Hello all,

This will be the thread where I document the build progress of my 1984 XJ6. I bought the car non-running and with the intent to engine swap it. The car had already been sitting for a couple of years with many new parts, but the former owner had not been able to find anyone competent locally to get it running. My plan is to keep the car as original as possible with no cosmetic modifications as the car is already great looking and classic as-is; the exception will be a set of period correct wheels to cope with the added power.

The build is already well underway, so I will post updates showing progress to date.

November 2021:

 

More from November '21

 

Christmas '21

 

January '21

 

That brings us up to date.

Lots of recent progress, not a ton of pictures since I am just hammering stuff out before my son is born.

Engine and trans mounts are done, some minor hammering needed in the tunnel for the 80E. I also had Fleet Pride shorten my steel driveshaft and installed it as well as changed the oil in the diff.

I did find a set of 80's Trans Am mesh wheels for sale locally and thought they might look great on this car - they did not disappoint. So between test fitting the M Parallels and the TA wheels, I've definitely found that I need to lower the front and raise the rear. This car looks GOOD slammed though.









In reality the rear might come up a bit with some new shocks as the current ones are blown and probably original, but I may need to install some spring spacers, and for sure will need to roll the fenders out back. The front can be lowered by spacing out the spring pan and by cutting the spring.

General pics:



Modified truck accessory drive. I didn't want to pony up for the billet parts and just needed the alternator to clear the hood, so I cut a bunch of stuff off the top of the truck bracket and rotated the alternator down using the other mounting ear. It uses a 1" longer belt than stock, I could have reused the stock belt but it would have required a lot more cutting to pull the alternator down more and I didn't want to weaken the bracket any further.







Next up will be fabrication of the turbo kit, but updates will be slowed as we anticipate the addition to our family.

 

hey: can't even express my level of depression when i see what other car guys have for work spaces/tools. nice set up. also, you dove right into this project.

the car itself looks great. not that often that you find black door cards, leather, carpet. nice look. is the headliner tan or black?

i'm not familiar with lumped xj6s but you'll be one of the few not running a chevy.

one small suggestion i will make, i installed a set of GAZ adjustable rear shocks and new spring on my 86 xj6. not only did the ride improve but the height rose at least an inch which eliminated my rear wheel arch rub. contact "greg in france" as he helped me with his knowledge and experience with GAZ.

thanks for documenting you project so far. it gives me something interesting to read during these cold michigan winters. ren

 

Ren, thanks for the compliment. During college and the years right after I used to work on cars in driveways, cold garages on jackstands, and realized that was a quick way to hurt my health and make me not enjoy the hobby anymore. I decided that when I bought a house it would have a garage that would have all the amenities. That was in 2014, and I spent the next couple of years personalizing and installing the best tools which are the heater, the lift, compressed air, and the hot water spigot so that I can wash cars in the winter time. The floor has a drain which makes cleanup a lot easier too.

The interior is nice, but the seats have stitching that is damaged so I may just throw some seat covers over them as I'm not an upholstery guy. Headliner is tan, sunroof is inoperable and the shop that painted the car must have ran a bead of sealant over the exterior perimeter and then painted over it. I may look into it when the car is up and running.

In regards to your lumped Chevy comment, this engine is actually a Chevy, just a newer vintage (Gen III 6.0).

Any info you have on the shocks would be great, I will get in touch with Greg. I'm not looking for a very sporty ride, just something that is safe and comfortable. This car will never be a canyon carver.

 

I’m loving the trans am wheels!!!
do they fit over the hubs? Or did you need to machine the centers?

 

They fit after I opened up the centers with a die grinder. The wheel is supported by the clamping load, not the hub lip; the wheel is centered by the conical lugs so no worries about vibrations. I've run many cars over the years with a slightly larger centerbore with no issues.

 

I started building the hot side over the last few weeks.

Cutting, grinding, welding, and metal dust every where.


Due to the general space limitations of the engine bay it was pretty much a given that the turbo would be in the front of the passenger side. I would have loved to send the driver's side down and to the rear to go under the bellhousing, but it was just too tight with the footwells and firewall to do so. My ebay turbo log was also too bulky to allow the downpipe to go out the passenger bottom area.

Failed modifications and placement of ebay log:




I was never really thrilled with the plug wire clearance with the log anyways, so it was back to the trusty truck manifolds. I cut off the outlet of a driver's manifold and used scrap 2.5" bends from a C5 Corvette catback to start the bend.





Some tight radius 2.5" 90s determined the final placement of the T4 flange and I added a self contained brace to prevent any movement or cracking due to the weight of the turbo.









Unfortunately the wastegate still hit the wheel well when bolted to the turbine housing, so I ordered up another cast 7875 turbo, this time with a black finished compressor housing. I love the look of raw aluminum but it is impossible to keep clean after it's been touched with grease and oil.









So I finally checked all the fitment boxes:
Good plug wire clearance
Wastegate doesn't hit anything now that it's not on the turbine housing anymore
Clears hood
Clear valve covers and engine beauty covers
Might be able to squeeze a small filter on the inlet

 

My least favorite part of metal fabrication just happens to be the one I'm the worst at - joining two pieces of curved pipe, especially at odd angles. I have tried to eyeball this stuff in the past and always had huge gaps which made for a terrible time welding. I stared at the driver's side piping for a while wondering how I was going to tie it into the T4 flange, and had a lightbulb go off.

Here is the angle I want the crossover pipe to enter the up-pipe. Obviously a large gap to fill.


Grab a bunch of skewer sticks and arrange/secure them around the piece of pipe you are trying to work with. Leave the clamps or zip ties loose enough so that the sticks can move with some resistance without falling out.





Shove the pipe up against the other piece you're trying to intercept, and your shape should be transferred.





Insert the actual piece of pipe you want to use, trace the shape with a sharpie and cut away. The part inside the sticks will be the one that fits precisely.



Finally, started on the downpipe.





The plan is to have a downward facing 3" length past the starter that will exit with a boost actuated cutout, and have a another 3" length continue to the back of the car to connect to the stock exhaust. Of course there are ton of muffling devices on this car; an odd looking cat that has a single inlet and dual outlets feeding twin resonators ahead of the rear axle, and twin mufflers at the very rear. The cat was crumbling and honestly looked clogged, which I'm sure was some of the reason the car was parked.

 

pretty ingenious usage of wooden skewers. better replace them before the wife notices. overall, excellent progress and thanks for sharing. ren

ps: congrats on your other project.....your son. how soon before he can hand you a 3/8 socket?

 

Funny you mention, before I ask for kitchen supplies I'm always sure to preface with "Just so you know, you're not getting these back, is that ok?"

Jr and I have been searching for the elusive 10mm - no luck yet!

 

nsogiba: your skewer stick profiling tool gave me an idea for a bathroom floor project that i was stuck on. i'll update you when i get into it in the not to distant future (can you tell i'm not to keen on this honey-do project). ren

 

Ok boys and girls, it's been a little while, time to get back in the saddle.

Finished up the hot side under the hood. The beauty of heat wrap is that it prevents components around the exhaust from getting damaged...and more importantly, hides your welds.









I still need to weld the cutout onto the downpipe and connect the downpipe to the stock exhaust under the rear seat area. Got tired of cutting and welding though, so I switched gears and tackled some "fun" stuff.

While the car was up in the air, I replaced the front sway bar bushings. I wonder how this felt to drive...



I have also been staring at this abomination of a ride height since the Jag motor came out. Now keep in mind, this is with the iron 6.0 and 4L80E installed, and all the heavy stuff in there...driveshaft, all motor accessories, hood. Only stuff to add is the radiator and intercooler, which can't weigh more than 30 lbs. It still sits WAY high, which is a testament to how much lighter the GM engine is compared to the Jag 4.2.



5" wheel gap!



So I pulled out the front springs using the approved method, which took FOR-EV-ER. Close to 1 hour per side. Gotta improve that...stay tuned, I have an idea for that.



The stock spring assembly used 2 nylon rings to further increase the ride height - those are coming out.

Just for fun, I dropped the car down with no springs installed (sitting on the lift arms) to get an idea of ride height, and for some much needed motivation.

SO much better. The BMW wheels are a 18x9.5 with a 255/35/18 tire, but I plan on also running the Pontiac wheels which are 245/50/16, so a hair taller. I use this website for my theoretical wheel/tire fitment, it's has a great little visualizer. Disregard the wheel offsets, those are just arbitrary.





Drake approves.



Here's the look I'm going for. Extremely convenient to dial up the front ride height using the lift button! The front still has about a 1.5-2" gap between the top of the tire and the fender, so I'm guessing there is about 3" of



And just for fun here it is completely laid out, at the bottom of the suspension travel. Obviously this is totally unusable (unless you're running air suspension), but sure does look cool if you're into the "slammed" look. I think a ride height this low is not very elegant, since the front end of this body is fairly narrow from the side profile and needs some ride height to "stand proud" and not "submarine".



The plan right now is to set the car down with the spring packers removed and see where it sits. If it still needs to come down (which I think it will), I will space out the spring perches 1/4" at a time until the desired look is achieved. I'm really trying to avoid cutting the springs so that the stock ride quality is preserved.

 

Here is a side view of my 1985 S3 with iron LT1 and 4l60e on 215/60-15's. I removed the two nylon spacers and dropped the spring seat 1/4". FYI.

Dave

 

Thanks for the data point, Dave. I stayed up late after I put the kids to bed last night and reassembled the stock springs with no nylon shims, and spaced out the spring pan 3/4". This resulted in about a 2" (maybe a hair less) drop, which still leaves 3" wheel gap. An improvement, but still not quite what I'm going for since the wheel gap is larger in the front than the rear. I'm not looking to slam the thing - only have the looks proportional front to rear.

After staring at a photo of the side profile, I realized that the body lines lend themselves to visually raising the front of the car. If you use the relatively straight pinstripe in your photo as a reference, the distance between the stripe and the top of the wheel arch/opening is much larger in the rear than the front, which makes the front look naturally higher. I'm fighting the temptation to lower the front a lot, since it will give the car the raked muscle car look that doesn't match the character of the body. Perhaps some of the gap will be filled by the taller tires on the Trans Am wheels.

I will probably leave the suspension as-is for now and finish the rest of the car to see how the suspension settles out after driving. Given the age of the car I don't expect it to settle much, but you never know since the car has been stored on the lift with everything fully drooped.

 

I put the car back on the Trans Am GTA mesh wheels. They are a 16x8 with a +16mm ET for the rears, and 0mm ET out back for the original Pontiac application. I put the rears on the front, and the fronts (which stick out more) on the back, and at the current ride height in back they are rubbing bad. Rear will definitely have to come up, or I will have to swap the wheels back and put the poke back on the front.

Anyhow, I have a plan going forward for ride height concerns. The rear is very saggy, and since raising the rear has the effect of lowering the front due to a change in weight distribution, that needs to come up before I touch the fronts. That works out well since removing/reinstalling the front springs is a huge pain as you have to use the threaded rod shown above to decompress the spring and lower the spring pan. I have new KYB shocks on the way and will install all 6 of them (yep), then jump on the bumpers to settle it and remeasure. My hope is that the rear will raise up due to the new struts not being almost 4 decades old, and will drop the front consequently.

I needed some motivation on the project and rolled it out of the garage to get some perspective, and to wash it for fun.

 

stuff;

1. That car is not only a beauty, but the power is astounding. Great work.

2. M Lt1/4l6e pales min comparison. And worse than that, will nt start. i am not doing much driving. but, i crank it u and my Jeep fom time to time .\Alas, the last ime it cranked a bt and then no battery. Gave it a good charge. 100% ! Healthy cranki, no fire. . Tach needele does not bounce on crank! symtom of no ignition. Easy answer. or failed Optilite. huge dfference. I am merely commenting No thread hack intnded

3. Using for the frst voyage. new key board. via amazon. Super compact. ten bucks. new in the box. free shping next day, it was here. old one had faded letters on kes. Was working out a way to relabel. Nope New bosrd beats it all to pices.

4. Rise the front, rear goes down Nt onlyh a weight distribution, but a see saw. Teh car pivots at the center, or close to it.

Great project, great write up. Very entertainng...

 

Slow but steady progress here in WNY. Many warm days means activities outside with my wife and two little ones. Work on the XJ6.0 usually happens after they're tucked in for the night as the sun goes down.

Cold side complete - non intercooled for the time being. 10psi max boost to start with and ethanol for fuel means it won't be really necessary. I am planning on mounting the radiator (a 4th Gen LT1 Camaro replacement) as far back as I can to leave room for a future air to air IC.



Engine beauty covers on, hood installed and aligned, getting closer to a first fire. Still a LOT to do including Terminator X install, build a fuel system, trans cooler lines, tons of little stuff.