Learn me Jaguar XJS

spitfirebill said:

frenchyd said:

In reply to yupididit :

I spent less than 3 minutes and found at least a partial confirmation of my statement. Try Automotive news about how Ford Bought Jaguar. It’s not the article I read but confirms the basic story. 

I’ll find further confirmation  between runs this afternoon

You said GM bought the rights and machinery to build the AJ6, yet Ford continued to use it as the AJ16 until the V8 was ready.  Google also said the Atlas was one of only 3 clean sheet newly designed engines they made.  Which I tend to disagree with.  

Yeah, plus I'm thinking there's some B.S. to what Tom Sutter, the Assistant Chief Engineer for the Atlas engine family, is saying- based off of the QUAD-FOUR?!!!! Man, that's like a decade between development cycles!!! Maybe it's a "C.Y.O." situation as all engines are an evolution of an existing (successful) design-hey, don't wanna infringe on someone's I.P. though...

https://www.topspeed.com/trucks/truck-news/the-forgotten-inline-engine-gm-s-42-liter-atlas-i-6-ar174949.html

 At least one can appreciate the tech insight on the Atlas.

In reply to 2GRX7 :

You are surprised that Jaguar kept using the engine? How then do you  account for Ford continuing using the GM transmission for the remainder of the XJS production?  From 1990 to 1997? 

Read a bit about the state of things at Jaguar  post British Leyland.  When Sir John Egan was forced to sell to save Jaguar,  GM was first in line due to the debt Jaguar owed on the transmissions they had used over the years.  

If you would like exact details Sir John Egan wrote a book about the whole affair. It’s available on Amazon. 

I am mainly disappointed the Atlas engine was defined as a coarse and thirsty engine, although somewhat powerful.  One would think an inline 6 would be smooooooth.        

Fascinating how discussion of a jag ends up about a GM truck motor.  But that's GRM people.  Gotta weigh in, the 5 cylinder is a great motor, loved the 5 cylinder roar at redline and made my colorado fun to drive.  A pickup with a performance motor is a blast.  Before the colorado had a datsun 720 with the NAPS Z 2 plug per cylinder 4.  What a great truck, again fun to drive with a motor that revs and sounds good.  

To divert back to the main story, manual trans sports cars that normally get automatics are a rare breed and I am hoping they demand a premium.  That's why I am hanging on to my 91 SL300 merc with a getrag 5 speed.  

frenchyd said:

In reply to 2GRX7 :

You are surprised that Jaguar kept using the engine? How then do you  account for Ford continuing using the GM transmission for the remainder of the XJS production?  From 1990 to 1997? 

Read a bit about the state of things at Jaguar  post British Leyland.  When Sir John Egan was forced to sell to save Jaguar,  GM was first in line due to the debt Jaguar owed on the transmissions they had used over the years.  

If you would like exact details Sir John Egan wrote a book about the whole affair. It’s available on Amazon. 

Umm, no- not surprised they kept using it, and I am aware of British Leyland's fall from grace

 What I find surprising, and questionable is that John Sutter said that the Atlas engine is an evolution of the Quad-Four engine. That would place the development cycle between the Q4 & Atlas at over a decade, BUT places the Quad-Four's development cycle squarely in the downfall/demise of British Leyland (1986).   Are the characteristics of the two architectures simply that similar due to natural engineering convergence, or did they, in fact, copy Jags engine architecture and use the VAIL of a corporate product to avoid a lawsuit from Jag? Was GM forced to pay up after Jag found their I.P. in GM's hands even before the Quad 4 introduction?

Funny enough, I was in high school when the Quad 4 came out, and even back then, they used advanced computer-aided techniques to halve the time it took to develop, and I was thinking what a great advancement for an American car company! Maybe now we can compete. Was development halved due to C.A.D., or did they have a head-start?

This is not new of GM. In the past, they've kicked corporate entities when they were down, and I'd really like to find out the real story.   

In reply to 2GRX7 :

I don’t know anything about the quad 4. If there is any connection there.  I’m sorry the story I read is that GM passed on buying Jaguar but took the engine in leu of payment for transmissions.  

Ford found out Jaguar was on the auction block and heard GM was looking them over and made an Offer Jaguar didn’t refuse.  

Would Ford have made such a generous offer ( 2.8 Billion) without GM?  I do know it was made without any examination at all because when they came in to see what their money had bought they were appalled.   

Then when it was sold to Tatra they had to come up with something like 800 million to fund Jaguar’s retirement fund.  

Another thread bites the dust.

In reply to SVreX :

Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

It really is amazing how one person can ruin every single thread they get involved in. 

C'mon.  Which is better?  A ruler-straight piece of highway?  Or a meandering country lane that winds through the mountains?  It all depends on your frame of mind.  If you're in a hurry, then by all means take the highway.  But if you are not pressed for time and are curious to see what lies around the next bend, then you take the meandering road.

And so it is with threads.

Sonic said:

It really is amazing how one person can ruin every single thread they get involved in. 

I've come to find it amusing, assuming he isn't talking about personal finance. That is scary, as people may actually take that as good advice.

All I had to see was "Jaguar" in the title and I knew what was going to happen.

Wonder when the people selling the car will realize no one actually wants it for $10k.

Dang, I was going to further derail this thread- I know a Saturn cylinder head will drop onto an Alfa block.  Same bore spacing, same spacing for the studs.  Clearly GM bought the rights for Saturn from Alfa.  

Oops

hey, raise your hand if you continually ask the same question of the same person expecting a different response?

just trying to say it takes more than one user to derail a thread. 

frenchyd said:

In reply to A 401 CJ :

Please look up the horsepower and Torque of a 1975 Corvette and compare it to the horsepower of a 1975 Jaguar XJS. 

Oops it’s less!   Hmm check again in 1976,77,7&,79,80,81,82 , 83, 84, 85, Yawn,  get the point?  

Be honest,  cars of that period were hampered with pollution controls as engineers struggle to make clean power.  So the idea that somehow Jaguar was inferior to Chevy just  isn’t valid.  

The swappers put less horsepower and torque into a heavy  Luxury car, and few were able to improve its performance or even get it running reliably.  

A far more valid comparison would be swapping a Chevy V8 into a series 3 Jaguar XKE.  At least the XKE is a two seat sports car not a heavy 4 seat luxury car. 

When the Corvettes competed against the XKE V12 they lost!   SCCA National Run offs. In spite of decades of development of the Corvette compared to only one year for the Jaguar XKEV12 ,  and only 326 cu in. Compared to Corvettes 350, Jaguar showed it’s tail to Corvette!  

Now I like my Chevy pickup with it’s 350 V8  but there are valid reasons why Ferrari, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Aston Martin,  don’t use pushrods.  

The same reason the world doesn’t build flatheads any more.,  

However those jags in scca were factory backed racing programs while the corvettes were private entries. Plus the v12 had been in development since the 50s and had orginally been a race engine design in the xj13 test car. The production version was developed from it using SOHC instead of Dohc. That being said the v12 was a great engine in racing using production based engines successfully in gt ,touring car and prototypes.

Robbie said:

hey, raise your hand if you continually ask the same question of the same person expecting a different response?

just trying to say it takes more than one user to derail a thread. 

Guilty!

I for one have no difficulty with the notion that it could take a decade or more to bring a new engine to production.  When countless millions are involved in design and tooling, you don't bring a new engine to market willy-nilly.  You study, you test, you revise.  Also, the Otto cycle internal combustion engine hasn't changed much since, well, Nikolaus Otto back in 1861.  (If you want a truly revolutionary engine design, look to the Wankel rotary).

So, it isn't wrong to say the Atlas family is derivative of the Quad-4.  This article outlines the Atlas' development, dates its origins to 1995, and references the Quad-4.

https://www.topspeed.com/trucks/truck-news/the-forgotten-inline-engine-gm-s-42-liter-atlas-i-6-ar174949.html

So. What happened to the XJS?  $10K is stupid money for it.

Sonic said:

It really is amazing how one person can ruin every single thread they get involved in. 

There is an ex-patriate Englishman who used to get kicked off of every Triumph website because he could NOT be civil.   I mean this guy was incorrigible.    

Dirtydog said:

So. What happened to the XJS?  $10K is stupid money for it.

It's probably gonna sit at 10k until they realize pops was over estimating it's value. Then they'll take whatever they can for it. 

So I'm taking a look at the recently sold list on eBay for a 1985-1991 XJS w/ '6' and 'Not listed' cylinders throughout the country.

Zero 6 cylinders sold since Dec 10, 2018.

The only ones that have sold, that ranged from $3k to $14k, have been the V12 variants.

The only XJS' of that time period currently listed on eBay appear to be strictly V12 (all auto), as well.

So what they likely did was look at the most expensive sold XJS of that time period and assumed theirs would sell close to that.

Their one saving grace would be that it's manual, but that engine hampers it greatly. They're also likely going to spend more than what it's worth taking it to a mechanic.

 

In reply to yupididit :

Agreed.  Memories and reality can be two separate things.

MotorsportsGordon said:

frenchyd said:

In reply to A 401 CJ :

Please look up the horsepower and Torque of a 1975 Corvette and compare it to the horsepower of a 1975 Jaguar XJS. 

Oops it’s less!   Hmm check again in 1976,77,7&,79,80,81,82 , 83, 84, 85, Yawn,  get the point?  

Be honest,  cars of that period were hampered with pollution controls as engineers struggle to make clean power.  So the idea that somehow Jaguar was inferior to Chevy just  isn’t valid.  

The swappers put less horsepower and torque into a heavy  Luxury car, and few were able to improve its performance or even get it running reliably.  

A far more valid comparison would be swapping a Chevy V8 into a series 3 Jaguar XKE.  At least the XKE is a two seat sports car not a heavy 4 seat luxury car. 

When the Corvettes competed against the XKE V12 they lost!   SCCA National Run offs. In spite of decades of development of the Corvette compared to only one year for the Jaguar XKEV12 ,  and only 326 cu in. Compared to Corvettes 350, Jaguar showed it’s tail to Corvette!  

Now I like my Chevy pickup with it’s 350 V8  but there are valid reasons why Ferrari, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Aston Martin,  don’t use pushrods.  

The same reason the world doesn’t build flatheads any more.,  

However those jags in scca were factory backed racing programs while the corvettes were private entries. Plus the v12 had been in development since the 50s and had orginally been a race engine design in the xj13 test car. The production version was developed from it using SOHC instead of Dohc. That being said the v12 was a great engine in racing using production based engines successfully in gt ,touring car and prototypes.

Let’s get some facts correct first shall we?  First the factory did not back/ develop/ or provide any technical help for either Haffaker or Group44 . Group 44 received sponsorship from Quaker State oil, I’m sorry I don’t remember who sponsored Huffaker racing.  

Both teams however were given support in the form of parts etc from the American importer of Jaguar. However like the Corvettes they were private entries.  

With regard development Both cars were developed independently but arrive at the track with similar but not identical solutions to race preparation. Both teams reported spending about 3500 man hours getting the cars ready to race.    Huffaker was generally considered the more powerful of the two with superior handling credited to Group 44  

The Chevrolet factory had been developing the Small block Chevy for 20 years at that point. In Sprint cars, NASCAR, drag racing and Other forms of racing.  

You do have it correct that the first thoughts of a V12 by Jaguar date back to the late 1950’s  but the XJ13 was a one off race car that never competed and was totaled in a testing accident about 1966-67  ( I’ll check the exact date if it’s important) however as you pointed out that was a quad cam engine and never went into production. The twin cam V12 was developed for the 4 door sedan, the XJ12 

As such it was tuned accordingly, with small ports small valves very mild 3/8ths inch lift on the camshaft. Etc.   it was first released for the XKE  lacking the original fuel injection it was supposed to be equipped with.  In fact it didn’t get fuel injection until 4 years after production started and then they used 3 VW Bosch units  to kludge together a system.  A totally analog system without a single microchip.

The Jaguar factory did  underwrite the Broadspeed XJC V 12 in ETCC racing. Starting in 1976 and due to lack of success withdrew their sponsorship by 1978 

Well $10k for a Jag that runs but won’t move is about $8k too much. The fix could be as simple as a clutch slave or master cylinder, or it needs a clutch. Make an offer, tell them good luck selling it. Then wait for them to realize their $10k is a pipe dream. You know it’s gonna need brakes, ac, cooling system parts and everything else to get it running reliably. Just because it runs doesn’t mean it’s good to go. There’s a reason why they parked it.