I have a 1989.5 Jaguar XJS 5.3L V12 convertible with Lucas type "P" fuel injection, vapor recovery emission control, GM 400 transmission, VIN 157055, engine 8S.1???? The engine specs in the drivers handbook that came with the car when my father purchased the car new sais that the engine capacity is 326 in 3 a bore of 3.543 in and a stroke of 2.756 in.I have not located the engine stamp with all of the oil and gunk and just getting access down to the back of the engine block. I am working on practically replacing all rubber, plastic, gaskets, suspension, breaks, cooling, A/C,filters, valves, pumps, fluids and need to know if this is an HE or not to complete the ordering of the parts. I was looking at ordering the fuel filter and according to what is in the trunk it has an HE filter and other similar parts. Attached is a picture of the trunk with the fuel filter and other parts if that will tell you anything? Is there any other way to confirm if this is an HE or pre HE without the engine stamp?

 

If your father bought it new, and there hasn't been an engine swap, it is the HE.

1981 was the first year of the HE.

 

Patrick,

Is that engine number 8S1xxxx ?

If so, that's quite strange. I don't recognise the designation of a "1989.5" car? Jaguar went from 1989 MY to 1990 MY.

An engine that starts 8S1 would typically be between 1978 and 1981. HE engines start at 8S18001.

So the numbers and date of your car seem a little confusing.

Paul

 

Paul
I do not follow your post:
"Is that engine number 8S1xxxx ?"
and

"An engine that starts 8S1 would typically be between 1978 and 1981. HE engines start at 8S18001."

For the original poster, if the spark plugs slope inwards at the top, it is an HE engine. If it has a Lucas box bolted to the LHS inlet manifold it is a Lucas ignition HE engine. If it has TWO king leads fixed to the top of the dizzy it is a Marelli igntion HE engine.

 

Hi Greg,

Patrick had mentioned in his first post that ".....engine 8S.1????". That's the confusing bit. If the car is something like 1989 and on it's original engine, the engine number should be somewhere in the 8S5xxxx range, with the move to Marelli circa 8S56000.

So, just based on the apparent engine number that Patrick quoted, it starts to question what engine is in the car.

Paul

 

Paul
Was it a typo in the second number in this sentence?
An engine that starts 8S1 would typically be between 1978 and 1981. HE engines start at 8S18001

and you meant to type 8S5xxx

 

Greg,

No, my point was Patrick seems to have said that his engine is 8S1xxxx. But that can't be right if he has a 1989 car on it's original engine. A 1989 car will be 8S5xxxx or higher.

If there's really an 8S1xxxx engine that's been transplanted into that 1989 car (seems strange if it's been owned from new?) then it could be a pre-HE or an HE engine, depending if it's higher or lower than 8S18000.

I guess we need Patrick to confirm the engine number.

Paul

 

Agreed Paul, but you wrote in post 3, line3, last sentence: "HE engines start at 8S18001"I take it that this was a typo and you meant 8S5? or I am still confused!!

 

Greg,

HE engines DO start at 8S18001. But 1989 engines start at circa 8S5xxxx.

Patrick seems to have a 1989 car, but he seems to say it has an 8S1xxxx engine (which would date it to 1978-1981) . That's where the confusion seems to lie.

Apols if I've added to the confusion!

Paul

 

I got the numbers from the Moss parts catalog. Page 3 of the catalog says 1989.5 year chassis number starts at 156989. My chassis vin number is 157055 and that would make my car a 1989.5 year. According to the chart both the 5.3L V-12 and the 5.3 H.E. V-12 from 1976 to 1995 all of the engine numbers start with 8S.1 I don't know the remaining numbers that is why I put question marks. I will try to dig deeper to get to the engine and remove the grease and gunk to see if I can find the engine number. The pictures in the parts catalog for the H.E. look like the parts in my car. Attached are pictures of the spark plugs, under throttle support, drawings of different types of throttle assemblies from the Jaguar manual is showes what engine numbers had which throttle assembly systems installed. Based on the Jaguar manual the engine numbers for the throttle assembly installed start at 8S.61795.

 

Several ways to confirm it without looking at the numbers.
1 pull a spark plug, any spark plug. Make it an easy one. Does it have a washer? If so it’s a pre HE. ( the better head). HE is just to HELP EMISSIONS. ( really! That head limits maximum power. Doubt me? Both the Pre HE and the HE have the same horsepower. But higher compression should yield more power. ( about 10 hp per point of compression).
Since pre HE had 7.8-1 compression and the HE has 11.5-1 compression I think you understand What I’m trying to explain?
The only down side is the Pre HE gets about 1 mpg less than the HE does. ( the rest of the increase is due to other things like gear ratio, transmission , ECU, injector size etc.
All racers use the early ( pre HE ) head.
OK what if someone put the wrong spark plugs in? I’m sure it’s happened. While the spark plug is out, shine a bright light down the spark plug hole-look down at the top of the piston.
If the piston top is flat. It’s an HE. If the piston top has a dish in the center, it’s the preHE
Want to confirm that? Look at the spark plugs. If they are tilted across the engine they are HE. If they lean towards the radiator a little bit. They are Pre HE.

 

Patrick,

I don't know the Moss catalogue but there seem to be some errors in it.

There is no "1989.5 MY". And engine numbers do not have a dot after the 8S

1989 MY starts at VIN 156989. Your car is 157055, so it is 1989 MY, was built in November 1988 and has Lucas ignition. (Marelli distributor started at VIN 157155)

All 5.3 engines after VIN 105048 (mid 1981) are HE engines. (Engine No, 18001, I believe). Your car has an HE engine.

I can't speak for the throttle tower arrangement, but I would have expected your engine number to be earlier than 8S61794, based on the records I have. But hey, I could easily be wrong!

Cheers

Paul

 

Remember that "model year" for USA-market cars can get a little strange. For an example my 1988 XJS (VIN 139xxx) was built in Feb 87 yet Jaguar assigned to it a "1988" VIN. Often Jaguar own technical, parts, and historic literature does not acknowledge some of the USA-market anomalies. That always strikes me a bit odd considering that the USA was usually Jaguar's biggest market !

Anyhow.....

According to Publication S60 (which is USA-centric like the other "S" publications) the 1989 Model Year for USA cars (perhaps Canada and Mexico as well?) began with 148782.

I think Moss, in their USA catalogs, uses the 1989.5 identifier simply to differentiate between Lucas and Marelli ignition....which for USA cars did occur about half way thru the model year. Even Jaguar's own literature has some conflicting info on when Marelli was first introduced...but always in the range of 156xxx-157xxx.

Cheers
DD

 

Got it, thanks for your patience, Paul. I had read the original as pre HE engine starting at 8S1xxx

 

That is an HE engine in the photo.

 

Good news, I was able to get to the engine and get the gunk out with a long flexible grabber with claws and a light. I found two sets of numbers. 29NO84 and 8S3395OSA I don't know if the last three are letters OSA or a zerow & SA. Well what do these numbers tell us?

 

This is my engine number:

8S33625HB

Yours is a zero not a letter o before the last two letters. The A at the end indicates it is an A spec liner/piston combination (Jaguar sorted pistons and liners into two tolerance sets for greater accuracy). My engine is a B spec as you can see.
The serial number indicates your engine was made 325 examples later than mine. Maybe an indication of plenty of stock and slow sales at the time, or more likely stocks were used on a first in first out basis!

I have forgotten what the penultimate letter (H in your case and S in mine) stands for; but someone will surely tell us! It might, repeat MIGHT be that H indicates an 11.5:1 compression ratio and S indicates 12.5:1

 

Patrick,

As Greg has said, that's a zero before the SA. The "S" = Standard compression ratio, as opposed to "H" for High compression ratio. The "A " is Grade A Pistons. The piston grading is to match the pistons to the liners in the block.

My records also indicate your engine block was cast in 1985, even though the car was built in 1988. It's just a guess but maybe 29NO84 means teh block was cast on the 29th November 1984?

Cheers

Paul

 

Hi Doug,

As you know, the whole concept of MY changes was driven by the US market that expects a car to be changed every year (whereas in the UK, we were quite happy with cars going years before being changed!). I understand it was all General Motors fault in the 1920s, perhaps to bring in the concept of obsolescence in car production?

1988 MY DID start in Feb 1987 at VIN 139052, although I've never really found out why. I think that's why they brought out a 1988.5 MY in Jan 1988 as they needed a change and it was deemed too early to have a 1989 MY at that point.

Nothing in my records indicates the existence of a 1989.5 MY. The introduction of Marelli is right at the beginning of 1989 MY in December 1988 at VIN 157115 +/- 3 cars.

And then of course, it started getting ridiculous by the mid-90s, with my early AJ16 car being a 1994.75 MY.

Cheers

Paul

 

Yet there is Jaguar tech and parts literature out there that refers to these cars as 1987 or 1987.5 model year.


Again, I think that was something done by Moss Motors in their own catalogs. OTOH, given Jaguar's love affair with half-year model designations, who knows?
And, again, for USA cars the 1989 model year began with 148782....making the Marelli intro about half-way thru the USA model year. And, even if the 148782 starting point is debated there's ample evidence of cars with Lucas ignition being assigned a 1989 VIN....for the USA market.

I agree. When it come down to designations changing by quarter-year it's a bit silly.

Over the decades I've discovered many inconsistencies, or outright mistakes, in Jaguar's own literature and/or JDHT records. One of the most glaring is incorrectly stating that Series III XJ6 production ended in October 1986 when, if fact, in ended in April 1987. These last-few-months-of-production cars were USA market cars....their existence being left out of many publications (and conversations). I've often wondered if this sort of thing was the impetus for the "S" publications (S57, S58, S60, etc) which all appear to be Ameri-centric and address the specifics (and even existence) of the USA market cars. I can envision Jaguar Cars USA insisting that such literature be created....but that's a bit of speculation on my part.

There's is some amount of normalcy to all of this, regardless of brand. It's typical for parts, technical, sales, and historic literature to be written and/or published by completely different entities. Details and terminology can "get lost in the translation" so to speak.

Cheers

DD