Ranch if you have some spare time you might be interested reading/watching this guy build a 1 off Ferrari V12 to put into a old Ferrari 308. Interesting adventure .
308 V12 conversion (V12 308) - Ferrari Life

 

I looked and that's crazy. Car is legally on the road. Seems I'm spending a LOT of time talking to folks about it. Far more than I expected. Seems no one in my town has ever seen on of these. Tons of looks and kids are even pointing at it. Almost as bad as running one of the big tractors through town.

Jury is out on the exhaust. It definitely has a deeper tone than I'd like. Shifts are really pronounced. Heading down to my folks place to help get a boat engine back together in a bit so I'll see if the TPMS sorts itself out. Pressure's are currently close to 40psi. No other codes.

I did notice that the inside mirror had crap on it and not the silver delaminating. The passenger side mirror is flopping loose so I need to sort that out eventually.

Overall two thumbs up.

 

Excellent! Thanks for ditching the OZ wheels.
Those things are hideous on the XKR IMO.

oh... and when do you rest?

 

One only rests when dead...

Here's the video my son did last evening.


Put 55 miles on the car today, combo of highway and back roads. Lots of fun and I think it's learning how I drive. I did get a TPMS system fault a while ago. I can see these being persistent. Car really wants to be driven hard and does handle like it's on rails. Overall a good time.

 

Good work Ranchero glad you can actually enjoy you Cat now !!

Yes the tpms is a persistent little gremlin

 

True, and it is also better to be seen than viewed ...

I like the deep throbbing exhaust at idle and the increasing pitch as revs increase. I bet it screams at 6500 rpms. You should be thrilled as you put your right foot deeper into the exhilarator pedal! Great work!

 

Great sound, very nice burble. Bet it sounds terrific on the road under full acceleration or at highway speeds. Very nice work. I really enjoy your write-ups.

 

Thanks for the kind words. I took it easy yesterday and today I want to either redo the headlamps or the other exhaust tips. I'm leaning towards the tips.

 

Sounds great!

 

So, today was a complete wash... Pollen count is off the scale and I made the mistake of tossing a tennis ball up in my pine tree for the dogs to find when it came back out. Got a call from my farmer friend who finances most of my toy budget keeping his stuff running. He jack knifed a **** spreader on a hill and broke the PTO shaft off on the tractor...

No pics of that carnage but here's a couple gratuitous shots of a Jaguar in the wild. Still need to get the front plate bolts.




I'm going to run the cat to work this week and see what other gremlins stick their heads out the vents. Also thinking seriously about going the $10 / month Sirius route since I despise commercials on broadcast radio and it doesn't pick up well with the antenna retracted.

Oh yeah, the exhaust note is a lot dronier than I'd like. Sounds amazing at idle but buzzes the interior at times. I really need to get the 2nd set of tips working.

 

Run the car out to the auto parts place to get stainless tag screws. Nope, ended up at Lowes and got some. Found out that I hate the HID's in this car. It's raining out so everything is dark. They are much dimmer than the fog lamps. Sitting in Lowes parking lot I could not see them lighting up the lot more than the overhead lamps did. Got it back home and the lamps seem to be aimed correctly but are a blueish tint and dim. Not sure if the OP did something or if the bulbs are just dead. I test drove an '15 Mustang and it really lit things up. XKR, not so much.

 

Picked up 2 of these after reading a bunch of stuff. I like warm colored light.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIACWB5B03360

 

I did a 'reactivation' of my SiriusXM a few months ago prior to a week long trip "out west" with Mrs. LHR. The 6 month special was more like $5.20/month for me, and it was perfect to have on a long road trip. The sound quality (for me) is somewhere between my FM (meh) and the CD (very good). I've got the Alpine system in mine, in case that correlates to your system. And, in the spirit of full disclosure, my hearing isn't what it used to be due to an earlier philosophy that "if the bass notes don't suck the air out of your lungs, the music isn't cranked up loud enough".

Also, love the 'tone' on your exhaust.

 

I went about a dozen different ways on SiriusXM's site and was finally able to turn it on with a free 2 month trial and $12.52 per month after that. I think I also saved on the $15 activation charge by doing the trial first. Weird.

I think today's goal is going to be hitting up a couple auto parts stores and seeing if I can get some BRG touch up paint to at least get the body all one color. Lots of scrapes all over and the front bumper looks rough. Did I mention there's a Phillips screw head indentation in the rear bumper? I also need to pop the growlers out of the Jupiter's and see if they'll fit the Toba's. Toba's measured 50 mm and the replacement caps measure 56 mm minimum. PITA but worth sorting to get the correct parts the first time.

This coming weekend is the Carlisle Spring swap meet and while I don't expect to see much Jag stuff there it'll be a road trip with the oldest and I can pick up some lost tools for work and home.

 

Amazing progress, thanks for bringing us along. I am sure that there will be more to come as you tweak the build, I peg you as always finding a new and improved project on your toys! I won't compare notes on recent TV shows as you cannot possibly have time for such frivolity....

 

TV? What's that? sorry for the really bad pictures but you'll get the idea. Nose of my car suffers from a really bad case of road rash. it's one thing that always drags my attention to while walking around the car. It's 20' noticeable. So, off to the auto parts place to see Jaguar or even British Racing Green is not supported, at all. Well poop. I remembered seeing some Rustoleum hunter green at Lowes when I first got the car so why not try it? Spritzed some in the lid and used a cue tip to color check and it was way too bright. Rummaged around the paint shelf and came up with some Rustoleum industrial finish satin black. Spritzed it into the lid until the color was pretty close. Instant touch up paint.

Before...


After.


Other side that I think ate a 4 x 4 at speed. Paint was knocked off from the front lip to the tire and showed a lot of grey primer.


Good enough. I walked around the car and touched the rest of the marks through the paint. I'll let it set up for a couple days and try to carefully remove the excess paint. It's making it less mangy and that's good thing.


Damage is still there but it's noticeable from 5-8' vs. 20'+ so I'm happy enough. Thinking seriously about touching up the grill the same way. and I still need to figure out the grill emblem. Want to go F type red from eBay but haven't pulled the trigger on it yet. Most of the retaining clips are missing and I think I'd be better served by pulling the bumper off to fix it all at once.

Oh yeah, be careful with this because one time when I was mixing the paint the cue tip caught a lip and splashed paint and speckled my face. Now I'm sore from scrubbing it.

 

Oh yeah, checked my email. SiriusXM playing funny games... Noticed I was set up to pay $18.21 starting in June, not the $12.52 I agreed to. Had to change it on their site and it better stick this time. I guess they didn't transfer the plan correctly. Kind of a WTH moment. I wonder how many others get hit with it and don't realize?

 

I despise Sirius. They screwed me over years ago with that bait and switch crap and it took months for them to get it right. I eventually got the amount of money they owed me in free service but to be honest, after that I didn't even enjoy it so I canceled and never went back. I listen to music streaming from my phone. No commercials, no dopey DJs and ecactly the music I want to hear.

Sorry for the rant.. carry on .. lol.

 

Drove the car into work this morning. Really am appreciating what the car brings to the experience. Growl of the exhaust as it rolls through 2500-4k is amazing. Real easy to top 90 in 3rd. In fact for cruising 90 is the new 80. Speed limit is 70 mph so I need to relax more. It's similar to riding the bike, just without the wind pressure.

Car has the TPMS fault and is also giving me the headlamp adjust out of whack. Passenger side has the turn assist lamp lit so I have something else to tinker with.

I really need to do a video of the exhaust out on the street. I thought it was too loud at first but it's just so enjoyable to listen to that I don't want to tone it down more.

 

So, sorry for no real updates, but that happens when work interferes. Day two of commuter bliss. Got accused of exceeding the weekly sarcasm limit by the boss because I walked into the shop with a smile again this morning. That's two days in a row that the car has made work much easier to deal with. This might be therapeutic and help me live longer too...

I did pick up one of these grill emblems last night. I was fretting about the size and had a revelation that I really don't care because I'll just make another ring out of aluminum and polish it to chrome like appearance.
Metal Jaguar Logo Hood Emblem Car Badge Decal Stickers For XJL XF F-Type R-Sport | eBay

I also went ahead and bought the //R center caps. My caliper decals showed up from Serbia so I'm almost ready to tackle the brake inspection / rejuvenation. Newegg is sitting on my headlamp bulb order but the lamps seem to be aiming correctly in spite of the unclearable fault on the cluster.

One very real gripe I have is the car has a horrible, mind numbing drone right at 2000 rpm, or 70 mph. 150 RPM either way and it's OK. It's bad enough that I'll drop out of 6th if I can't speed up. I'm hoping the opening up the 2nd set of tips will allow the exhaust pressure to change enough that the mufflers work better at 2k. It also means it'll probably drone somewhere else. Such is life.

Oh yeah, trip meter says I'm actually getting 18 mpg so far which was about the same as my blown Mustang...