Hey forum, I've had my XF supercharged for a while now and have decided to start upgrading. I'm in a debate with myself about designing a actual intake for the car with open element filters at either end to allow for a significant difference in the restriction of the system. I plan on going with a full intake replacing the inlet tubes and air boxes.

A little background on myself, I am a mechanical engineer in the aftermarket auto industry. I previously worked at a company called R2C that specialized in filters and intakes with myself focusing on street performance intakes. Now I'm at a place called AMS (acronyms everywhere) which I have a much more broad spectrum of parts that I engineer.

Now back to our cars. I am not yet too familiar with the Jaguar lineup to know exactly what models share the same intake tubes and air boxes as my 2010 XF Supercharged. What I would like from the forum is if anyone here would also be interested in an intake for their car and if anyone can verify what other models and years use the same intake tube and air boxes as the 2010 XF supercharged. I will most likely try to develop this intake for my own car for personal use, but if others are also interested in getting one I will entertain going into a small production run after I test it on my car so that others can get one as well.

I attached an image of the engine bay from my car if anyone could reference that it is the same as their model.

Any feedback or concerns from the forum will be appreciated. Hopefully I will be able to begin soon and will update this thread anytime if I have any new information or progress in the future.

 

Would love to see more intake options for the 5.0SC engines. A local guy here who built my exhaust also wanted to take a stab at building an intake if I was ever interested.

Look up Twin Cities Performance, they built a intake for that engine that a few users here run. It's definitely doable. My only real concern with an intake is that there have been several jag technicians on this forum that have mentioned the stock MAF and intake tuning are reaaaaallly sensitive....to the point where they can cause issues if you don't use factory filters. Just a thought.

 

The 5L supercharged XF is the only model with that intake setup. All the other 5L Jags are slightly different. The 4.2L NA/SC models are different. The other engine variants are also different.

The stock air boxes keep air cool and pull air in from behind the grill. It's not the best idea to drop cone filters in the engine bay due to heat soak. You'd want to build a box around the cone filters if you did or route piping down into the grill area out of the engine bay. Stick with the air boxes they aren't a major restriction from what we've seen.

 

Thanks guys. I've seen the TCP intake but in my opinion it does not look good in the engine bay compared to the factory tubes. I also am having troubles seeing how any significant gains can be made leaving the restrictive filters in and having a merge that diverts the flows of air across each other impeding flow.

The dual filters and boxes do really help keep restriction to a minimum for a factory setup. I feel i can just alleviate it a little more and allow the supercharger to just run a bit more efficient. Also hopefully it will allow some more of those of that beautiful supercharger sounds to escape.

I'm very aware of the critical MAF cross section. I have an idea on how to obtain the perfect cross section and sensor placement within the tube that i want to try out.

That's unfortunate about the model range it would fit. Will XFR use the same parts as the XFSC? Also using google images I saw the XJ models have an intake the looks very similar, but images can always be misleading. I may use a parts lookup and see it i can match part numbers.

I plan on at least making an attempt at the intake on my personal car. Then after I am sure it will not jeopardize any other members cars I will poll to see if there is interest in the market.

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

If you wan't more noise get rid of the resonators on the accordion section of the pipe and get a pulley and K&N drop ins. I have the TCP and I know the resonators were doing their job. Not dramatic, but I definitely hear more now and it almost seems as if my exhaust is a bit louder which I know makes little sense. Also, if you want more pulley noise take the engine cover off and see if that helps.

 

Definately up for an intake system!!!

I've removed and blanked the resonators on mine and drilled the lower rear of the air boxes with 5 40mm holes in each. Also have drop in K&Ns......one trick i also done was removed the insulation from the engine cover........also the cleared the wadding from around the bonnet vents as they were half covered, although i do have the Le-mans vents which are more open than standard........i have alot more charger whine now and love it!!!! Not noticed any issues with this set up and now tempted to remove more of the lower part of the air box.

If you could remove the majority of the lower portion of the air box (the standard panels have a fairly large surface area) and extract some nice cool air from the wheel wells i think this would work better than open filters............pop the hood after a run.....the intake pipes are really hot...........another option i'm looking at although a bit ricer is some rear hood lifters on the hinges to let some heat escape.

This coupled with as you have said some optimisation of the pipe cross over point - maybe increasing its CSA would also massively benefit.

 

Yea I've never been a fan of K&N filters, they always have less filter surface area than an OEM because of the standard depth of pleats is so short. Also the oil can collect on MAF sensors and alter temp and density readings. They work well for most people, this is just personal opinions mixed with some small scale tests I did at my previous job.

I will definitely be re-utilizing the fresh air ducts and will create a sort of heat shield to block the majority of engine heat from entering the filters. These motors do create a lot of heat in the engine bay, but the amount of time the air in in the tubes is so minimal as it is being pulled in so quickly heat pickup is typically negligible. Intake tubes usually feel so hot because heat isn't being transferred to the intake air running through them very much.

This is mostly a hobby for me, I seem to buy cars that don't have a strong aftermarket followings so that I can engineer my own parts, and sometimes make available for others if they perform well and have strong forum interest. Primarily its just fun for me though.

 

Your main challenge with trying to improve breathing on a supercharged engine is the supercharger pressure. The maximum power output is not limited by intake restriction because the supercharger can keep blowing until peak usable bmep is achieved. Reducing intake restriction can only very slightly reduce parasitic drag from the supercharger.

Improving air flow into the engine can only affect part throttle no boost operation.

I predict the changes from altering the intake will not be detectable.

Even fitting an underdrive pulley only really changes the position of the boost curve without much effect of any on peak power. More power is normally derived from a chip reprogram which is very expensive to do nowadays. These modern superchargers already overboost a lot of the time and dump boost via a computer controlled dump valve into a bypass circuit similar to those used for turbocharging.

 

I'd be interested more from an aesthetics standpoint than performance. I too wonder how much the peak power will be affected. I would love to see before and after dyno runs.
Also a black/black chrome would be my preference over anything shiny....

 

I agree.......with the standard map you'll doubtfull see any performance gain.

its with a re-map that you can then utilise any intake tract flow inprovement by reducing the intake pressure pulling through the standard airbox and pipework upstream of the supercharger. In my book the less restrictive the intake the better.

Hennesey do a 600+ hp kit for the F type and the guinea pig was an XFR they used for the development work........in the script for the kit it details a reworked/new intake........trying to find any details on it though seems fruitless.......been googling and nothing!!!!

 

yea i agree with all those points, i don't expect to see any real gains from the lone installation of the intake. it will be initially aesthetic and sound driven. Afterwards though I do plan on getting a tune with which I may still not see many if any serious gains from the intake. Long term plan is to sweet talk the tuners at my company to create a custom tune file for my car that may be able to take advantage of the lessened intake restriction, as well as any other modifications I may make before hand to either exhaust or cooling systems.

I tore down the intake assemblies yesterday to take measurements. Initial plans are to make the intake parts modular so that I can just use my y-pipe with the factory air boxes or with my shielded open element filters and vice-versa the filters with the factory y-pipe. I will begin my designing later this week after I've had a chance to do a 3D scan of the intake tract so I can enter it in my CAD software. I'll post an update after I get that done.

 

Very Happy with My TCP setup...small improvements noticed on pedal response, but I had also removed my Cats at the same time. I also thing it looks great! Good Luck on your project.

 

I had a chance to do the scan of the engine bay last night. Time to start getting the CAD moving along. I attached an image of the 3D scan of the engine bay I will be using. I have a few different scans including others that don't have the air boxes so I can create those parts independently.

 

Hows the intake design going?????

 

The design is coming along nicely.I have the MAF sections complete, as well as the y-pipe mostly completed. I have to just figure out the heat shields which I will do next week. I then plan on installing just the filters, MAF, and heat shields on the factory y pipe to verify that there aren't any issues before investing into a prototype y pipe. I'll post a couple on pictures Monday on the current design progress

 

Here is the design progress for the intake. The y-pipe is currently carbon fiber and ends at the factory airboxes so it will be a direct replacement for the factory tube. I still need to do the heat shield and tube bracket, vacuum line, and PCV line.

 

AMS? have you worked on that GT-R godzilla death machine?
theChicagoGarage member here.

 

Thats looking preety damn sweet matey!!! Just one thing to consider...........

Check out the bellows on each intake side........then check out the amount of engine rock when you rev the engine.

if you plan on fixing the air filters to the body you'll need something in the design to accomodate that movement.........i would cry if that carbon pipe broke!!!!!

Great developent work pal

 

Yea, I plan on having a hump couple from TB to Ty-pipe, and then again from y-pipe to MAF housings. The game plan for heat shield and filter mounting is to reuse the factory rubber grommet inserts which will allow for a little more movement, but as i have not gotten to that point yet is is still just a plan...I want to finish the heat shield ASAP though so I can mount the filters and MAF sections I'm having custom made and at least get a proof of concept in the near future.

 

If it's a direct replacement allowing me to use the factory airboxes I'd be very interested in purchasing one of these once done.

I have a DIY version of the TCP intake but the heat soak on the metal pipes is insane. This is a hot engine bay!