I do have a little bit of a problem lurking in the back of my mind, The engine in the car right now is a stock as a rock engine from a 1992 Ford LTD. (Australian version.) and sits nicely in its place now, but I have acquired a pair of GT40P heads, and I am contemplating using them, I am just wondering if the rest of the upper end will still fit. I am told I can use the AU XR8 Falcon as they used the same heads, so I will look into it in more detail as time progresses.
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Now!!! We have had no real progress for quite few months. I have no intensions of boring the hell out you, however it seems some people are not happy with what I do. (bugger.) There is a reason for the bonnet scoop, the main reason is height of the engine, secondly it lets out the hot air. The engine sits a little bit higher than the carb engine I used to see if I could get a V8 engine in there.
The engine covers will hit the bottom of the bonnet, I did consider a bonnet bulge at first, the change has been made now. I thought it would be tight under there so that one of the reasons I put one there.
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We are not bored, you are doing superb innovative work, love it
As to the haters 
I doubt they have your skill, and I would suggest they are the ones that should go get⌠
Not like its an XK120 or E-type
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I am not phased by those whom are not interested in the work I m doing, I am in more than just this forum, and they all have the same threads as I write them, I am getting a little bit flustered over the stupid stuff I am doing like loosing those front lower rear bushings. I have to wait now until the next set show up. (I am bound to find the others then.)
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You will never please all of the people all of the time, f++k them, personally I think you are doing an amazing job, itâs not like youâre butchering up a rare car, quite the opposite actually, transforming a relatively common model of Jaguar into something extraordinary, Iâm looking forward to seeing it finished and driving 
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As you are no doubt well aware, you havent worked on vehicles till you have lost parts.
I agree its disturbing if you go through a run of it, makes me think I am dementing 
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Purchased a new 22mm socket for the XJR wheel nuts last week, its somewhere in the garage (I hope!)
Yes the wheels I have for the car is in the shed for the moment, I am looking for some better brakes, probably bigger, we will see when it all starts to come together. The wheels I am using now are 18 inch, and so I have a bit of room to play with.
I will get some pics of the wheels on the car when the front suspension has been completed. I cannot do that yet as with no suspension the car cannot be moved.
Okay, I have been playing silly buggers today. I have a couple of pics to show you how much the bonnet scoop was really needed.
The black section is made of plastic, and that is why it has not been powder coated, the rest is an alloy, and it has been powder coated green. the next pic shows how close it gets just before the scoop starts.
the next shot shows it all climbing upwards.
This gives you an idea of how much area I needed to cover.
So today I started fitting the transmission mounts and will finally insert the driveshaft into the transmission, hopefully it will be done by the end of the day. More pics tomorrow.
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Well today I did at least get the transmission mount finally done, then I had a couple of other ideas.
I have dropped the link a little bit, I have a couple of ideas, just not sure what to do with them. So I have made up a small bash plate, and hopefully soon I can try out my other ideas, if they donât work well nothing much there.
So I made up this bash plate to start with, thinking of playing with the air flow under the car, but just ideas for now.
Well today has come to an end, but it has been a very good day for me at least. I finished installing the transmission mount, and got the tail shaft done, and as predicted I ordered the new lower control arm rear bushings, and I later found the ones I had lost. So both lower control arms are now in place.
My shafts seem to be in very good condition so I painted them up with copper anti seize, put the new poly bushings in place and poked it all through. I did the same thing with the front control arm as well.
I decided to put some lowered springs in the car, I will need to wait for these to arrive. I put the old shock in place, mainly so I donât loose all the bolts and nuts, as the shocks will also be replaced.
That is about all from me today, so until next time.
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Okay everyone today is a fairly slack day, waiting for parts to arrive is quite frustrating at times. I thought I would go over a few comments made over the last years so. I havenât responded to some of them because I thought at the time they did not deserve an answer. Donât get me wrong I also enjoy looking at an all original car. So I decided to have a look around about engine weights among the manufacturers, and I found some interesting things about our engines. Now I am a member of a few modified Jaguar forums. They can be extremely informative, sometimes downright wrong, and then then purist that try to use defamatory remarks to describe the modification part to the obviously superior genuine Jaguar part. I personally donât have a following of a particular brand of parts in most cases, although I must confess that some parts are definitely better than others, cheap parts can be just as the price is; CHEAP. These will fail very quickly in most cases and so try to do a bit of research before you try a different brand. Anyway back to engines. A quick search shows our Jaguar AJ6 engine coming in at 430lb, an all alloy block unfortunately I donât know if it has any accessories attached which in itself can make quite a difference to the overall weight of the completed package. We will now compare the weight of the inferior Heavy US cast iron manufacturers. The most common being the Chev 350 V8 and it weighs in at 570lb, but for me it was a little bit too big for my engine bay. (1988 XJ40) and the Chrysler was a little bit bigger, and heavier again, so still not much good for me. Ford on the other hand has so many engines it becomes a challenge to decide what you are looking for. In my case I was looking for the smallest sized engine, physically, the weight and capacity did not really come into my equation at the time. I was looking for length and width, (Mainly width) and at the time I focused on the most common of engines I know of. In Australia we had the Cleveland engine in most of our Ford v8 powered cars in the early 1970âs and the Windsor in the 1960âs. The Cleveland was a much wider engine than the Windsor, but it wasnât a common engine here in Australia for a while, until the 1990âs when Ford Australia decided to re introduce the V8 engines into our cars again. (These dates are not totally accurate) anyway the Windsor was re introduced with EFI and was putting out some good power, this engine was also narrow enough for me to use in my application, and the comment âheavy US cast ironâ this engine weighed in at 411lb, so slightly lighter than the alloy Jaguar AJ6 engine. I chose this engine simply because it would fit, no other reason. In Australia we called the 302 engines in metric a 4.9l, I believe in the USA they labelled it a 5.0l and having EFI just added to the pleasure of fitting one into my car. That is the end of my dribble session for now, I will do other dribble sessions as I encounter some other statements. Remember these are from an assortment of forums and therefore some statements may or may not have appeared on this one. I don have 1 question; If you are not interested in modifications to cars, why join a modified forum?
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Hi there everyone, I have a question about improving the turning circle of my XJ40. I know they donât really have a good turning circle normally, so I was wondering if there is anything that can improve it while I have the front end all stripped down for now,
From memory, you are stuck with what you have, its limited by the ARB and inner wheel arches.
I kind of thought this might be the case, but no harm in asking, I am still going to see if anything can be done, it is not really that much of a deal, it would just be nicer to have a smaller turning circle if possible.
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I only got one day to work on the car this weekend, so I decided to do something that wonât take much time to do. I decided to make up the tail pipes and start making them ready to be fitted even though the rest of the exhaust will not be there. The reason for this is the tail pipes I want to remain fairly level and having the desired stick out from under the rear bumper, only to find I didnât have enough 25mm flat bar to finish the mounts, hehehe always something I suppose.
I am also now waiting yet again for bushings for the upper control arms and ball joints, I will be considering new front wheel bearings as well seeing it is all pulled down at the moment.
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25mm for the tailpipe mounts.
How much is this car going to weigh once finished?
Perhaps not enough information here, 25x3x75 flat bar, hehehe I have saved some weight by putting the Windsor engine into the car, so I have a little bit of room for adding some strength.
I understand that some things seem a little heavy at times, and I feel for good reason, although I admit I am possibly over engineering things. The exhaust end I have made up are to be held in a fairly precise location and so these are being made to stand alone for now, and when the full exhaust goes on it will be done by an exhaust shop, so it will only be the ends that are a tad heavy, and they will also be rubber insulated to avoid any unwanted vibrations to go through the body. I am after all trying to keep it all fairly quiet inside at least. I know that a true dual system is not the best for any engine really, but that is what I will be running when it gets installed. I am looking for a nice deep tone on the exhaust, but not very loud, and I have found that a true dual exhaust gives a very distinct sound. Something I discovered back in my younger days. You will all see what my aim is when the ends are done and bolted in, until then you will just have to use your imagination. 
I canât see weight being an issue. Itâs not like youâre intending to race it. As an everyday road car itâs unlikely you will even notice it. I think if I was doing a project similar to yours I too would be focused on strength and durability rather than worrying over a little added weight. And I doubt thereâs anywhere in your country where you would legally be able to drive it flat out anyway. Iâm really looking forward to seeing it finished, itâs definitely the most customised XJ40 Iâve ever seen.
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