I wanted to install more free-flowing intakes to replace the stock air filter boxes.
The idea is that the engine will breath better and see a slight increase in power.
There should also be an increase in sound, which I wanted.
The stock intake tubes are specifically designed to reduce intake roar at wide-open-throttle.
But this is a Jaguar...it SHOULD roar when you floor it!
I could have spent almost $400 for the ready-to-install "Growlers" that are available. I chose to make my own for a couple of reasons. (In addition to my general obsession with doing everything myself) First, I had eliminated a couple of attachments and I wanted to move the remaining sensor and hose attachments to make them less obtrusive visually. Second, I wanted a perfect cosmetic effect. After discussion with my aluminum welder, we decided that the tubes could be cleverly welded at the BACK of the mounting plates. This would allow the front to have a full polish with no weld seam. To complete the effect, I used chrome-plated socket-head bolts instead of hex bolts.
I am pleased with the results.
The time had come to rebuild the injector harness.
It is famous for sitting in the "death valley" of the vee, soaking up oil and cooking until brittle.
The most pressing problem for my harness was the injector connectors.
Several times, I would be working on some other part of the engine, put the slightest pressure on a connector, and hear that familiar crackling sound.
Sigh. Another one broken.
So when enough is enough, do you buy a new harness or make one yourself?
For me, it was an easy decision.
The OEM harness is at least $700 and has all the same drawbacks that necessitated a replacement in the first place.
An aftermarket or custom harness runs anywhere from $300-$1600(!), and even then, may still use under-rated wire.
It seems to me, the only good option is to make it yourself and do it right.
And so I did.
I used 14 gauge silver-coated copper wire with Teflon insulation.
It is not only rated at 400 degrees, but is thinner, very flexible, and actually holds whatever shape you form it into, instead of curling the way typical automotive wiring does.
This allowed me to form it into the exact size and shape that would fit into the vee and follow the contours around the cam covers.
I then used high-quality 3:1 heat-shrink tubing to insulate and help hold that desired shape.
Voila! A harness that is very flexible, yet holds the shape of the engine.
Organized, neat, and the harness is held suspended at the level of the intake manifold bolts, keeping it cooler.
The final question of a harness rebuild is whether to splice and reuse the old harness connector or replace it with a better one. Members of the Jag-Lovers forum have occasionally mentioned being unable to find a weatherproof 8 pin connector that would be a good replacement for the stock connector. I found a perfect MSD weatherproof 8 pin connector through Jegs. It is high quality and easy to install. Most of my pictures focus on the installation of the replacement connector, since it is not commonly done. Bernie Embden and Ed Sowell have excellent write-ups on how to actually make the harness, so I did not feel the need to duplicate their descriptions.
While not revolutionary, I feel this project incorporated some interesting touches.
This was an enormous project.
I mean REALLY enormous.
I knew from the beginning, any show engine project would have to address the ugly cast aluminum manifolds.
So before I started any of this project, I asked Randy, the chrome plater who would eventually do all my plating, what it would cost to chrome plate the manifolds.
He explained that they would first have to be ground and polished before they could be chrome plated.
On top of that, there are probably massive impurities and hidden pits that will show up badly.
Overall, he was willing, but unexcited, to take on the chroming project. "You won't be happy with how it looks."
By the way. The cost?
About a thousand bucks...apiece.
Anyone who thinks that price is crazy has never polished cast aluminum.
In the end, I decided to reshape and mirror-polish the manifolds myself, then powdercoat the ribs, and add emblems.
This meant doing much more than just grinding the ribs off and polishing the surface smooth.
I first ground out the casting "webs" between the runners, removed the threaded attachment towers, smoothed away the casting seams, removed the lump at the crossover pipe connector, and completely reshaped the back of the plenum to match and flow smoothly onto the throttle bodies.
Then the sanding and polishing began.
Without a doubt, this was the most difficult and time-consuming project I did.
It took hundreds of hours, several trips to the welder to fix those predicted pits, and created piles of used-up sandpaper, dremel grinders, cut-off wheels, sanding drums, flapwheels, buffer wheels, more sandpaper, and even more sandpaper.
I also learned more about working aluminum and polishing in general than I ever imagined existed.
Shaping and polishing aluminum is not just a technical skill, it is an art.
And not for the faint-hearted.
The end result was entirely worth the effort. They are the focus of the engine project and completely unique.
I find it a bit ironic that the heart of any show car project is the obligatory pile of chrome plated parts.
It's ironic because, while unquestionably impressive, it is the one part that is done by someone else and not by me, the builder.
I spend hundreds of hours replacing parts, upgrading parts, redoing wiring, making general improvements, and polishing aluminum; then people will compliment me on the pieces that I merely dropped off and picked up.
sigh
Well, I was successful at the one requirement I needed to accomplish for my chrome plating.
I found an excellent chrome plater.
Randy Chickinell, at Industrial Plating in Omaha, does truly excellent work.
More importantly, he and his wife Melodie are, if anything, more particular about the quality of their work than I am.
When picking up completed parts, you are expected to review the work very critically before leaving, to make sure everything is perfect.
On a couple of occasions, I felt the work was acceptable and they did not.
If something is less than perfect, the piece is stripped and redone to make it right.
On a more personal note, I want to extend a huge thank-you to Randy for the time he spent giving me suggestions, advice, and tips on all aspects of this project, especially aluminum polishing. I had to teach myself how to do everything I did on this car. This was especially difficult, because I had no access to anyone with experience or knowledge, except for Randy. The man is obviously very busy, but was always willing to be pulled from the back and spend some valuable time answering my questions.
Thanks, Randy, for being patient with all the questions, and for a job well done.
The Jaguar V-12 has far more aluminum engine parts than most people realize.
Aluminum can always be made to look impressive, given adequate time and effort.
The difference between an aluminum part that is merely shiny and one that is truly impressive comes down to the amount of pre-polishing prep time taken.
That means shaping it with grinders, files, and sandpaper before the polishing begins.
Anyone can take an aluminum part and run it on a buffer wheel until it is shiny.
However, the surface will be wavy, there will be pits everywhere, and worst of all, the edges, corners, and curves will be worn down, leaving the piece with a melted look.
The real work involves taking files and sandpaper to make the edges sharper and the curves smoother.
Instead of blurring the original shape, the final result will be a piece that is actually crisper than the original.
Then begins the sanding process with progressively finer sandpaper, being carefull to maintain that precise shape.
I sanded everything with at least 220, 320, 400, and 600 grit sandpaper before polishing.
Some pieces were also sanded with 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit, as well.
Each course of sanding was done at right angles to the previous course (when possible) until the previous grit's scratches were gone.
Polishing could then begin on the buffer wheel with two, sometimes three, different stages of polishing compounds, with each compound having its own separate wheel.
Here's the best part.
If you slip and put a gouge in that soft metal...you get to grab a file...and start over.
Essentially, aluminum polishing is obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive behavior put to practical use.
I saw one instructional website that began with the warning:
"Do not even think about doing aluminum polishing if you have a girlfriend, wife, or even a life."
How true.
There will always be debate as to whether is is better to leave the Jaguar V-12 with its original mechanical fan or to replace it with an electric.
I had an idler arm bearing go bad very quickly, and upon further inspection, found the condition of my fan clutch was questionable and my yellow fan blade had the infamous and potentially disastrous stress cracks.
No debate for me, it was time for an electric fan
This page actually documents the installation of my second electric fan using a completely different mounting system than I used for the first.
The first time, I had tried to find a good way to install it in the shroud and seal around the fan.
That fan was also an experiment to see if it is really worth the extra money for a high-end brand like Flex-a-lite.
I bought a cheaper fan with the same CFM rating, installed it...and it died 3 months later.
The extra money for a good fan is worth it.
To make things worse, the original mounting technique and seal turned out to be inadequate, so with a new Flex-a-lite in hand, it was back to the drawing board.
My second attempt has worked perfectly.
It is very strong, looks good, and the mounting bracket IS the seal.
I have run it for two summers with no problems.
I discovered...buy quality parts and design simple.
Okay, this entry is not meant to be instructional, it is not even meant to be impressive...it is merely meant to allow people to make fun of me.
Here's what happened.
I had finished removing some 500 fasteners and installing chrome plated replacements.
I then came to the 4 exhaust manifold heat shield bolts.
These screw directly into the exhaust manifolds, so will get far too hot for chrome plated replacements.
They would turn blue.
Stainless steel was the best replacement choice, but stainless bolts looked very ugly against the shined heat shields.
I had previously read quite a bit on polishing stainless steel (for the water rails and heat shields) and supposedly, it is difficult, almost impossible, to get a good polish on SS without special equipment and materials.
The steel is just too hard and too much heat builds up.
This was confirmed by my previous attempts to polish stainless steel, which had mediocre results at best.
I decided to experiment and see what I could do.
For each bolt, I used dremel and file to remove the raised lettering.
I then individually sanded all 7 sides of each bolt with a series of 7 sandpaper grades(220,320,400,600,1000,1500,2000grit), carefully removing all previous sanding marks.
(Yes, that is 49 sanding sessions per bolt)
Then it was on to the buffer, with a coarse wheel and medium compound followed by a softer wheel and polishing compound.
This took a total of almost 1 hour per bolt.
The result, however, is a perfect stainless steel mirror. I took pictures just for fun.
My experiment concluded that, despite rumors, stainless steel can be perfectly polished at home, provided there is an insane polisher available.
Believe it or not, I actually DO have a life...all evidence to the contrary.
At the back of the A Bank manifold is a little noticed item, a vacuum sensor switch.
This is the sensor that acts in conjuction with the kick-down switch and the throttle tower microswitch to provide enrichment during WOT and heavy load.
During the whole disassembly/re-assembly process, I had removed it, set it aside, and ignored it until I was ready to put it back on.
However, when it came time to re-install, the wires began to dissolve in my hand. I tried and failed to find a source for a replacement.
It is a permanently sealed item, but I found that, with a bit of patience and a good exacto-knife, it was possible to re-wire it.
This section shows the steps I took to do so.
This is not some big project, but I thought it might be useful to someone with the same problem.
