Long-time Jag owner -- I have 3 at the house right now, check my sig -- but I've never owned an X-Type. I'm considering letting the XK8 in my signature go and replacing it with an X-Type.

Before I do that, though, what I'm interested in acquiring is a stick-shift X-Type that I can gently modify to be a legitimate performance car, specifically for spirited backroad driving. I'm not a drag racer, but I am a road course/autocross kind of guy. I'm not looking to make a pure track car out of an X-Type. What I'd like to do is upgrade suspension and braking components so I can toss her around a little.

I have noticed in other threads, though, people warning against expecting too much from an X-Type from a performance standpoint. I originally intended to do this with the stick-shift S-Type that was in my signature but was never able to iron out its bugs. Thanks, FordJag, and your "Restricted Performance."

So in general, how easily moddable is this car, and will it take what I want to dish out without putting me in the poor house?

Jess

 

JessN16, in short, I would not recommend it. This is my thought process:

-to upgrade what you want is fairly easy and not that expensive to do. There are components out there that this group can tell you about to make the car do what you want. There is a guy that is actually building a car very similar to what you are talking about (granted his is going to be track dedicated).

-motor: this is a "standard" Duratec engine made by Ford. Lots of options out there to up the power out of the engine should you want. There are stories out there that people have bumped the power up into the 300 hp range with very little effort. So, the get up and go is not going to be a problem either.

-The why not!!!!!! In short, the car has a general weakness. That would be the transfer case. From what we can figure out, it doesn't seem to mind highway speeds and hard acceleration at speed. Where it seems to fall flat is when you ask it to transfer torque (ie, 1st and 2nd gear accelerations). This causes the transfer case to flex too much and this results in failed bearings and/or cracked cases. Either way, you end up on the side of the road with some really bad noises coming from the transfer case. Unfortunately, nothing has been mentioned on how to make the transfer case bullet proof. There is talk that especially the earlier transfer cases were built with too much pre-load on the transfer case bearings which lead to their early failure. So, a rebuilt transfer case with proper pre-load may be the answer. Some members have done this thing and so far, they have not had a repeat failure (granted, they are probably not driving it as hard as you are planning on).

So, the X-TYpe will do what you want for awhile. But, I think in the long run, you would have better luck going with a different model.

On a side note, if you do go with the X-Type, I would recommend getting an X-Type that was made before April 04. I say this because of the early failures that were being seen, Jaguar redesigned the transfer case and started putting them into the cars around April 04 as part of the facelift they did. The later transfer cases are an open differential design. So, once one wheel starts to loose traction, it will take all the power unless the car is equipped with DSC (traction control), then the car starts applying the brakes to slow the wheel down. If you are a racer, applying the brakes while trying to accelerate is not what you are after. The earlier transfer cases had a viscous coupling which allowed for some speed variation between the front and rear of the car, but if a wheel lots traction, the power got transferred to the other end of the car.

 

Curious why you don't autox your XK8 instead. As an ex autoxer who has piloted everything from HS to F Prepared cars the XK8 isn't a slouch. Sure it is slow as dirt off the line but as long as you can keep the revs up and keep traction it puts up very respectable times for the size and class. No it isn't a Mini but it also isn't a Mustang. Biggest problem is you don't have room for 4 rims and tires if you want to run stickies and not drive them to your lot. I know I could put my Xk8 around a parking lot faster than our other Jags and probably quicker than my TVR unless it was a tiny tight course.

Now if you wanted to make a rally cross car, you could do worse than a nice high mileage X type.

 

Simply put, I want to row the gears myself. I'm leaning toward converting the XJS V12 to a stick shift even with the high cost, but the XJS is not what I'd consider to be a true handling machine. It is more of a GT cruiser, and while there's nothing wrong with that (not to mention I love the car) I feel the XK8 is more similar to it than to what I'm looking to do.

Prior to me coming back to Jaguars, I did a lot of work with the Mitsubishi Starion cars (also sold as Chrysler Conquests in the U.S.). While Mitsubishi doesn't carry the same prestige as a Jag, for about $10k in mods I was able to get exactly what I wanted. We pushed the turbo up to around 13 psi, put Suspension Techniques springs and Tokico Blue struts on the car, upgraded the braking components and ended up with a car of around 3,200 pounds that put down 210 bhp and around 260 torque, which kind of gave it a big-block feel, engine-wise. Combined with a LSD and excellent handing manners, it felt like driving on rails. Unfortunately, Tokico has ceased manufacturing the struts and KYB's offerings are much below in terms of performance limits. There is also the issue with fuel injectors for a Starion costing around $2,200 for the pair (throttle body injection) meaning anyone looking at long-term ownership for performance needs to consider installing a Ford Mustang intake on the 2.6 G54B engine and changing the entire computer system. Real quick-like, it gets above my level of competency.

Anyway, back to the Jag thing: My XK8 has been very reliable and it has only 101k on the clock, and were it not for the lack of transmission options, I'd readily keep it. On top of that, my now-departed S-Type was a stick shift, but the car was trouble from the start and we threw a lot of good money trying to make chicken salad out of chicken poop. I definitely don't want to do that again, but with the option of a manual trans Jag out there I have to consider it.

Jess

 

x type is front wheel dominant and front heavy so good luck with the understeer .or drive it like paul radasich drove the mondao in btcc by pulling the handbrake up hard to turn or pass on corners !
i think a manual conversion on an xk8 would be money far better spent ,
or this using a stand alone ecu and getrag manual box

 

also you could stick a evo 1/2/3 4g63 that bolts strait in to the 4g54 eng bay using factory mounts and bell housing ,evo 4 and upward not so easy as no casting for left hand eng mount to fit yore control transfer box ! easy 500hp reliably and as mutch as 850hp not so reliably, and multi point injected out of the box. just stick a micro tech computer or better on it and that starion will be doing brake neck un godly speeds!
but truth fully you have the sportiest jag there is . stick some bilistine coil overs in the xk8 and give it a whorl! it will blow an x type away!

 

We had a guy in our Starion club doing quarters in the 7.7-second range using a setup based on that. He was making somewhere north of 650 bhp at the wheels. And it was smooth enough that he could drive it on the street, too. Those 4g63 motors are one of the most underrated powerplants ever made.

I'm really, really hoping someone comes up with a manual trans solution for the XK8 soon.

Jess

 

Understand about wanting to shift but I have never found the x type clutch set up to be very quick. It has a very agriculturally slow feel to me. Drive one first! The platform isn't horrible to work on handling wise, what class is it in?

 

In Solo II? Looks like most are in D-Stock but one is in G-Stock (base model, non-AWD).

Jess

 

Don't know how they classed a non awd one as they never sold 'em here. I think you would have a tough time being comp. in D Stock or any of the mod classes with the car but you seem like you like your oddballs enough to be willing to give it a shot (coming from someone who built a F Prepared Subaru SVX for Hill Climbing).

 

Hey, I drove a 1990 Ford Taurus SHO in G-Stock for a couple of years and it had a bunch of extra weight in it from a speaker box in the trunk. I finished second in class one day and at trophy time they introduced me as "the guy who finally figured out how to put oversteer in a Taurus."

Jess