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Steve Weightman
When I purchased my 1999 XKR two years ago, I thought it was perfect just the way Jaguar intended it to be. But, like many XK8/R owners the itch to tweak one or two bits soon became unbearable. This was made even worse when I attended my first Growler event in 2006, seeing and hearing such an array of fantastic XK’s put me on a mission to personalise my XK. Here is a potted history of the upgrades and modifications carried out to my Pride & Joy so far. But before parting with my hard earned cash I had the car health checked by Jaguar dealer Sudbury’s of Swindon. It cost me £50 which in my opinion was good value and money well spent, and cheaper than a lot of the inspection companies out there. The blow by test result reading was 9 so no issues there and apart from a few minor issues (bushes etc) all was generally fine. My first upgrade was replacing the standard Double S 18” wheels and worn tyres for a set of sliver BBS 20” Detroits. Immediately these transformed the look of the car. Handling and grip was much improved courtesy of some new Pirelli P Zero tyres. I managed to source the longer bolt set as the counter bores on the wheels are much deeper.
There is however a small compromise to pay going for the larger wheels and low profile tyres in that the ride is somewhat harsher but it’s something you get used too over time. Those “Pea Shooter” exhaust, springs and worn brake discs were next in line for an upgrade. Whilst the car was at Paramount Performance the springs were replaced for a shorter (30mm) version and while the shock absorbers were unbolted the lower worn bushes were replaced, which is a common problem on these models. This did make a marked improvement on the ride. The resulting drop in height transformed the cars stance and at last the new 20” wheels fitted the wheel arches much better. The brake discs were replaced for EBC’s and Red Stuff pads as mine were on the lower limit. With the new discs being vented and grooved it meant that the braking performance was improved, although those Red Stuff pads did take a bit of warming up before they started to bite properly! For good measure a polished stainless mesh grille, lowered number plate and a personal registration plate was fitted just to disguise its age. In October 2006 it was time to forget about modifications for while, and more importantly spend time and money on some preventative maintenance I drove up to David Marks in Nottingham, who is a highly recommended independent Jaguar garage to have the secondary plastic bodied tensioners replaced (these are prone to failure sometimes without warning!) with the uprated metal bodied versions. Also a later generation water pump with up rated impeller to shaft retention and a new thermostat were replaced. Fortunately my original tensioners were in good condition with no visible cracks or parts broken off. The work was carried out very professionally while I waited (approx 3.5 hours) with only one surprise – my car had been fitted with a replacement engine at part of its life! This was pointed out to me by the green badge on the engine block. The previous owner mentioned nothing of this when I bought it and it explains the low blow by test result! For any XK owner who still has the original plastic tensioners and water pump fitted I would strongly recommend that you have them checked and replaced. It certainly helped me sleep better at night when they had been done! March 2007 and it was back to doing a few upgrades and modifications again. The 2004MY deeper rear spoiler replaced the standard one. This was bonded on using panel adhesive as the original double sided tape kept lifting on one side. Local and fellow club member Roly Wall, kindly offered to give me a hand to replace the rear lights for the later smoked versions. A pretty straight forward job for Roly considering what he’s done to his own fantastic car that is! There was no cutting of wires to accept the changed pin layout and connectors on the new lights. Roly meticulously removed each of the pins from the old connectors and refitted them to new positions on the later connector plugs. The whole job only took a morning to do and the end results shown on the left speaks for itself! Whilst driving on the motorway on the way home from the Jaguar Spares Day at Stoneleigh, I found that the car was pulling severely to one side under braking. This was traced to a seized near side rear brake calliper. Well, this gave me the excuse I needed to upgrade the callipers and discs to the Brembo versions which is something I’d wanted for a while. I phoned around a number of the independents for prices but the only one who could supply and fit a red set of callipers and vented and cross drilled discs was a company called Hyper Engineering near Thame, Oxfordshire. Paul, the owner of Hyper did a great job of replacing them while I waited. The difference in braking performance over the standard brakes is, to say the least, quite amazing. I had managed to pick up a very good condition set of 20” BBS Sepang wheels which, in my opinion, are the best looking wheel design Jaguar fitted to the marque. Don’t get me wrong, the Detroits are nice, and they are easy to clean compared to the Sepangs, but the red Brembo’s seemed very much in your face with the more open spokes design.
Next was the turn of the worn ivory sports interior.
What really let the whole car down was the wear and the surface cracks to the driver’s seat squabs. I had attempted on a number of occasions using various manufacturer’s products to re-dye the seats. The results initially were good but disappointingly they soon deteriorated again. This was partly to do with the fact that the seats are not full leather! Part of it is actually PVC which meant the dye could not penetrate into the surface like leather, so when you sat on the seats again it would crack, very soon discolour and you were back to square one again! As a localised repair would be too obvious the only solution was to recover all the seats. However, speaking to a number of companies the cost of this was just as high and it meant removing the interior and being without the car for a for a couple of weeks which was not an option at that point. Kevin at DesignXKR suggested fitting a later 2002 set to the car with the adjustable headrests. Contrary to popular belief Kevin assured me this could be done with just a change over of modules and wire position change over in the new plug connectors. A very good condition Ivory classic full interior set was found at a breakers yard in south London. Kevin, being the gent that he is offered to pick them up in his Range Rover with me. It took about 5 hours the following Saturday and we had it all fitted with every function working as they should. The new interior took years off the age of the car and very comfy too. During last summer I made the most of the warm weather and upgraded to the 2004 specification body styling. This in my opinion was the best looking of the classic XK as it made the car look much sportier and more aggressive. The second hand nose cone, rear bumper, grille and side sills were sourced quite reasonably. A friend and club member Paul Copson had them expertly painted for me at his company, Jawel Paints in Bromsgrove. So on a very hot Saturday in June, both Paul and me set about the transformation which took around 5 hours to get everything fitted. I also, with care, removed the side rubbing strips which followed the theme and improved the stylish lines on the doors and rear quarters. A custom lower stainless steel mesh for the front bumper was sourced from Paragon Design which is just visible in the picture below. The exterior lighting was next and using the newly developed Design XKR connection looms, I changed over the standard headlights for the later Jaguar `High Intensity Discharge` versions. The light output from these is far superior and the look is very stylish too. More recently the high beam bulbs which are replaced with HID using a very compact choke unit which fits inside the lamp housing so there was no drilling of holes and the change over is fully reversible. The orange running lights on the front and rear bumpers have been colour coded to the same as the car so they blend in better. I had connected these up previously so they worked as running lights, but to my surprise the light was still visible with the metallic paint on them which has probably got something to do with the clear plastic etc primer I used! Having pretty much finished the bodywork upgrades it was down to Paramount Performance in December to have a few more horses extracted from the V8. An uprated supercharger pulley mod, ECU remap & dyno run was done and the results was a 63 BHP increase taking it from 348 BHP to 411 BHP I The Paramount guys fitted the weighted steering option while I was there, as I figured with all the extra power the front end would get even lighter at speed. This Modification does give you more feedback through the wheel and a little more confidence when manoeuvring at speed. I have a few more upgrades are planned when the weather permits which includes a wood set change from its current Birds Eye Black Maple to Piano Black, all leather sports steering wheel and later airbag cover. There may be one or two special mods/enhancements planned but I will reveal them hopefully at Growler V. One piece of advice I would give any XK owner who is considering upgrading/modifying is don’t rush and try and do all the mods at once. Although the impact will be great at the start the excitement will waiver. Doing it like I have by spreading it out over a longer period of time helps with the budget, heightens your enthusiasm and Christmas comes around more than once a year! The passion continues…………… |
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