Jaguar XJS V12 racing car

[DavidA]

AdeV,

If it's any consolation, my BMW hasn't made much progress either.

I seem to either be back at work or there are other things taking priority.

Now the garden is closing down for the winter I may get on with it. But, of course, it is also getting cold.

A guy down the road has just bought a similar car. 'C' reg' . Maybe that will give me the incentive to get back into my overalls.

Stick with it.

Dave.

[AdeV]

Thanks Dave - I've only got 10 months left of my original 3 year plan.... so I need to get cracking with it now.

In that spirit, I've managed a little more progress this weekend...

First, folded up the new bracing box/seat mounts. Then cut the bottom off & did it again as I'd managed to make it an inch too tall (oops).

Pics show the old box next to the new (the old one was chopped up when it came out):





In place, ready to be welded in:



In relation to the original on the other side:




Next I decided to tackle the boot. As we can see, it's a bit frilly around the edges:






After some plasma-cutting, grinding, 3 cutting disks, a bit more grinding, another cutting disk, etc.:



I'll make a nice new aluminium floor for it, but first I need to get hold of the fuel tank I'll be using, so I don't set the new boot floor too high. It'll be higher than the old floor as I plan to leave plenty of room for a nice big diffuser

There's still a few holes to fill before I fit the new floor...

[krv3000]

and I thort repairing your D.T.I's was a challenge 

[AdeV]

and I thort repairing your D.T.I's was a challenge 

Heh - There's no way I could do what you did to my DTIs, they're just too darn small. I end up losing all the springs and tiny screws. The car has the advantage of being nice and big, ideal for my meat hooks. Of course, the downside is, one ends up coated from head to foot in cr*p - I looked like one of those black & white minstrels when I got home this evening!

[Manxmodder]

Ade,will you be racing under the name of 'Team Ferous Oxide' (TFO) by any chance? 

 It's not yet as legendary as TWR Jaguar but I can see it catching on.
.......OZ

[Ross]

Could you not get one thats more of a challenge?

Will be following closely fantastic work so far

[Kjelle]

Nice work, Ade! By the way, the goldsmith that made a ring for my wife, was 6'4"+, and had/has hands to match... So those are not a hindrance!

Kjelle

[AdeV]

Thanks for the ongoing encouragement guys! Much appreciated.

Oz - Haven't chosen a team name yet, but I like the theme of yours... maybe Rusty Bucket's Racing Rides?

Speaking of which... check out the chassis member at the back:



And now look how shiny it is!



It's not a spectacularly good fit, nor is it particularly brilliantly welded in, but the paint hides multiple sins, and I couldn't really get the welder in there anyway.
Can't wait to see what the underseal's hiding on the other side!

I've also seam welded the floor on the sill edge, just need to grind it flat, grind back the welds in the sill, then I can undercoat those.

Tomorrow/Sunday: More plating and welding! 

[RobWilson]

Seeing all that bodywork/welding brings back a few memories of my old 2.8 Capri 

Keep at it Ade 



Rob

[AdeV]

There's not been a lot more visible progress, other than yet more patching and stuff. I've decided the nearside rear wing is toast - it's full of filler & the metal behind it is dented to death, the arch is falling to bits... so I've ordered a replacement panel from a breaker (at huge cost - the same price as the whole car!), just waiting on that to arrive now. Once that's fettled into place, I can swap to the driver's side & start patching the holes there... (note: If you're reading this outside of the UK/Eire, Australia, NZ, Japan, and a couple of other places - remember that the driver's side here in the UK is the other side of the car!)

So... whilst waiting for the parts to arrive, I've embarked on a bit of design work for the engine. Since I'm not using the traditional distributor, my original plan was simply to delete this, and build a new valley plate to house my 12 coils. Most modern petrol engines use coil-on-plug; and since most are also dual over-head cam, the plug (with its looong nose), goes between the two cams. As this engine is single OHC, this is impossible, so the plugs are off to one side, and there's no room for the nose. In fact, there's no room for the coil on top either - so mine will be coil-near-plug, the next best alternative.

Here's the original valley plate (so called because it sits in the "valley" between the two banks of cylinders):



And here's my alternative design. The inset is a Mazda RX-8 coil (not to scale), I'll be using 12 of them:



(obviously, I'll be using green aluminium.... (c) Brian Rupnow (with apologies to Brian)

And here it is fully populated:



I may add some upstands to help support the higher level coils... or I may just beef up the mounting posts somewhat. Milling that lot out of solid will be a horrendous waste of material, so I'll just make spacers to suit.

The empty middle section will contain the nub end of the old dizzy drive, with a single tooth wheel & sensor built in, that will give me the cam position accurately enough to sync the ECU with the engine. All that will be visible will be an aluminium cap with some wires coming out. Straddling that will be the new throttle tower, which will convert the pull of the throttle cable via bell cranks to the push/pull motion needed to open the 12 ITBs. More on  that later.

I have a slight problem with the dizzy drive mounting... it has to be in exactly the right place and tipped at 6 degrees from  the horizontal to match the original, and I'm not sure how to measure it up. Please see my question in "How do I?", which I'll be posting in a few minutes.

[chipenter]

Iff youre mill table is long enugh pack the lower side up , untill a clock guage reads zero on the distributor mount , and skim off the rest , mount your plate and spotface for the bolts .

[RussellT]

Hi Ade

If you're using a single tooth wheel to get the cam position isn't there an easier way to achieve that - for example a sensor in the timing chain/belt cover sensing a lump on the camshaft wheel - or a sensor detecting something on the end of the distributor drive.  Using the distributor sounds over complicated, difficult to machine and heavier than necessary.

Russell

[AdeV]

Hi Jeff - good post, that got me thinking along the same lines as Sparky over on the "How Do I??" thread. I can use a DTI on the existing plate to set the angle up, and then drill/bore the hole in the right place & at the right angle on the new valley plate.

Russell - there's nowhere "tidy" to fit a single-tooth wheel. Obviously the cam housing is full of oil, and unlike (for example) the Lexus which has an external cam drive (because it's belt driven), the Jaguar is chain driven & thus immersed in oil. The next shaft of note is the dizzy drive shaft, which I can't avoid using (it's driven by a sprocket at the based of the "V", where you'd find the single cam of a pushrod engine). This is also bathed in oil, being just above the thrashing crankshaft. The dizzy drive is accomplished with a helical gearset at the end of the shaft, which pushes vertically(ish) up out of the valley plate.

I plan to use that shaft, but I'll re-create the bottom of the dizzy (only smaller) and simply mount my 1 tooth wheel on the shaft, the sensor in the housing, and a small cap to go over the top of the lot. It should only end up around 2" diameter, maybe less. The main reason for the 40mm hole is to fit a ball bearing race inside, on which the shaft runs.

I'll get it all drawn up this week so you can see where I'm going with it.

[chipenter]

Iff you skim off the mountnig lugs , your vally plate will be at 6 degrees and the distibutor square to it .

[xjr5006]

Before you go any further the last of the V12s X300? has a coil pack valley plate and 2 x 6 pack coils units. My friend in Germany couldn't find one so made his own
but here in the UK you might be luckier.
http://www.jaguarforums.com/g/album/2795059

 

[AdeV]

Before you go any further the last of the V12s X300? has a coil pack valley plate and 2 x 6 pack coils units. My friend in Germany couldn't find one so made his own
but here in the UK you might be luckier.
http://www.jaguarforums.com/g/album/2795059

Hi Don,

That's a lovely valley plate alright, but I'm guessing those coil packs fire all 6 plugs at once? I'm looking to run fully sequential sparks  - probably overkill I know, I could run 1/2 as many coils and simply run 2 plugs off each coil; but I'm a masochist and want my 12 COPs.... Also, I still need some way of sensing the cam position, and to my mind the dizzy drive is still the most obvious option, per the new & improved CAD diagram below (which isn't properly scaled or located yet).  Just about the only valid reason I know of to avoid wasted spark ignition, is with crazy overlap cams - it's possible (highly unlikely... but possible) to fire the intake charge while the intake & exhaust valves are still open, but I'm pretty sure even my cam isn't that wild...

PS: I'll call on Friday, work is mental just now...

[xjr5006]

Get yourself a dissy from and XJRS that had Zytec, It has the 12 choppers but also another ring with just the one tooth. They have dodgy pickups with odd voltages so a dead one might come very cheap and just add a suitable pickup.
Another place for the single pickup is the back of the B cam. I have this on my XJR5 for real early Lucus Micos injection system.