I have a ballpeen hammer here somewhere. Not sure I want to wreck a perfectly good valve cover. Maybe some Loctite SI5660.
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Finally got the Zytek diagnostic kit for XJ220, XJR-15. Dealer diagnostic and race team software which lets you do much more, like download and upload maps, change boost, etc. Now I need to visit my car to see how it works.
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Done properly, tapping out a gasket will not wreck the cover.
The Loctite solution is also a good one, if the surfaces are clean and flat.
I’ve been reading up on the service and parts manuals for the XJ220. I cannot find any reference to a knock sensor. Does anyone know if the XJ220 ecu has a knock sensor (or 2)? They were certainly available by 1992, and I’d think it was standard practice to install them on any high performance engine, particularly a turbo. Am I missing something?
Only other option is to install a standalone knock sensor with one sensor for each bank.
Godfrey might know… had he behaved. 
Seriously, would Jaguar Classic tell you (assuming Don Law won’t)?
I can see in the picture the two fischer conectors (four and five pin?) and the nine pin serial subD conector will you be providing the wireing diagram of the connector cable? My 1987
That sent before i finished!.. My 1987 XJ-S uses early development Zytek ECU and i want to keep it going as long as possible so any info on the Zytek unit is helpful.
Nope, no knock sensors in the Zytek ecu.
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So… how goes the battle, Doc?
Hi all. New to the forum. I also have a xj220 which has patiently been waiting in the garage for about 8 or 9 years to get the engine out and change the clutch and fuel cell. I am fascinated with the Zytec discussion but it is way over my head. Would love to get an ecu reader to check on my engine so I could do diagnostics. I had the same issue with a Porsche 962 race car in the past with older Bosch Motronic ECU. Never could get the software and old DOS computer but fortunately never had any problems with the electronics. Sending the car to England just doesn’t make sense to me or my pocket book when I can work on the mechanicals myself.
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Hi guys
Came down to Florida to visit my mother on Feb… Figured I’d stay 2-3 weeks. I’m still here and need to remain here at least 4 more weeks. So I’m nowhere near the car, and the shop is officially closed for the duration.
@helidoc- Only 27 diagnostic kits were made by JaguarSport in 1992-93. They were sent only to main dealers around Europe who had to pay approximately $110,000 for each kit. None were ever sent to the US. There is a whole discussion about this on another post.
In any event, there is one diagnostic kit in a shop in Tennessee, one owned by a private owner in British Columbia who will not let it out of his sight. I forget what he was asking for rental, some crazy amount like $100,000 per day plus a huge deposit.
AFAIK I have the last kit on the planet, and it is not only diagnostic, but can program the ecu as well. Only TWR and race teams got these. Special software and a 5 pin plug instead of the 4 pin on the “diagnostic only” kits sold to dealers. I have software for the XJ220 and XJR-15.
But I have the same problem, in that I can’t take the chance on shipping the kit anywhere in case it gets misplaced. It is literally irreplaceable. And Zytek (now Continental Engineering in the UK) have been promising me they will make more kits and sell their unused supplies since last September. It’s not a priority for them.
The only advice I can give you is to wait until I get back home, then bring or ship your car to the shop in Litchfield, CT and we’ll hook it up. It’s running on a newer laptop in DOS emulation, with a physical serial port, and has the mysterious box that lets the software communicate with the ecu. It is this box that is at the heart of the matter. No one knows what circuitry is inside because it’s all buried in epoxy and no one wants to donate this irreplaceable piece of kit to have the epoxy boiled off and give someone a look at what’s inside. These kits cost a fortune (close to 6 figures), but the only other option is swapping out the Zytek for a modern system like a Motec at about $40,000, and the results of the few swaps have not been good.
The bright side is that if you haven’t swapped out any components or changed the turbos, your car should just start right up, and eventually the ecu will “learn” what it can from your driving style. It’s a simple system with I believe one lookup table, and doesn’t even have knock sensors. But it is robust and works well. If you’ve swapped turbos or want to run more boost then you will need the programming kit.
Hope I answered your questions. feel free to post here. I’ll make sure I visit more often. Meanwhile stay safe.
Wiggles- how’s life?
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COVID free… so far!
Have you been billeted doing doctor stuff, with all this?
It would be nice to just take it to your shop for fun some day. When I get some time I am just going to do the mechanicals and see what happens. I had a little scare on the other thread when someone said if the ecu was disconnected when taking the motor out it had to be reprogrammed. Glad that was misinformation. When I did the race car motor with the Motronic system nothing happened there so I guess it didn’t make sense that the Zytek would be any different. I could see that if you changed components to something different that it could cause some issues. Do you know what signals are sent to the ecu and how many there are? I did send a email off to Zytek yesterday to see what they have to say. Maybe I’ll start a thread with pictures on the engine pull/gas bladder removal when the time comes. Right now I have to finish up another car restoration project first.
That was Godfrey, the guy who owns the Zytek kit in BC. He’s been banned from this website, but was a font of incorrect knowledge, such as removing your engine requires a Zytek unit to get it running again. Idiotic. That means any time you changed the battery you would need a Zytek kit to reprogram the car. Like every other ecu, the basic programming is in a few lookup tables which don’t change when you remove the engine.
I have removed the engine and am in the process of rebuilding everything except the engine which only has 400 miles on it. The original maker of the bladder is Premium, in the UK. But they won’t sell to anyone except Don Law, who you can read about in my other posts. Not the nicest person to work with. I had ATL reverse engineer the bladder and make me a new one, so I own the rights to that design if you need a new bladder. If the bladder had any gasoline in it and has been sitting for many years, expect to find your entire fuel system full of sandlike granules from the broken down foam. The good news is that many of the ancillary parts are universal. The fuel pumps are Bosch, the injectors and alternator are Denso, coil is Ducellier, ignition amplifier is Lucas/GM etc. The manual specifies a special gear oil formulation Syntrax XH21 that only Don Law has the rights to. But I’ve spoken to engineers at Castrol, and the modern Syntrax 75W90 EP has more EP protection for the hypoid gears than the original XH21 formula. Not sold in the US (we get only Syntrans), but available on Amazon.
I don’t have the USB drive with the repair and parts manuals with me, it’s back in NY, but from memory the Zytek unit is pretty basic. Narrowband o2 sensors, water and oil temp, oil pressure, timing via sensor on crank, No octane sensors, no knock sensors, boost on road cars set via lookup table to max of 1 bar at 3500 RPM, control for ignition advance/retard and boost. I’m sure there’s some more but I don’t remember it.
Not sure which race car motor you are referring to, but my take from a mechanic who’s done a bunch of XJ220s is to leave the Zytek unit in place. I am installing standalone knock sensors for each bank with warning lights in cockpit as well as standalone wideband O2 sensors/monitor for A/F ratio, but I’ll be controlling boost via cockpit controller. Only way to hopefully avoid detonation on a high boost engine (1.5-1.7 bar) is to use 116 octane fuel. So I’ll keep boost low for pump gas and only turn it up for track use.
I doubt you will get any response from Zytek (Continental). I’ve been offered their spare XJ220 ecus and other parts lying around twice in the last 6 months, asked for a price, and never got an answer. With this coronavirus all over the world I doubt there is anyone at the office right now anyway.
I hope this helps a bit. Keep posting any questions and we’ll do our best to answer them. I would recommend buying the manuals on a USB drive. Got mine on Ebay. Moss Motors advertises them but they are never in stock. Jaguar Classic (the factory shop) may also offer them. They are kind of helpful for basics, but all part numbers are JaguarSport numbers and don’t correlate with anything in the real world.
Stay safe
No. Florida is surprisingly quiet. Hospitals are not overloaded, cases are spread out geographically unlike NYC where everyone lives on top of each other. I’m not needed here. I had my daughter leave her apartment in NYC over a month ago and move back to northern Westchester and I’m happy she’s not stuck in the city right now. They are overloaded, particularly the poorly-run and poorly-supplied city-owned hospitals. But they always sucked anyway. Private hospitals like NY/Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, Lenox Hill are apparently doing fine.
Hope you are doing well. Stay safe.
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Hopefully we’ll one day fully understand that. It seems clear there’s an RX and TX line (receive and transmit) and it’s very likely that it’s some old serial protocol. Without documentation, or access to someone who created the thing in the first place, it has to be backwards engineered…
Dr. Solly has indicated, generously, that he’s onboard with that in concept. Of course the single most important thing is the safety of the expensive and unobtainable pieces of kit he’s acquired. An experienced eye/brain/hand needs to be involved that can be assured there’s no risk. (There shouldn’t be… what’s needed is just a type of oscilloscope that decodes digital signals).
Having worked with Arduino / micro-controllers (a little bit) I get the concept of what needs to be done, but it’s going to take someone with some experience to monitor, record, and decode the communication between ECU (could be even an XJRS ECU) and the equipment for every single command, and for a re-flash (probably would want to use an XJRS ecu for that…)
The equipment that’s needed isn’t terribly expensive… as little as $15 and a computer actually… a logic analyzer. — that’s needed for the communication between Blue Box and Blue Box.
At the same time, a serial port sniffer is needed to monitor the communication between computer and interface box. That’s probably easier… although I’ve been having trouble doing it virtually with the XJRS software I have (since I don’t’ have the rest of the Zytek equipment or ECU.)
Then… maybe… instead of the old DOS software written in Turbo Pascal (I think by analysis of the code) maybe the functions can be replicated in a modern existing platform like Tuner Studio - for USB or Bluetooth communication to the old Zytek ECUs (then Uverybody with a Blue Box -like XJRS owners - could use it.)
But you know… it might be like fusion… just another 20 years away…
~Paul K.
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Christ, i hope not!!!
I just turned 63…
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Just a thought Dr. Solly… rather than the possibly of an “- it’s too late - light”, you may be able to piggy back a knock sensor ready newer ignition controller between the output of the Zytek ignition line, and coil controls.
The Zytek is only putting out a timing signal. Even if that signal were TOTALLY IGNORED for a separate Ignition ECU (with it’s own sensors or intercepted sensors)… that would work as well. It’s not like the Zytek ECU would care about outputting an ignition control pulse to no-where.
Just on a short hunt… maybe something like: The EFI Store.com
I’m sure there are more options…
~Paul K
Stumbling around I think I’ve discovered the type of main connector used in the Zytek ECU… which could/would come in extremely handy for those that wish to dump the Zytek ECU and NOT butcher the original harness.
It appears to be exactly the same as a Ford EEC IV ECU connector used in cars contemporary of the period, and still readily available in both the male and female versions of the plug.
E.G:
Zytek Connector:
Various images of the FORD connector:
86-87 Mustang 5.0 connector illus
94-95 Ford F150-F350 connector illus
DIY BOB Breakout Board Kit (when it was avail)
https://pidashs.com/products/ford-60-pin-pcm-connector Part # DIYBOBF60-K
And plug ( CC-8693-T60 ???)
For lack of a better picture:
If I’m right this could be useful for those who wish to up-convert but not cut the original harness.
~Paul K.