Well fellow XJ lovers, i now finally have my Xj finally in my driveway, its been a long time coming but was delivered on Tuesday arvo. Oh my talk about filthy but i have to say i am very pleased with the overall condition. So gave her a much needed wash after her coast to coast journey. On first glance inside, i saw i had a long way before this cat was goibg to be brought back to my standard of acceptable, the floor mats looked like they have never been cleaned, the carpets leave much to be desired too. Omg the leather, whilst stunning being wrapped in an XJ cabin was icky, for certain its never been cleaned in the vehicles lifetime. Unfortunately my daylight after a good thorough wash had run out, being an interstate vehicle it was off to have her pit inspection first thing in the morning, but it was so dam surreal having such a beautiful vehicle in my driveway.

Exciting, i cant believe its finally here

Seriously, thats one dirty *****

Wow, even a filthy ***** can still look good

Eeeeewwww, icky sticky

Hmmm, i see i have some work to do

I guess its different when you see everyone elses pics, but then you finally get to see your own engine bay, first impressions are pretty good.

Finally washed

My recipe for getting my leather looking, feeling and smelling like Jaguar intended

 

Enjoy your new car, I hope you have many miles of fun with it.

 

Oh hell yes, i will have plenty of happy miles, although she is a 2011 build, there are still less than 60,000 kms on the odometer. I am having a few playful issues with getting used to a rear wheel drive after years behind the wheel in my Audi quattro. This XJ is extremely snappy on the lightest touch of throttle resulting in embarrassing brief loss of traction, so will take sometime for me to learn to feather the throttle, as with the quattro its simply a matter of point, stab n go. I simply love her gentle rumble in light acceleration going through the lower gears around town, just taking my time as i make my best attempt to not drive like a bogan pratt in a Commodore or Falcon.

Well i guess you cant buy a used jag it seems without having some complimentary issues familliar to the model an marque. STICKY ICKY BUTTONS, well lol had them in my Volvo C70, nice that my Audi did not suffer this issue but what do you expect for only $300,000AUD.

So my next perplexing issue is a frustrating one, seriously, how does a sunblind screw up, there is really nothing to it, a motor, a few guides and a roll of faux suede. Well i have tried to reset but its not possible for the simple reason that i cannot pull the front blind closed, i can go maybe a third the way and thats it, no problem closing at all, but when it gets to the full closed position the motors just grind the gears and it makes a god awful sound, hmm, no easy way around that it seems. Motors make no attempt to open the blind, weird, but operate if you want to close it, the other weird thing is its not the fabric roll, this can be easily pulled out, so the resistance seems to be either the motor stop point or the track for whatever reason is jamming.

So anyway today fitted her euro style plates, i went with gold and black, they have been on order for a month and am happy to have some small level of personalisation

So am waiting patiently for my goodies to arrive, bought a new CTEK M200, yeah i know its marine, lol but is perfect for deep cycling batteries and i get an overnight mode too.

Not sure when my Mina intake will arrive, i have no idea how this 5 litre breathes with that plastic thing constricting its airways.
My Velocity Tune, lower crank pulley and 200 cell cats are somewhere lol, i have not heard from anyone since purchased, not a great time of year for postage but was told my chosen items were all in stock, no rush here anyway, so we have a few items on the table which i will update here with as they arrive and are fitted. I have been encouraged to document and update here as i go along for everyones benefit which i will try my best to do, with before and after dyno runs, so the XJ fans can see whats what with the bolt ons

Nothing compares to the power of the Darkside

 

Nice car. I'm not sure how you will survive without tinted windows, though!

 

My thoughts precisely, its already hitting 40c here in my state in Australia, and tinting is one of the first things I will be doing, haha little did I know the rear seat and parcel shelf needs to come out and probably the rear pillar trims as well just to tint the rear windows, nothing is easy on this vehicle, reminds me of my dads Range Rover when I was a kid, to do one job at least 4 other items need to be removed.

PS, its 11pm at night here and its still 28c

The issue is finding a trustworthy Tint shop to disassemble my love.

 

Great find, congrats on the new ride.
Here is a little help with removing the rear parcel shelf.
It starts at #14
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...g-boot-179912/

 

Cheers my man, great starting point for me, seems such a shame to have to disassemble because the previous owner did not order the vehicle with tint, something which just baffles me, it gets bloody hot here in OZ, I just don't understand why when you are spending over 300k AUD, why in blazers would you forego factory tint option, who knows.

So have been looking at new motors for the sunblind and track guides, but am going to have a crack at a youtube vid I saw where a guy had the same issue, got scared by the dealer quote to fix and had a crack at the repair himself, owing to the fact the sunblind motor is still working as mine is too.

I cant find the vid to link it, but the fix involved front sunroof section control panel removal, partial removal of front section hood liner, sun visor removal and front pillar trims, allowing access to the white sun blind and sunroof power plug which is visible but not accessible after the sunroof and blind control panel is removed.
This guy had some success with simply disconnecting the white plug and re connecting, so before I go spending coin un necessarily I will try this option first and see where that gets me

 

found it, here's a link, not saying this is a permanent fix but I have to try it, we'll see how we go I guess.

 

Well last day of my weekend today, back to the tourist traffic grind tomorrow
So today i thought i would have a crack at cleaning my interior carpets, so off to the shop to buy myself a wet/dry vac, bought a 1500w model and a kit for detailing to go with it. Decided i would try out a product by VAX, platinum carpet cleaner, well wow is all i can say, 95% of any marks and stains were easily extracted, applied diluted with a spray bottle onto the carpets working a small section at a time, bit of a scrub with a fairly stiff brush and then vac dry the area treated. I am pretty happy with the result, uuuggghh, you should have seen what was in the vacuum drum, eeewww. Will do my mats again this way and am going to do all capets again too, next time i will take pics.
So after this i travelled to the next city to catch up with a mate, drives a 2008 650i, lol, converted him to Jag, he for real is looking for an SC V8 Jag now, he truly was impressed.
So drove back home and was welcomed by a big brown box with a postage label from California, oooohhh i love presents......even if i have to buy them myself



MINA gear, good to go

Shiny new intake

 

How are we all? Xmas is only 5 days away, my god where did the year go.
Got home from work after buying the front of office girls some xmas pressies, decided what the hell, lets throw this intake on and see what all the hoohar is with this shiny tube thing

Well, nothing unusual here, just a very crowded engine bay


Pretty simples, remove original intake bracket, loosen a few stainless bands, take out plastic bits........

Prefit of throttle body and intake coupling and shave off the extra rubber inside the coupling for smooth transitional airflow



Simples, just run a new xacto blade around the circumference resting the blade on the throttle body lip as a guide, pic shows extra rubber removed that interferes with transitional airflow

Tiny bit of teflon grease smeared around inside of throttle body rubber coupling, also helps if you can warm the rubber in hot water before fitting, regarding the teflon grease i mean tiny amount, we are not lubing a spline shaft.


Not really much to do after that, fit airbox rubber adapters for intake unit supplied, prefit throttle body mount adaptor to intake tube, ensure stainless strap fixing point is positioned approximately at 3 o' clock position so as to not interfere or rub against aluminium water pipe above air intake tube. Throttle body side stainless strap fixing point is in a simmilar position, at approx 3 o'clock enabling relatively easy access for adjustment. And tbh thats pretty much it, bit of wiggling, make sure your airbox rubber couplings for the airtake are pre mounted before finally fitting throttle body rubber coupling.
Be careful tightening the intake tube clamps on the couplings to the airbox.
Mina has used fairly thin profile tubing, yeah its light, but you could easily overtighten the stainless clamps on the airbox couplings and deform and crush the tube, dont be an oaf and treat the tightening like you are doing up cooling water lines on thick wall aluminium.
Imho Mina should use a thicker profile alloy tube for the section of intake immediately at the coupling joiner to the airboxes where the stainless band is situated.

Hopefully you end up with this after about an hour or so

Had to replace the charger vacuum actuator line, imho the nipple for this line on the intake is too small a diameter, id should be increased to around 3mm >4mm. No vacuum line is supplied so have this on hand before you settle into the job.

Well whats my no BS assessment you ask??
Hmm, more whine, more power, more low end snappy torque?????
I hate to say it but i do feel maybe some who have fitted this have overstated its effects.
Supercharger whine? well despite the silencers from the stock induction tube now missing, i could not say yes it does.
More power? hmm, seriously anyone that can definitively sense a power increase so small if such exists after taking other variables into consideration should be working in moto gp pit crews.
Torque band improvement? Again too many variables to give a definitive answer, and if such exists its not possible to be conclusive in an uncontrolled street environment.
If Mina firmly believe there are definitive gains then they should be documented in scientific form of testing as proof of such, not say so. Eg flowchart and dyno stock intake vs Mina intake tube.
So in conclusion, i believe that some perceive power or sound/whine, simply due to human psychology, we spend $500, we want to believe there is a improvement, so much so , we invent things that are simply too small to quantify by simply listening or driving, almost tantamount to a placebo effect, in addition we read others views, when doing so we formulate an idea of expectation within our mind, without having any foundation we then purchase a product with a preconception of a definitive positive result.
So in the end, i am not going to expend $300 to run a dyno after the fitment of this aluminium tube, where any hp gains or torque band improvement may or may not be revealed.
Awaiting Velocity AP tune, crank pulley and 200 cell downpipe cats, we will see what the dyno says then, and i will critique their products in an unbiased laterally minded manner.

 

Please do NOT pay anyone any sum of money to clean-up the stickiness of the buttons & other surfaces.
It's easy to clean yourself. Just get a container of make-up remover pads, Noxzema, Neutrogena, or equivalent. One container has - like 100 more or less, you'll need maybe 15, more or less, but they're cheap. If you have a better-half they may already have some and let you use a few.
They remove the gummy stuff safely without harming the actual print or finish of the surface below the "soft touch" gummy stuff. It may take a little bit of time, maybe 30 minutes for all of them including doors & stereo bezel, but afterwards, it's like new, sans the gummy stuff.
Do NOT use anything with acetone - that'll melt the plastic, absolutely destroy it.
Use only the make-up remover pads. They are gentle enough, yet have the right surface and chemical to remove the factory gummy stuff and leave the buttons clean.

I've wondered what the Mina intake could do to improve performance. It seems to me most intake performance upgrades, and off-the-shelf performance products in general seem to be as you describe in terms of providing results. Tuning the intake and exhaust provides optimal efficiency and power, but these 5.0 L engines have an intake manifold with tuning valves already integrated, and direct injection. Nice power on tap for the road, so I'll leave any upgrades for the track Jags, at least for now.
Owning a used JLR product isn't transportation; it's a passion or maybe an addiction.

Hopefully you can get that leather squared-away. If not, the design is still new enough that replacement covers can be bought from the dealerships.

 

Thanks for your reply, my leather has come up an absolute treat, it takes a vey long time to do properly, i still have not completed as i am going in for round 2 on my leather, my first go over with my recipe, revealed so much grime you simply would not have believed it untill you saw the state of the 2 disgustingly filthy microfibre towles i used to wipe off the leather cleaner as i went. I so should have taken pics and posted them here.
I have done my full carpets once over, and will also be doing round 2 on those and the mats. I could not believe what was in the wet vac drum after doing them once, should have taken a pic of that too, it was like thick black gooey ick on the bottom of the drum, seriously your interior does not look that bad untill you get stuck into cleaning it, its only then you realise just how disgusting it actually is.
I purchased 2 packets of neutrogena make up remover wipes, and omg, that job is really going to take a very long time, its great that some have been able to de gum their buttons in a relatively short space of time, for me though this exercise is going to take longer than doing my carpets and leather combined, not sure what it is but my buttons are certainly a clean freaks nightmare challenge, so far i have used the wipes, tried this in combination of eucalyptus oil used very carefully i might add and also another citrus based product which will take stickers off in the blink of an eye (de solve it)but my gummy buttons are something else.

 

congrats on your purchase. i’m further up in regional nsw and it was 46 degrees here. recently purchased a xj 351 portfolio lwb.
glad to hear about your tips and hope to hear more from you.

 

Congrats on your Portfolio purchase, I am loving mine and am still getting used to the off idle power, gently feathering the pedal or mine instantly and effortlessly breaks into wheel spin which can be embarrassing when all you are doing is simply turning out from a parking bay I think a lot is the LSD.

Have sorted a place for my tinting at Alf Barbagallo Jaguar, their techs will dismantle my trim in order for tint to go on and reasonably priced too at $695 for Permaguard ceramic tint, so early Jan will have the tint done when I can sort a few days away from work as the silly season is in full swing.

My Taiwan timing kit is on its way, still have heard nothing from Scuderia Art or Velocity AP on my other gear so not such a merry xmas there and no more big brown boxes to unpack.
Still also awaiting delivery of my Ctek M200, I would just like to add how much I HATE the business model of drop-shipping, yeah great for business so long as the purchaser can wait 6 weeks or more for the items to arrive.

 

Look what turned up today

Lol, more than one cat is interested in whats in the box

A few Giddyup goodies

Now these look interesting

Nice box full of giddyup goodies for the big cat, i have alot of work infront of me before i get to bolt this gear up

Hmmmm, a cat, interested in cats, for another cat, go figure


The machine work on the crank pulley is very tidy work, cats and downpipes are very well built and not random bits of sub standard stainless tinfoil tig welded together, the flanges are about as solid as you could ever wish for, no pressed out sheetmetal here and the velocity ap manufacture plate fitted to the converter barrell is a nice touch. Well i waited since the Black friday sale to get this gear, no it may not be for everyone and quality does not come the Aussie dollar exchange free, especially with the aussie dollar exchange rate and associated import duties and shipping.
Thanks to Stuart at Velocity AP for the go faster bits, and to Scuderia Art the Australian agent.
Will update progress but have a few things to sort before i bump my rwhp, not taking any chances on a reciprocating assembly or top end disaster due to impatience.

 

What do you have planned before you install the mods? Looking forward to videos of the sound!

 

Terribly sorry for my late reply mate.
I am just overly cautious before I jump in with bolt on upgrades, I have read and seen far too many examples of unwise foolishness resulting in a pile of recycling junk where tuning is concerned, mostly with impatient younger guys that are more interested in short term satisfaction and literally do zero prep before any power upgrades are done, of course they don't get to enjoy the intended benefits for too long
Owing to some past life experience and blueprinting American lumps, I am in no rush to scrap my AJ.
So just covering off my bases, having entire front end checked before I go forward, but tbh looking down the oil fill port it almost looks brand new inside, but looks are not everything so I am going forward with a full inspection regardless, there has been zero comment by past Jaguar dealership service reports regarding timing or actuator issues or parts replacement, although my water pump has been changed with an update at around 45,000kms.
Had a feel of my timing chain slack down the oil fill port and there is simply none, I am pretty sure I am still running 6.35mm pitch chains, so if inspection reveals any issue, I will be having to up my pitch and actuators, well my whole timing rig I guess, so first things first.
Of course if I am going there due to necessity, I am thinking where do I stop, port, polish, intake runners, charger port. Then if I am going that far why do I stop there??
Due to all of this, I am currently researching my bottom end too, I have to laugh at myself really.......having a past involving strip and blueprinting has me wanting to work this AJ. I am trying to hold myself back though as the XJ is not a strip car and she is plenty quick enough stock. I look at the block though and I see what I can do, and tbh there is plenty that can be done to the AJ, but why do that to a Jag? if you want to be a bogan go buy a pony.
Hmm but I tell you what there is nothing that compares to building an operating piece of quality engineering that you know inside out intimately, every bolt, every gallery and every radius, when done correctly it is the ultimate and gives rock solid confidence in the power plant, that's really my only reason....... because I can.
Simply put fact is no one seems to really have done much and I am wondering why???
I guess most who own these have a different life experience to me, as in the ones who purchased these vehicles from the showroom floor or factory ordered. I look at the AJ and see the possibilities, I guess I am just that way inclined, original owners would not have a bar of being a spannermonkey, oh no people like that do no such thing, which I get, and the multi gazillionaire that I purchased my XJ from is your A typical such person.

 

I didn’t think X351s had the 6.35mm pitch chains. At least in the US my very early 2010 (2009 build date) has the 8mm chains, so perhaps your good?

 

Yes mate have read that, but somewhere i have also read that a few early ones " slipped through", i am going to measure when i am done with work for the day.


My tinting is booked for this coming monday, i cant pretend i am not a little bit excited at the prospect of that, it will really transform the look of the XJ

 

Yaaay, finally tint is done, had to go to Perth anyway so booked my car into my state capital jag dealership for some permaguard tint, wish my state legislation allowed for darker tint on the front driver/passenger widows, well its a site better than no tint and happy so far.

looks ok with the Botannical green metallic