last was in florida but he retired.
Bartlett, doesn’t work on them and cant see, Its Dons shop or nothing. Shipping to the UK is around 10 grand.
G0ood luck
Its time for your fuel blatters and all the rest. Last one I recall was around a 90,000 service.
Its a HUGE JOB.
Good luck
GTJOEY1314
P.S. might as well get the tires as well.
GTJOEY1314

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Dollars or pounds?

Cheers
DD

Mine was done prior to it being shipped to Canada including the brake upgrade… but no tyres… Don didn’t have them at the time .

Dollars my friend

Blathers, belts, hoses

I recently bought one. Found a gentleman in CT who brought one over years ago and federalized it. He maintains his own car, 2 other XJ220’s, a huge number of BMW and spec Miata race cars (Lime Rock is close), and a few collections. My car has about 400 miles on it and needs a complete recommission. Estimate is for right around $70K plus/minus whatever else I want to do to the car (replace Zytech with Motronic?) up the hosepower, etc. It already has a lot of go-fast parts from TWR, being one of the 3 “XJ220 GT” cars they built for Italian GT racing in 1993. The TWR chassis plate denotes it as an XJ220-N, #003. One sister car was raced in Martini livery (race#11) and did pretty well, I believe Don Law owns that one. Second car is also white with blue stripes (race #12), and that one is in northern Europe. My car was the backup, still in silver gray, and never raced. But it has larger brakes, a straight pipe exhaust, stripped interior, external ignition cutoff, fire system, carbon/Kevlar seat (no passenger seat) and BBS race wheels with really old tires…
Anyway, if I’m lucky it will be ready for spring-apparently the bag tanks are made to order and take 6 months to get here. Everything else is in stock at the restoration facility.
2 questions: Is it worth it to replace the DOS 5.0 era Zytek system with a modern Motronic or similar? I understand that you can’t even buy a serial-port laptop running DOS any more. Or just leave the ECU alone?
Upgrade the turbos to new units that spool up faster?

Any other advice would be appreciated.

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Well… I choose to use Don Law for any work I require… He is the only person who has the expertise. Personally I have and use the original Zytek system which works just fine… you can do all sorts of upgrades if you want… but to what end ? I am a believer in leaving things alone… I don’t know of a public road in North America which is engineered for the car at half its available speed. If I can offer any assistance I’ll be happy to do so. The ECU runs windows 3.1 ONLY… working laptops ARE available… I use an old Toshiba…which is what Jaguar recommended… but anything from that era will suffice. And NO an emulator won’t work ! If you do choose to throw it out which I strongly discourage you from doing… throw it my way ! best wishes Godfrey

I spoke to Don Law a number of times while waiting for the car to be delivered. I was set to send it to him when the dealer who found it for me (and is a close friend) recommended Mike George of Autoworks Unlimited in Litchfield, CT. So I drove up to see him, and I’ve been dealing with dealer and independent repair facilities for my Italian cars for 20 years, and working on my older cars myself (Dino 246 GTS, Shelby Daytona, E-type) for many years, and this guy impressed me. Which I can’t say for some of the shops I’ve used in the past (FCA certified no less). He has the Zytek diagnostic kit and an old DOS laptop, and was one of the first to federalize a 220 in the USA back in 2006 or 2007. And it’s an hour from my house so I can go up any time and check out his work. Not to take anything away from Don Law, who was a true gentleman answering dozens of my questions patiently and accurately, but if you look hard enough there is at least one person here who knows what he is doing. He also services the 8 XJR-15s this dealer brought in over the past year. I was at Lime Rock in July to test an XJR-15 but I’m 6’4" and couldn’t even get my leg into the car. There were 5 other owners there driving the XJR-15s on the track, 2 of them well known collectors, and they were very happy with this mechanic’s work.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress. Hopefully have it on the track by May.

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BTW my car is 220769 on xj220data.com

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Wow! Never thought seeing THAT set of words would make me feel old…:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Godfrey- Is there a reason why the ecu needs to be reprogrammed before re-installing the engine?
My car came with zero accessories. no owners manual, no floppy disk, no tools, etc. I’m trying to plan ahead and I don’t want to go through this entire teardown and rebuild (teardown already started), only to find out at the last minute that all the work has been done, but the engine won’t run. Would you kindly explain? Thank you.

Best,
Steven

Hello Steven once the engine is unplugged from the electrical system the ECU essentially cancels the existing program and resets to a default… so nothing works until you reprogram it once it is back in the car… This is why I keep saying do yourself a BIG favour and stop messing with it! Send it to Don who has the equipment, knowledge , and spares … to do it right the first time… you pay now… or you could pay a lot more later for him to fix things that got screwed up by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing… Up to you! This is NOT your Dad’s Chevy! Best wishes Godfrey

I appreciate the quick reply and your suggestions about Don Law. You should have seen my dad’s Chevy- what a mess. Don and I have corresponded via email a number of times and I had planned to send the car to him. Just today I received an email from him asking when I would like to ship the car over. My problem is with New York State, not with Don Law.
Complications with bringing a non-standard car into NY and getting license plates. This car may have been in the US for a few years, but it’s never been registered. Until I resolve these issues, like installing federally mandated 3 point seat belts instead of the harnesses it came with and some emissions modifications, I can’t title and register the car. I have found out what I need to do and how to do it, and it’s not difficult but it is time consuming. A few months at least. So I can’t ship a car to another country without holding legal title to it, even though I have the previous title and bill of sale. Customs could impound the car on either side of the pond and it would take forever to clear up that mess.

So I am doing the best I can with what I have to work with. I’ve been a collector and amateur mechanic for 25 years. I can rebuild a Ferrari Dino 246 GT in my sleep, and I believe I have found a competent mechanic who has already federalized his own xj220 ten years ago and worked on others. The problem is my lack of information. I’m very anal, and I have to know what is going on all the time. I have spent days on the Internet, joined a number of forums, and am asking questions. I thank you for your answers, but I can’t send the car to the UK at this time.

Now that I understand the ecu’s map will be wiped when the engine is removed, would you consider renting out your diagnostic kit to me for a few weeks, in a few months from now? I’d be happy to leave a deposit with you until it’s safe return. Or if you decide to sell it, please consider me a buyer. I’m going to have this car a long time and I prefer to keep it as original as possible, rather than installing a new ems like a Motec or similar.

Again, thank you for your help, and if I can reciprocate just let me know.

Steven I feel your pain… I understand your issues… better sort that title! with regard to the ECU diagnostic kit…sorry my friend… it ain’t goin’ nowhere… According to my sources Jaguar only produced 24 of them back in 1992… of which to my knowledge there are only 2 in North America… mine and one in the US… I purchased my car in 2009 and have been accumulating spares ever since… when no one else wanted them… if you go on Xj220 data you will find some of the treasures I’ve found in posted photos. Jaguar originally charged 30000GBP each for these kits… I only found mine by chance a number of years ago… and Jaguar themselves seemed rather annoyed that there was one ‘in the wild’ All this said… I am prepared to keep an eye out for one… but please understand… it won’t be cheap… and it will probably turn up at the most inopportune time … financially that is… mine did… ate pasta for weeks! PM me if you would like to proceed… I can also offer you other items over time should you so desire…

Doug and Godfrey - I heard that this happened in Ron’s car (see my PM). seems to be a common (scheduled) maintenance issue.

It’s why I grabbed my kit when I could… these units are unobtainable… Jaguar was quite annoyed when they discovered I has one… This was the time when Jaguar Heritage was getting started… and they didn’t! Don’t know how they are servicing the cars now… I’m given to understand that they are having their problems… The Xj220 was derided for so long that it almost fell off the radar… Now that they are 25 years old it seems that there is a new crop of American collectors who are beginning to realise that the car deserves much greater attention… Finally! ( all the better ) for those of us who bought one because we loved the car… back when they were cheap!.. I mean REALLY cheap! Remember when you could buy a fully sorted ‘Dtype’ for 6 grand…

A group of us are reverse engineering the diagnostics computer for our Lamborghini Murcielagos. They were sold new from Lambo for $20K. We are just about done with all the funky cabling and strange adapter boxes that go along with the software.

It’s fun to say you have one of the only computers out there, and yes, you’ll be able to sell it for a pretty penny when the time comes, but that’s short sighted because you’ll lose a lot more than that money on resale value. If collectors can’t get the car serviced without shipping the car to a monopoly in the UK, the values of these cars will continue stay well below the comparables that have skyrocketed well above the 220’s value.

Better to get the community together and get these computers duplicated.

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Possibly… but here’s the thing I didn’t buy it to make money on it… I bought it because I love the car… long before they reached the prices they are today… As far as the ‘monopoly’ if it wasn’t for Don Law the car would have been in the ash heap of history years ago…if it hadn’t been for HIS love of the car and his dedication to seeing that they were serviced properly for years now… you wouldn’t have tyres, you probably wouldn’t have a lot of parts… you wouldn’t have transmission fluid… as it is unique to the car… and Jaguar ran out years ago…you wouldn’t have someone to call and get answers to questions that arise and can only be answered by someone who has spent those same years figuring out solutions to all the problems that the diagnostic equipment doesn’t tell you… you wouldn’t have someone to send the car to to sort out the problems that your ‘specialist mechanic’ created because he didn’t know what he was doing and attempted to fix something about which he didn’t have the expertise, I for one am perfectly happy to ship the car to him for service… as I know it will be done right…the first time… There are a lot more Murcielagos out there than 220s … Go play I hope you are successful in your endeavours… but when MY 220 needs service it is going to Don. I will continue to support Don as he has supported me when no one else cared… I wonder what sort of reception you will get from Lamborghini when you face a similar issue ? best wishes Godfrey

It’s one thing to send a car to the UK for a major operation, but for every little thing is not practical.

Lots of cars have been saved the same way Don saved the 220. Look at the DeLorean, but the people that bought all the parts and tools, and even manufacture new parts, are happily supporting other mechanics doing the work and not sticking it to the owners.

And just wait until the container your car is traveling in happens to fall into the ocean. It happens a lot.

At least you’ll still have the diagnostic computer since you won’t share it with any of the owners in your community.

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tell you what I’ll share it for $75000.00 USD + $1000/per diem… including shipping time… with a $100.000.00 non refundable deposit. and a non copy agreement. any takers?

Now, that’s being a true communitarian!

If only JCNA would do that with their tool loan program.

:wink: