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Jan 14, 2021 23:13:03 GMT
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A while back there was a really badly damaged MK1 that sold on ebay you could do with something like that or a really rotten one for parts as a donor. I guess they are few and far between these days though.
100%, I could really use something like that. I wouldn't want to buy a restorable car and use it for parts as they're too rare, but a damaged car like that would be perfect. Until then it's piece by piece on eBay etc. It's a shame Stoneleigh spares day isn't on at the moment, there are always bargains to be had there. This chap on ebay has a few MK1 bits, I bought a bonnet for my MK2 off him and he was pretty reasonable. Thought it might be worth mentioning.
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Jan 23, 2021 15:39:21 GMT
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So a few pictures of it out in the sun, we are hoping to move house soon so I probably won't get to do much more work to in the near future (although thats the third time i've said that about it!).
And lastly a picture of my new bonnet mascot courtesy of my daughter :-)
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Looking lovely. At least nobody can claim the mascot will cause injury to pedestrians!  Good luck with the move. |
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,556
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Jan 26, 2021 11:17:09 GMT
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Very nice!!
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Jul 30, 2021 17:57:36 GMT
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I've arranged for the car to be moved from my mums house next week into its new home, hopefully all will go smoothly and I can get on with it again. One thing i've been thinking about over the past few months and the Temptress thread on here ivanhoew has made me thing about even more is whether I could turbo charge or supercharge the old 2.4 XK engine, I know they aren't the best engine in the world but for me thats not the point, some cheap power would be good and I think they are fairly unstressed as the bottom end is the same as the 3.4 and 3.8 engines which have nearly double the power. The issue is where on earth do I start, how do I know what is best for the engine, what would I use to control the fueling, what size supercharger or turbo (or turbos) would I use? Its probably all just pie in the sky given my budget but it certainly sounds interesting and something that is very rarely done on these old XK engines. |
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Jul 30, 2021 18:40:57 GMT
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re turbo choices , if it's about 120 bhp stock , then 15 psi would give approx 240 bhp , so a turbo off a 240 bhp petrol engined car would do from the breakers , or off a 160 bhp diesel.
speeduino seems about the cheapest petrol ecu ?
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Jul 30, 2021 20:29:52 GMT
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re turbo choices , if it's about 120 bhp stock , then 15 psi would give approx 240 bhp , so a turbo off a 240 bhp petrol engined car would do from the breakers , or off a 160 bhp diesel. speeduino seems about the cheapest petrol ecu ? Thanks ivanhoew, i'm a bit further behind than that, how would I make an exhaust manifold, what would I make it from? The car is on carbs at the moment so I assume I would somehow need to convert to injection. Can you buy a kit for the speedunino or do you have to buy all the bits seperately?
I'm all good at welding up rusty bodywork but tuning cars is not really my fortae!
Would I need one turbo or two as the car has two seperate exhaust manifolds? Presumably I would then need two smaller turbos?
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In my temptress thread you can see what i did , bolted onto the manifolds with pipe and brought them up to the single turbo .
you can blow through the carbs , i did this on my bike ,and turbo mini. you need a fuel pressure regulator that has a boost signal connection ,so it increased fuel pressure in time with the boost .
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,889
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It could be a fun adventure to add either a supercharger or a turbo to your XK engine  But, if you e not dabbled in that type of tuning before the learning curve will be very steep, just as it is when people who do modified car tuning stuff try to turn their hand to rust repairs! Turbo and super chargers both have their advantages and disadvantages. Very broadly speaking a supercharger will give you a more instant response and work right from low revs, but as it uses engine power to drive it and that power requirement increases with revs, the top end power increase isn’t as high as the midrange and it’s not as fuel efficient. Turbos on the other hand will take a certain amount of time to ‘spool’, and at low revs will not make any boost, but their parasitic losses are much less meaning you can keep making that power further up the Rev range. You also have to consider packaging. Super chargers require solid mounting to the engine with sturdy brackets and the front pulleys and belts on the engine need to be reworked so they can drive the supercharger. The turbo mounts just to the exhaust system, but you need to make the exhaust manifold and down pipe mate up to the turbo. So it’s potentially different types of fabrication skills needed. I don’t think twin turbos would be wise for a first attempt. Twin turbos are used where packaging makes it easier (v6 / v8) or because two smal turbos can offer a better low down response than one big turbo. With your straight 6 layout you could do either, but the plumbing for one turbo would be much much simpler. Turbo manifolds can be made from mild or stainless steel. There’s various approaches. Often steam pipe sections are used for DIY custom manifolds, as they are very thick wall and come in nice handy bends, T shapes and straight sections. See this example of a kit you can buy to build a turbo manifold for an mx5 to see the kind of bits you need and how they assemble into a simple ‘log’ manifold. bofiracing.co.uk/brands/davefab/davefab-td04-log-manifold-fabrication-kit-for-mazda-mx-5-na-nb/You can also repurpose sections of your original exhaust, if it’s suitable shapes. Lots of the v8 guys simply fit their exhaust manifolds upside down which instead of then pointing out down and behind the engine, now point up and forwards, you can they cut the manifold off after the collector and you’ve just one pipe to join up to wherever you want to locate the turbo. Regarding fuel and ignition control, forced induction can be done with carbs and distributer controlled ignition, but it’s often a compromise resulting in poor cruising performance and also does not maximise the available performance. I believe if staying with carbs then superchargers are a more tried and tested route. Home build EFI (electronic fuel injection) can be a really interesting and enjoyable project. But it is not an easy project and it is important to have ( or be up for learning!) a reasonable grounding in basic electronic theory otherwise you will find yourself blindly following guides with no idea why you’re doing something or how it will help. Megasquirt and Speeduino are both affordable home built solutions. They are available as a ‘solder it together yourself’ kit, or you can buy prebuilt units. Speeduino is cheaper and seems to be growing a bit In popularity, but megasquirt ultimately has more flexibility to run unusual combinations of engine designs and different components (different types of coils / injectors /etc). Megasquirt also benefits from good detailed manuals and documentation (www.msextra.com) and active forums where you can ask questions and learn. There are of course other EFI solutions, which are much more ‘plug and play’ but they tend to come with a much larger price tag! Installing the ECU itself is only part of the battle, you will also need to consider the new sensors needed to tell the ECU what the engine is doing (crank position, throttle position, air and coolant temperatures, etc) along with the outputs from the ECU, so coils and fuel injectors. You will also need to a range high pressure fuel to the injectors, which might mean using a swirl pot or converting your old tanks to have an internal swirl pot. Finally (and this is the part that takes the longest) you need to learn how to actually tune the ECU! Again there are lots of guides and information out there online. The principals are simple, actually getting it working as smoothly and perfectly as you’d like is another matter! I’m not trying to put you off, far from it, I’m just trying to lay out what’s actually involved in ‘just going fuel injected’ as often I think it’s glossed over and peoples expectations differ to the reality. If you will enjoy the project of figuring if all out, the challenge of debugging the system and chasing down the wiring issues that’s giving you false reading on sensors, or of going for drives taking data logs and then revising that information and updating your tune to make the car faster / better, then you’ll find home built EFI great. I certainly enjoy it. if you just want a car that works and you don’t like wiring, then possibly a swap to a 3.8 xk engine would be better!! |
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In my temptress thread you can see what i did , bolted onto the manifolds with pipe and brought them up to the single turbo . you can blow through the carbs , i did this on my bike ,and turbo mini. you need a fuel pressure regulator that has a boost signal connection ,so it increased fuel pressure in time with the boost . Thanks Ivanhoe, would I be able to use a MIG on the manfiolds or do they need to be TIG welded?
Will the Solex carbs handle the boost or will they need some modifications? I recall that the Metro Turb had a different type of carb because of the boost? As I mentioned my experience is limited (non existant) with turbos.
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i just bolted to the original cast manifolds, no welding .  re carbs , not sure , with the metro turbo su , you have a box bolted to the inlet ,fed with boost , and there is a single connection to the float bowl breather connected to this box so boost wont simply push fuel out , also there is a bit of fun and games getting the carb needle the right shape to be correctly fuelled . what GNR says above i agree with ,although a turbo can be made to respond at any rpm , if its sized to do so ,eg on the temptress the turbo is sized to work from low to mid range rpm best , for max torque . it will tail off a bit at max revs but thats fine for that car . re ignition , cheapest ,i would take out the mechanical advance mechanism in the distributor ,and run fixed timing around 24 degrees , and play with it , leave the vacuum advance on ,and live with that compromise , its way cheaper than mapped ign ,and will work .just not ideal . obviously this depends on your compression ratio , fuel octane ,and boost level. regards robert |
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It could be a fun adventure to add either a supercharger or a turbo to your XK engine But, if you e not dabbled in that type of tuning before the learning curve will be very steep, just as it is when people who do modified car tuning stuff try to turn their hand to rust repairs! Turbo and super chargers both have their advantages and disadvantages. Very broadly speaking a supercharger will give you a more instant response and work right from low revs, but as it uses engine power to drive it and that power requirement increases with revs, the top end power increase isn’t as high as the midrange and it’s not as fuel efficient. Turbos on the other hand will take a certain amount of time to ‘spool’, and at low revs will not make any boost, but their parasitic losses are much less meaning you can keep making that power further up the Rev range. You also have to consider packaging. Super chargers require solid mounting to the engine with sturdy brackets and the front pulleys and belts on the engine need to be reworked so they can drive the supercharger. The turbo mounts just to the exhaust system, but you need to make the exhaust manifold and down pipe mate up to the turbo. So it’s potentially different types of fabrication skills needed. I don’t think twin turbos would be wise for a first attempt. Twin turbos are used where packaging makes it easier (v6 / v8) or because two smal turbos can offer a better low down response than one big turbo. With your straight 6 layout you could do either, but the plumbing for one turbo would be much much simpler. Turbo manifolds can be made from mild or stainless steel. There’s various approaches. Often steam pipe sections are used for DIY custom manifolds, as they are very thick wall and come in nice handy bends, T shapes and straight sections. See this example of a kit you can buy to build a turbo manifold for an mx5 to see the kind of bits you need and how they assemble into a simple ‘log’ manifold. bofiracing.co.uk/brands/davefab/davefab-td04-log-manifold-fabrication-kit-for-mazda-mx-5-na-nb/You can also repurpose sections of your original exhaust, if it’s suitable shapes. Lots of the v8 guys simply fit their exhaust manifolds upside down which instead of then pointing out down and behind the engine, now point up and forwards, you can they cut the manifold off after the collector and you’ve just one pipe to join up to wherever you want to locate the turbo. Regarding fuel and ignition control, forced induction can be done with carbs and distributer controlled ignition, but it’s often a compromise resulting in poor cruising performance and also does not maximise the available performance. I believe if staying with carbs then superchargers are a more tried and tested route. Home build EFI (electronic fuel injection) can be a really interesting and enjoyable project. But it is not an easy project and it is important to have ( or be up for learning!) a reasonable grounding in basic electronic theory otherwise you will find yourself blindly following guides with no idea why you’re doing something or how it will help. Megasquirt and Speeduino are both affordable home built solutions. They are available as a ‘solder it together yourself’ kit, or you can buy prebuilt units. Speeduino is cheaper and seems to be growing a bit In popularity, but megasquirt ultimately has more flexibility to run unusual combinations of engine designs and different components (different types of coils / injectors /etc). Megasquirt also benefits from good detailed manuals and documentation (www.msextra.com) and active forums where you can ask questions and learn. There are of course other EFI solutions, which are much more ‘plug and play’ but they tend to come with a much larger price tag! Installing the ECU itself is only part of the battle, you will also need to consider the new sensors needed to tell the ECU what the engine is doing (crank position, throttle position, air and coolant temperatures, etc) along with the outputs from the ECU, so coils and fuel injectors. You will also need to a range high pressure fuel to the injectors, which might mean using a swirl pot or converting your old tanks to have an internal swirl pot. Finally (and this is the part that takes the longest) you need to learn how to actually tune the ECU! Again there are lots of guides and information out there online. The principals are simple, actually getting it working as smoothly and perfectly as you’d like is another matter! I’m not trying to put you off, far from it, I’m just trying to lay out what’s actually involved in ‘just going fuel injected’ as often I think it’s glossed over and peoples expectations differ to the reality. If you will enjoy the project of figuring if all out, the challenge of debugging the system and chasing down the wiring issues that’s giving you false reading on sensors, or of going for drives taking data logs and then revising that information and updating your tune to make the car faster / better, then you’ll find home built EFI great. I certainly enjoy it. if you just want a car that works and you don’t like wiring, then possibly a swap to a 3.8 xk engine would be better!! Thanks for the detailed reply, wiring is my fortay as i'm an Electrical Engineer by training and have some experience with building control systems and also a lot of experience with fault finding engine management systems so have a good idea of how they work (albeit in standard form).
Plenty to think about but the main concerns for me are correctly sizing the turbo and what equipment to use to ensure that it works, I note ivanhoew response above about finding a turbo from a petrol or diesel engine of a certain HP but is it really that simple to get a turbo that is matched to the engine I have? The 2.4 XK is a very strong engine, has 8:1 compression (in standard form) so fairly low and does rev reasonably well due to its bore/stroke configuration from what I understand so sounds to me (with my limited understanding) as a good candiate for a bit more power via a turbo.
The reason I mentioned twin turbos is that the only XK I can find that was turbo charged had twin turbos which I assume was due to the twin exhaust manifolds and possibly it being easier to get two smaller turbos under the bonnet than one big one.
Definately food for thought, one thing is for certain I want to avoid a 3.8 XK engine as I already have a MK2 with one of those so want this one to be different.
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,889
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Jul 31, 2021 10:45:11 GMT
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Ah, with that experience then you'll find Megasquirt or Speeduino a walk in the park. They are pretty simple as far as control systems go, essentially just some simple analogue circuits to condition the inputs and outputs from a microcontroller. There are calculations you can do on the air flow of your engine and then you can plot that against the compressor maps of a turbo. That is the arithmetic approach to turbo sizing, and will allow you to see where in the rev range the turbo will be working most efficiently. I've got the calculations in a book somewhere I can dig them out if you need them. Equally, as ivanhoew says, a turbo correctly sized for 250hp on one petrol engine will be broadly suitable for 250hp on another petrol engine, especially when you've a moderate power goal at moderate levels of boost. If you're looking to run big power from a big turbo on a small engine, then finding a turbo thats perfect is more important. |
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jonomisfit
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,790
Club RR Member Number: 49
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Econo Jag MK2 1967 2.4 Autojonomisfit
@jonomisfit
Club Retro Rides Member 49
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Jul 31, 2021 11:45:56 GMT
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If you want a read to help with the turbo, then "turbocharged" by corky Bell is very detailed and useful book.
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Paul Y
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,951
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homersimpson - TURBO!?!? Crickey, that escalated quickly! You've obviously had far too much time daydreaming whilst you've been decorating your new house... ;o) Well, I'll watch with interest, despite having absolutely no intention of going down that route myself.
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Thanks for the link, i'm still mulling it over as it doesn't really fit with my economy theme, I might get it running first and then come back to this afterwards.
The gearbox should be fine as its the same box as in the 3.8 which has nearly twice the power, one of the joys of the MK2 is that the only real difference between the models are the engine and back axle (3.4 and 3.8 has a bigger diff). the diff is likely to be the weak point but if it gives trouble then a bolt on upgrade is easy to achieve (albeit the casing is different so its a whole axle replacement).
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So the car has finally come to my new garage, as you can see from the pictures there is a lot less room in the new one :-(
I recently bought a pair of Jaguar 420 front hubs and callipers from e-bay as these are an upgrade over the standard MK2 ones and they simply bolt on, they also came with hubs which was great as one of mine was damaged so for £61 it was a good deal.
I stripped them down to start cleaning them up and found that the steering arm on one had been replaced at some point with one off a MK2. On these cars the brake calliper bolt passes through the steeting arm and the MK2 has the hole in a different place so someone had simply moved the steering arm up and used a shorter calliper bolt, its amazing the bodges some people will do!
I found a new arm on e-bay for £35 and removed the old incorrect one which needed me to drill the side of the nut holding it on and spliting it as it wouldn't undo and my breaker bar was in danger of snapping at the knuckle.
I've also been experimenting with rust stripping using citric acid (5kg bought from ebay for £15), so far the results are positive and I will try and post some pictures up of some before and after on items as I do them. I'm leaving them overnight in the acid then washing in clean water the next day then drying and then washing in petrol to make sure they don't rust. I can then give them a proper degrease before I paint them when I have a large enough batch to do in one go :-)
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I used citric on all the parts of my last motorbike build. It works great. I found 2r hours soak, remove and give a light wire brush, give them another 12 to 24 hours and brush/rinse. Even on badly rusted and pitted parts I ended up with shiny steel right into all the nooks.
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Aug 11, 2021 22:45:29 GMT
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Door progress is all looking really good I wish you luck with coming in on budget! I think it's possible, but will require some careful purchases Also the small things add up. Several times I went shopping for a few suspension bushes, a few new nuts and bolts, a ball joint or two and somehow came home with a bill for £300! Where do you stand with the brakes? That was another thing on mine that got expensive quickly! So today i've placed an order for the components to rebuild the rear axle (assuming the diff is ok which i'm yet to check), the parts include bearings, seals, gaskets and rear brake discs (but nothing else for the brakes and its put a dent in £140.
As goldnrust mentioned about a year ago in his post above this is the expensive part!
I also ordered some nuts and bolts and that was nearly £45 (although there were a lot of them). At the moment the cost for the project including todays purchaes stands at £7242, the main expenses I can see left are:
Rebuilding the brakes, they are now 420 brakes so a lot cheaper to do than MK2 ones but still around £300 for the calliper rebuild parts, flexible pipes and solid pipes (which I will make up myself)..
A carpet set, probably around £250-300.
Front suspension, probably around £200-300 as I already have some of the bushes.
Woodwork, not sure yet how much it will cost but will probably try reveneering it myself, probably £300 in materials (just guess as I have no idea how much veneer costs).
Chrome, will have to see what I have left thats good but will need some new/second hand bits so probably around £500 to spend..
Then there is the engine and box to rebuild or find a second hand one, this could be anywhere between £500 and 2K.
Tyres, depending on the brand (they probably won't be expensive but also won't be van tyres), probably around £300.
I need a radiator and rubber pipes which will be somewhere between £200 and £400 depending on whether I have an original rebuilt or go for a cheap Cheap one.
I reckon I need to allow at least another 1K for sundries.
So that could be in the order of £3250 to £5100 (possibly/probably more!).
I'm still going to try and keep an eye out for bargains and see if I can bring it in under the original 10K, I do have some bits from the car that I won't be reusing that I will try and sell (like the old pedal box, servo and steering system0 although I doubt these will fetch much money if any.
It going to be a fun ride to the end of this project!
If I can do it for less than 12K then I will still be fairly happy as it will be a fully rebuilt MK2 Jag with a power steering conversion, dual circuit brakes, 420 callipers and stainless exhaust so will still fit in with my original economy aim but its looking like its not going to be as cheap as I had hoped. I wonder if I had started with a better one if it would have been a lot less (possibly if the engine was ok) but then I would probably paid a lot more for it than I paid for this so its swings and roundabouts.
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