and then we have modern F1 engines!

back a few yrs, i was talking with a Crane race products engineer!

his comment was at 20,000+ rpm, a properly built piston engine , can use detonation to push the pistons, speed of fuel burning time frame can be forced into detonation and increase torque to unheard of numbers!

he was the head engineer at Smokey Yunick shop, and moved on to Crane Co. Daytona Fl.

he has passed, but sitting down with him was an amazing experience!

 

Yep . . . some of those trailblazers are still around and, as you say, are just brilliant to sit and listen to. I grew up in the shadow of a bloke named Ron LeTaurenac, the local engineering brains behind Aussie former multiple F1 ace Jack Brabham, their partnership with Repco and design and production of the mighty V8 Repco Brabham F1 engine, development of the Brabham stable of F1 race cars, and subsequently RALT (Ronald A LeTaurenac) open wheeler and sportscar chassis.

Boyhood awe of these giant heroes, saw many of us, especially around Western Sydney in the 60s and beyond, develop a keen interest in helping around the pits on race days . . . nothing was too menial and was steadily rewarded by learning from real masters back in the workshops. But, with today's race technology, the masses of data, I'd be lost.

Best wishes,

Ken

 

I never knew where RALT came from as a name. And HOW true about racing in those days. I grew up near the Snetterton track in Norfolk England. If you hiked across the marshes from my village you could get in free. One time I saw Jack Brabham. Moss, Clarke and Hill, and saw the V12 "Hondola" and all its strange Japanese mechnaics in an early season F1 non championship shakedown race. Believe it or not, Hill's BRM was being given a tow start by an old Ferguson grey tractor! You could be right next to the cars, listen to all the drivers and mechanics, and the paddock really was a paddock.
Today's idiotic F1 commercial ripoff is a complete joke, by contrast. IMO, NASCAR has it about right in terms of public involvement, given the conditions today. Unless the new owners of F1 wake up, it will die out and deserve to.
Greg

 

Absolutely. All about cash today. And if you watch carefully, it is nearly perfectly scriped. The country with the most fans normally provides the champion. It has been back and forth between Britain and Germany for a while. And with all those silly rules in place it makes it boring. Formula E is a lot more interesting.

And a BTW, Greg, I grew up in Lowestoft Suffolk... YAY! I'm sure you've heard of the "Jewel of the East"

 

I lived there as a child for about 6 years. I went back for the first time about 14 years ago, could not recognise the place. All industry gone, all the decent pubs disappeared/or turned into guastly filthy dives. The Wherry at Oulton Broad, which must have one of the best Hotel locations in the country, was an absolute dive, filthy carpets, poisonous cheap lager, it was utterly ruined.
Apparently Lowestoft is now one of the most deprived areas of the country, quite heartbreaking to see it. Quite what can be done about it, if anything, I do not know.
Greg

 

Even for me it is hard...

I moved away 1997 after living there 10.5 years (was 10.5 y.o.) as we emigrated to Germany. About 1998 we went there to visit our family again and saw, well, not much difference. The town was still where it was and our former house was also still there.

Sometime around 2002 I went over again. All of a sudden, a major road cut away my old neighbourhood from the school area... The town center was nearly dead, even though it was summer and dry and a Saturday. The beach has even changed from sand to pebbles.

As we use to live there, Richard's shipyard was (just) still going. The co-op factory was still packing food. Bird's eye was still running and even loads of pubs around...

Everything has declined and it is a shame to see a formerly booming town, with a huge (formerly huge) industrial background a loads of tourism attractiveness, turn from important to not worth mentioning in less than 25 years...

It is still my hometown though and nearly all my family live there (and around like Beccles, Worlingham, Gorleston (where I was born), Caister and co). So I still regularly visit them. Hopfully sometime in the XJ-S That would probably be the most fun visit

 

i dont know much about England and such, but the pictures some people bring back to USA especially ones from the back streets areas, is shameful and sad!

question: is the world witness to the slow fall of a once great society!

but some cities of USA are in serious decay, like Detroits industrial centers!

check you tube PACKARD Motors plant building, homeless have taken over, burning wood and walls for heat!
one of my visits to Detroit around 1970 was a huge/big machine shop filled with all types on equipment, rows and rows!

well visited area again , 1992, and building was totaly cleared out,nothing left, all equipment was sold to Asian company in one swift move, for scrap metal price!

HEY life goes on we do the best we can, justa playin with our TOYS. we sell our souls to the highest bidder.

 

Well, Lowestoft (as stated above) is undergoing a HUGE makeover. The town is going from an industrial base to a more family based place to live. There are enough jobs (really) but not in the industrial sector but more so in the service branch (shopping, banks, doctors, etc.). So the decline is slowly ending.

Housing estates and old areas are actually getting posh and expensive. The road I used to live in used to be behind the mentioned "Co-Op" packing factory. The prices were cheap and the homes were okay for the price. But now, my former home, sold for something like £120.000 (as we bought it, around 1992, it was something like £15.000!). Of course, inflation and co but the entire area is now expensive, as there are new supermarkets, good schools, short ways to walk/drive.

I remember seeing a documentary about Detroit. The rise and fall of such a place hurts to see. From nothing to Mo-Town to nothing. Basically because of modernisation and the plans of the US government to have a decentralised vehicle production instead of a centralised (all in one area) type.

Then came the attach of the European car builders (VW flooded the market with cheap, economic cars aka the Beetle) and after that the Japanese cars (Toyota, Honda, Nissan with even more affordable, cheap to run, reliable cars). So the purely American market became a really hard fought market with brands gaining market shares but also losing them within days again... Until the fusion with other brands and then merge into a larger corporation until that goes "pop" (like AMC in the 80ies, GM and Chrysler in 2008/2009 etc.). All of a sudden then Detroit lost nearly all tax income...

I'd love to develope the main train station. That building alone shows how well Detroit was doing back in the day. And today, the same building is just an empty, non-used building. No trains since I think 2010 or so and it is decaying as we speak.

We had the same problem here in Bremen. I don't know if you have heard of the brand "Borgward"? Used to be bigger than Mercedes. The cars were exported to their main market: America. All of a sudden the sales collapsed. The then LARGEST German automaker (it was larger than VW at the time) just went pop over night. Kind of like the US bailouts of GM and Chrysler, Borgward was supposed to be bailed out by the state of Bremen (where all factories were made). Bremen said it wasn't worth it and all factories ceased production. Resulting in Mercedes buying the Bremen factory (the Bremen plant of Mercedes is their BIGGEST factory producing more MB than any other factory (from MB) on this planet also with better quality than Stuttgart - as proven by house internal checks and tests). And it carried on with other branches. Like ship building. Bremer Vulcan built loads of ships for different countries.

The former glory of industrial Bremen (a long time rich State in Germany) has gone and you don't see much broad industrial stuff. We have a steel mill (BreMetal from Arcelor), huge brewery (Becks belong to AB-inBev aka Anheiser Bush aka Budweiser), Mercedes, Atlas Elektronik, Rheinmetall, Airbus and a few "minor" industries...

I wouldn't say it is the fall of a great society. More so a demographic change in the lives of many people. Cheap living space, more "white collar" jobs. But if "blue collars" can't upgrade to white collars, then they turn unemployed and therefore their living areas fall to that, what they are...

 

in 1955 Detroit was the richest city in USA.

was said a different demographic moved in, and music became important, quality cars became secondary!

today its a total shambles of endless waste, it is said we can bring it back, donno.

 

Geez.
this chokes me up...
I think we need some pictures for Japan...

 

Detroit is worse than i thought,, you tube Detroit GHETTOS.

horrible mess

 

I am writing to a) revive this thread, and b) to gather some informed opinions on where I need to go next with my car.


This is a 1990 convertible, and I have fitted nearly all the AJ6 goodies: ECU, TT Exhaust, fitted bored throttles (no plus torque intake, however). I run Thrush turbo mufflers into glasspacks. I have removed the A/C and the air pump (all of it: all plumbing, all the bits), which has removed some weight as well as making things a bit more accessible under the bonnet. The suspension has been warmed over, too: I have fitted poly bushes to the front end, and fitted larger bars, front and rear. The ride height has been tuned as well; I run heights that mimic the XJSR. Part of that was accomplished through tire fitment: I run XK8 revolvers (17") with 245/50 in the rear and 225/45 in the front. Has that slightly nose-down attitude of the XJRS. The rest of the height was trimmed out through packing ring removal in the front and very minor amounts of spacers in the rear. The car is fitted with a Tremec wide ratio 5 speed, and a 3.54 diff.


All in all, it is a very taught, sharply behaving car (well, as much taughtness as can be reasonably obtained with a convertible), without completely forsaking that Jaguar-esque ride quality.


But, it could use an ounce or two more of encouragement, as it is a 4200 lb hulk.


Toward that end, I have acquired two engines:


The first is a 1979 pre-HE, pulled from an XJS in the early 1980's (circa 1983, I am told). This was pulled at very low mileage due to the owner's inability to 'get it running right'. I have the race-track fuel rail, and it has been fitted with new, HE-model injectors. So this fellow went to great lengths to try to get the car to run properly before he pulled the engine. I would be surprised if this engine has more than 30K on it. Fitted with 7.9:1 pistons.


The second is a 1994 HE 6L motor (yeah, the one with the forged crank). Mileage unknown, pulled from an XJ12, from what I can devine from the serial number.
Why have I acquired these? My first plan was to pull the flat heads and use these on the 6L block and crank, and fit new pistons and liners, taking this to 6.7L using Chevy 305 pistons, or to 6.8L using 96mm Rob Beere kit.


So far, I have been acquiring the various bits and pieces of tooling with which to do full rebuilds, and expect to begin opening and disassembling one of these starting this season (the sun will return sometime, here in Ohio).


I have been reviewing how I want to proceed, and this is where I am looking for input:


The courses of action that I can see in addition to the original plan are:


1. open and inspect the 5.3, re-seal it if it looks good and put two smaller turbos on it (I hate the prospect of turbolag)


2. rebuild the 6L and turbo it, as is.


3. find a longer stroke crank- maybe one of the TWR-spec 84 mm models. I suspect this will entail many other changes (like rods and pistons, and maybe oiling?).


I eyeballed the 92 mm crank that xjr5006 offered on this site a while ago, pretty seriously, but I could not convince myself to go this route (5 mm head plate and all the rest of it).


My kid brother is into boats and has a 38' fitted with twin 540 cube big blocks that are supercharged using Prochargers. I like the clean nature of that setup, and figure that a Procharger could actually be accomplished under the bonnet of an XJS. So, supercharging may be the route, and I happen to like this ALOT more than turbocharging, from a tuning and drivability perspective.


Yes, most any of this will necessitate a new ECU. That's a given in this overall picture.


And yes, the trans/diff gearing will be getting a fresh look, too, as the present overall ratios will not be well suited to a significantly more torquey and powerful motor. I may drop the 2.88 back in, or, I will go to a close ratio T56-based box that can work with a diff as numerically high as the 3.54.


Of course, the chief objective is getting there through a minimum path, in terms of cost (let's be clear- what I am outlining will not be cheap, but I also don't want to shell out more than reasonably necessary), but also in terms of long term livability: the final result has to be reliable enough to approach daily-driver quality. I don't want a setup that requires constant nursing and care (which is one reason I have not gone the nitrous route).


The primary use is as a street vehicle- not a stop light drag racer, I don't track the car, anything like that. Just looking for bags of torque to motivate the 4200lb of bulk to move along.


Any thoughts or opinions? Anything I am missing, here?

-M

 

Good luck and keep us informed
greg

 

A 6.7L with the right head mods, intake, exhaust and aftermarket ECU will be capable of 500hp easily. Norm was getting 600hp from his 6.7L's.

I'm still out on the ability of ported and chamber modified HE heads to make power. HE heads run 25° lag as apposed to pre-HE that run around 34°, this means the HE head has far better combustion -get the flow right and the power will be there.

 

Greg, Warren:


OK, so I see both of you are in line with what I have been thinking: using better breathing heads on the 6L block and crank, and go to larger pistons.


Warren: I see Norman is doing the engine, and if I recall correctly from the thread for your build, you are using the Chevy 305 pistons. Do I also recall you went with Rob Beere's liners? How did that work, as those are for 96 mm pistons, no? I have also considered using Chevy 305 pistons, 0.040 or so over, which brings them perilously close to 96 mm. Or can those Beere sleeves be ordered undersize, and then finished to suit? When Norm was still offering those kits, he had one that would be useable for 6L cranks and flat heads using KB153's, and the CR came in somewhere around 9.88:1. I would go for that extra half point if I could (10.5:1), but it's cost/benefit.


I also don't see the need for the forged pistons that Beere offers in the kits that include everything. On the other hand, I do kind of like the notion of a kit that has everything, because it would be potentially a lot less fussy when working with an engine builder/machinist to get the block mods and whatever else has to be done with the gudgeon pin end.


-M

 

Egads! to many options, all have some merit, Now the question is,what setup would move a 4200 lb barge(4800lb with four people in it),away from a stop light, or passing some hiway traffic? whewy.

to start with you are going to need a reputible engine machine shop, no matter how you are going to build the engine!

diffenately use the 6.0L block, 5.3 will always leak some place(rear seal).

and pre heads ported are about the best for money spent! with cubic capacity you could use the big port/valve heads starting to come out of Australia.

nobody mentioned CAMS, my opinion would be early stock 5.3, give the most drivable torque and plenty on top end like 6500rpm. HE and ford 6.0 cams are all about real slow smoothness,MPG>.

seein as you are going to use a custom piston, use the best you can, forged chamber shaped on top,like TWR used! stock liners bored .060 over, fitted properly, TOTAL SEAL GAPLESS rings! twr or gp44 never had them available !

seein as you are going to build a very serious engine, 84MM crankshaft, with the 60 over pistons,YEH, that sounds serious!

CHEVY con rods have proven acceptable many times by Gp44, they are lighter than factory jag, you can get them at reasonable cost, there are so many combinations to choose from, and much better forging materials, and shapes ,I beam, H beam, angle beam caps, NO end to choice!

rebalance the rotating assembly, and components.

transmission, if you gotta have a manual, i good 6 speed of your choice, a double overdrive , keep the 3.54 gear, it would still give over 150 mph!
my choice,(cause i'm an old guy), would be a built up 4L85E with the 6speed shift kit!

finally,i would mount 2 small turbos in the rear area where mufflers used to be, NICE Kool place for hot turbos, plenty air flow back there!
NO mufflers ,turbos act as silencers, with a pretty sound(fluttery low whistle, NOW that would turn some heads).

for sure a custom ECU with all the great apps, most important a water /alky boost injection setup,today they are not that expensive,AND LOTS OF ONLINE EXPERIANCE. you would need to lower CR maybe 9-1, to be safe, ECU retard combination when on the boost.
you wont be driving around on boost constantly,(i hope)LOL.

these have proven the best way to eliminate turbo detonation! all the new car companies are going turbo, cant be all wrong, there are some with self contained oiling!

and underhood space would be cooler and freed up, just some pipes running back.forth.

well you have to make the final desicions, a lot to choose from!

my preferences are only suggestions, and everybody has one! LOL

 

to put some perspective here , my 1978 XJS roadster weighs in at 3375lbs , 1/2 tank fuel!

with my gearing and 5.3 it performs OK, not fantastic, course my last car was a Camaro with 502 BBC modified! torque 600lbs.

 

Yep Norm is building my engine. You should talk to Norm his cost on my engine was quite reasonable, it was under $10k for the kit installed.

Norm has a few TWR crank forgings good for loooong stroke.

Liners are Norms, not sure where he got them from but I doubt it would be Rob Beere, I would expect direct somewhere like Westwood. If you were doing a 1 off then Beere liners would work.

Pistons are KB143 hyperutectic, no need for forged. I used the KB143’s so I could machine the piston crown where I wanted to keep the quench pad as large as possible. 32cc chambers and 10cc in the piston for 10.5:1 CR. You need to machine 0.040” off the top of the piston to get compression height correct.

Rods had the pin bush replaced with 0.927” for chev pins. I lightened the rods by just under 100g each.

You can use the Lucas 16CU ECU to run the 6.7L by adjusting the fuel pressure to get AFR right at WOT. I went Megasquirt as my car is Marelli and adjusting timing for the new engine is impossible. The MS also gives me the ability to tune for max fuel efficiency at part throttle.

You don’t say what block you have. If you don’t have a block then use either a late 5.3L or 6.0L with 1 piece rear main seal.

I am going to run the stock cam and valves so these will limit the peak power the engine will deliver. But I do believe the mods I have made to my heads will give me around 450hp once I have made my new intake manifold.

 

Ron:


Actually, my decision to wade into this subject was motivated by a post you had made elsewhere on this site: probably the simplest, easiest thing would be to use the 84 mm crank and go NA. That got me (re) thinking my approach.


I am pretty much giving up on the turbo/supercharger approach because it will require SO much engineering to get it right, and then to leave the engine bay reasonably accessible. Even if the turbos go at the back of the car, it will be a challenge- I have thought on that one quite deeply, too.


Cams: yes, I agree- no one mentioned them, but, one of the reasons for getting the preHE motor was to also get the cams. If NA, those would be the better ones to use. If going turbo/supercharger, the 6L cams might be better (although a new more mild grind would probably be in order even then). Going NA, those '79 cams will be used.


I have both engines complete (preHE and 6L HE), so those assemblies are available. And I really do not want to have to use that rope seal setup on the early blocks, so, I am pretty much focusing on the 6L block and crank. This is the one aspect that may very well rule out the use of any available 84 mm crank: all that I have seen of or heard of are machined to rope seal specs. I hate that seal enough that going 84 mm would be a very long thought out consideration (unless a modern one piece lip seal version were around...).


It's about displacement, for me. How to get it most reasonably (and yes, that's certainly a relative term, when speaking Jag V12!).


As far as weight: your setup easily has any other XJS convertible beaten. I don't see how to match that, and I am not willing to really tear the car up to reduce the weight. Better to add displacement and power to get the ratio where I want it.


Warren:


I should write Norm again, then, and see what is up. I ran his spreadsheets backwards and forwards, and his recommended setup for flat heads on a 6L block was for a KB153. Gave CR of 9.88:1. Now, a set of Beere 96 mm liners together with the KB153 ordered in 0.060" over would mean those liners would have to be taken about 0.5mm larger, but the end result would be 6.9L. The question for me is, does the cost of the KB pistons plus the boring of the Beere liners offset the cost of the Beere kit at 96mm, complete with pistons, gaskets, liners, etc. It's probably a wash, I would guess, but I have not worked the numbers yet. Advantage of Beere's kit is I can get the CR I want, whereas the KB approach would mean I have what they have, in terms of crown and pin height, and so, CR.


I think I am zeroing back in on this thing.


-M

 

DARN, i thought some one was gonna build an 84MM stroker Jag V12!

odd that nobody has a forged/or cast 84mm shaft that fits into a 6.0 block type seal!

if you aint gonna have forged pistons then you wont need a forged crank either.

besides Jag V12 rarely have crank problems anyway.

judging by whats said here, the Beere kit makes a good choice , with all the parts supplied! would seem the least amount of assembly work!

quick guess , a 6.9L would be close to a 90 cubic inch increase over a 5.3L, i like it!!LOL.

pour on that torque!!.