Russ68

Interesting that Dave! From what I know about water injection, I thought it was mainly to stop pre-ignition in high compression and forced induction engines. But you think it may be a benefit to a normally aspirated S-Type? I think the Rocketeer guys who are dropping the Jag AJ-V6 into Maxda MX5s are claiming ~255bhp mainly from improvements to the inlet manifold (they have 2 low profile ones for the conversion). So with this in mind I have secured a couple of spare manifolds and want to have a look at cleaning up the castings and ensuring it's all as good as can be. Plush an external polish for a bit of engine bay bling! I had bigger plans in the early days of my S-Type ownership and considered such craziness as NO2 and turbo charging. But now I just want to get her back on the road in a relatively stock form. Excepting the manifold work, Adamesh pipes and STR induction I mentioned before. I also have the rare 275/35/18 rear wheels from an STR which fill out the rear arches beautifully! I also undertake any servicing and repair using high quality OEM parts. Gone are the days where I may have thought that an amateur fettler such as myself could really improve on Jaguar engineering. Rather I want to ensure she's running as well as designed, with a little bit of help here and there to make her as dynamic as possible and best suited to my needs 🙂

You may be right Dave, with 240bph, the 3.0 has an excellent output and was pretty well thought out before leaving the factory. They're aren't a lot of 'low hanging fruit' in regards easy gains for power or efficiency (if I've overlooked any, please let me know! 😆). But I thought the Jag designed STR intake, which is a fab looking scoop affair made for 400bhp in this car, would likely draw more air than the standard 3.0 rather convoluted system, here's a pic of it: If I can't marry this up or getting running smoothly it will be easy to revert to the standard intake. I bought it from a breaker for not a great deal of money, so it's worth a try IMHO. Nothing ventured nothing gained etc. BTW, we had a discussion about just this on this forum in 2016, I can probably dig out a link or it's easy to find should anyone be interested 😉

The video decided to work today 🙂 Looked like you were taking it pretty easy Justin, guess you didn't want to blow her up or run off the road if you were driving home! Did you say you routed the air intake to inside the engine bay? This might not be the best thing, as you want as cool a charge for the engine as you can, rather than the warm engine bay air. Perhaps I misunderstood. I've secured the intake from an STR that I intend to fashion onto my 3.0 Sport manual. The std 3.0 takes air from inside the inner wing, but it goes through a hard 90° to do it, so I saw room for improvement there. After a long search I've finally found the awesome Adamesh rear silencers, so I have some nice stainless straight through rear silencers for sale if anyone wants them? They have a small stainless silencer on them, smaller than the Adamesh, and much smaller and lighter than the huge standard ones, with a nice burble on idle and a rising crescendo at high revs! 👊

Wow! Pics look great Justin, although I couldn't see the video. How did she go and what model do you have? I had/have ambitions to do something similar. Our local car club take over Goodwood on occasion and I was hoping to jump on that. But I'm in the process of recommissioning my S-Type so it may be awhile before that happens 🤞

Yup, what Jim said, there will be a specific pressure for your tyre size. I have no idea why they went to 40psi, I've had a quick scan through every S-Type listing (I could find) from 16" to 18" and they range from 28 to 32psi, nothing close to 40psi. I personally run 30psi on my 18s. Perhaps they mistook the Jag for a van? My Transit Custom runs 40psi+ 🤷‍♂️😆👎

Noted re the 100W bulbs, I pulled a set of these out of a TD5 Disco I have that were working fine, so wonder if this was something you could do, but the design is quite different with a glass reflector not plastic, so I won't risk using something similar in the jag based on your advice. Unfortunately your links didn't really work, so I can't see the pics you refer to. I'd go to the webpage, grab the whole url and embed using the link feature which is accessed using the little chainlink icon 4th along from the left etc. Or just paste the whole link in without the brackets and additions etc: https://www.jaguarownersclub.com/forums/topic/25348-s-type-headlights-convert-to-hid/#comment-83490

You are 100% right Dave, my auto electrician said that LED was (generally) a waste due to cheap LED quality making LED conversions potentially worse lighting than the standard set up. So if you have knowledge of better quality bulbs, and will try them in the S-Type, all good! I await how you get on with interest, or if I get to it before you I may give these LEDs a go! Or try some 100W H7s as an interim measure. Thanks for raising (and potentially solving 😆!) the issue, most interesting! 👍😀

Hey Dave, I'm in the process of recommissioning my S-Type (yay! 🥳) and have just had my electrics diagnosed and repaired which I thought was a good start! Like you, I have the earlier X200 and I am / was disappointed in the dipped beam performance. On one of her last night time trips back from Brighton on the A27, it was excruciating being dazzled by 4x4s and anyone running LED lights it seemed. With the full beam on, not so bad, but on dipped beam approaching traffic, not a good thing at all! In the arms race that modern car headlights seemed to be, I felt I was very much on the losing end! I asked my autoelectrician (a very capable guy) what he thought of LED conversion and he wasn't keen, suggesting Osram Nightbreakers, which incidentally, I was already using! 😆! The Nightbreakers are only 55W, so I wondered if more powerful versions are available? Or if 100W bulbs from another manufacturer could be an option? I follow this post with interest and hope there is a viable solution out there, ideally one that doesn't involve wholesale replacement of the complete headlamp units from a later car, or something equally drastic (and expensive!) 🤞

Sounds good Peter, you've got a good one I suspect 👍 The left hand cylinder bank is under the inlet manifold, so sometimes the spark plugs and coils are neglected on this side. But I imagine the Sergeant Major would've made sure these were done properly. If not, the V6 will run rough, as you describe 😉

Hi Peter, I ran mine on standard unleaded most of the time, with the occasional 'treat' of the higher 97 octane when I was on a longer trip. It's unlikely the better fuel would've harmed her, unless it was a bad batch. It's arguably more likely she needs a service, do you have a service history and can you see when the plugs and ignition coils were last done? Good luck, Russ

Hi Michael, The cost of the parts is a fraction of this. I went for OEM quality when I did mine and and it was under £200 inc vat and carriage for new discs and pads all round. ~£500 for labour seems a bit steep, but I do my own spannering so I'm not best placed to comment on labour charges. I'd say shop around, if you're not doing your own work. You could probably do with a reasonable independent garage to help you look after her to keep the costs down 😉 Good luck, Russ

Thanks Joe, nice to hear from you! I look forward to having a crack at those issues 👍

Hi all, I'm planning a mini restoration over the winter after not using my 3.0 Sport manual for a couple of years. Having disconnected the battery, I gained access to the boot, reconnected battery, then opened the car on the key fob, so far so good! Pushing the clutch in, the pedal offered little to no resistance, then stayed down. Not so good! I realise most of you drive autos, but I hope someone has some pointers, either from S-Type manuals or other hydraulic clutched cars 😉 Next issue was just a spinning from the starter without turning over the engine. Also not great, she always started well, but this is the price of not using a car, they really don't like it! It doesn't look like clutch or starter access is great. So I thought I'd leave it there, investigate and get back to it another day. Thoughts welcome 🙂

Adamesh are probably your best best. I’ve secured a pair for mine but not fitted yet

I suspected as much, definitely the right choice then John 👍

Long answer short John, they won't sound better better, but you get the modern convenience of all the worlds music available on your phone. I'm a late adopter of this tech and have only been using it for the last year. If this is not something you're likely to do, stick with the CD autochanger 😉 I had a quick look on eBay and there are a couple available, look to see what you've got and hopefully you can match. No electrical knowledge needed, just unbolt and swap the plugs over. If you're not confident on this, hopefully you'll have a friend that can help 🙂

A few years ago I replaced mine with a 2nd hand one from eBay, it wasn't expensive and bolted straight in. More recently, people seem to be upgrading to more modern head units that can accept digital inputs. I can see myself doing this at some point 😉

Have you charged the battery or tried jump starting it? Are the battery terminals tight and in good condition? Have you tested battery voltage, it may need replacing. Or could be an issue with starter motor. Good luck 😉

Hey Martin, sorry to hear your issues, sounds irritating! I had a similar issue that was solved by x6 OEM spec plugs and coil packs, ran like a dream afterwards. But as you've done this, and you're fuelling is all over the show, fuelling would seem to be where to look. Do injectors go and could these be the culprit? I know diesel injectors need replacing periodically, not sure about the petrol S. Good luck with it anyhow, hope you get it sorted 😉

I have a donor '99 3.0 petrol, but I'm keeping it in 1 piece as long as I can. I imagine a breaker is what you need Peter. What's the issue? Crash or corrosion?

I’d say this was very unlikely to be possible. Completely different engines plus gearing likely to be very different for the diesel. So even if it could be done, it’s likely to be undesirable 😉

No problem John, we sound of similar mind about proper maintenance and our love of the S-Type. Glad you sorted the issue and hope it stays fixed 👍

Hey John, It's almost always the 'left' bank which is an issue on the S-Type, it was on mine when I bought it. She would run ok until under load when she stuttered and coughed and was not happy. Reason being you have to take the inlet manifold off to get at the ignition coils and spark plugs on that side. So I imagine most traders / mechanics just don't bother when it come to servicing, meaning I had some ancient ignition parts under there and you could too! Good news is that the relatively low cost job transformed the car performance. I went for good quality coils and plugs, plus changed the inlet manifold gaskets I disturbed, she ran like new afterwards 👍 Good luck 😉

Chain, it's a good point of a wonderful engine 👍

I think it's more the UK headlights are for right hand drive, so the headlights are focused left to the kerb rather than right to into oncoming traffic. Many UK drivers will remember having to mask headlights before driving in Europe. I've just read that some Zenon headlights will not need converting, or that there is a switch to convert the beam pattern. Aren't the 2007 headlamps Zenon? You may not need to do anything! https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/blog/headlights-point-right-in-europe/