DanT69
09-15-2004, 09:22 PM
I was watching the show "My Classic Car" on Speed and they happened to be at a German autoshow where they had a Jaguar display with the "bad guy jag" from the last James Bond I believe it was a XJR. Anyway they happened to open the hood to show the powertrain and to my suprise it was not the jags original engine and powertrain but a 302 with a carb. and the most interesting thing was that the English Jag rep said it was full-time AWD and it used Ford explorer drive train components! If someone has already done this on their PT project or is in he process I would really like to see it! Minus all the faux missles and guns it looked like a really expensive pseudo-Pro-Touring project.
Geeto67
09-20-2004, 10:33 AM
For those who want the style and comnfort of an jag, and a ripping american drivetrain, there has been a conversion available for decades to put GM big and small blocks into xj6 and xjs 12 bodies. My cousin has a 1976 Jag (3rd one off the assembly line) with a 454 done by GM-Jag in florida. There is a guy over at www.v8buick.com with a buick 455 in an xjs body (i think his name is Buquick), and I have seen several xj6's with chevy 350s running around the NY area. From what I understand it is not a difficult kit (something about Jag using th350s and th400s in thier cars originally) to do. From what I understand a bigblock chevy is lighter than the v12 it replaces in some cases.
here is a link to John's cars inc. for a chevy to jag swap:
http://www.brokenkitty.com/xj/xjv8.htm
As far as the new jag body style with old school american drive train, it seems like a lot of work at first but may not be, since the new jag was designed by ford and they are fond of using as many parts in the parts bin as they can. Still it seems pretty labor intensive.
Other english cars I have seen with american power are:
- A Triumph Stag with a Chevy 350 (fit really well, required motor mounts to be welded in)
- A Mini cooper with a GN turbo 6 and rwd (heavily modified)
- thousands of austin and morris minor drag cars over the years.
- Austin Healys with chevy engines (1 with a 350, and one with a 4.3 v6, also a ton of kit healys with 350's)