As I have been working on Jaguars since the early 70's, I wanted the car I drive everyday to be something different. I feel that the XJS is one of the finest cars that Jaguar has produced as far as performance and comfort for everyday use. I purchased this car in 1987 from the original owner and I knew the car because I had been maintaining it. When Tom Walkinshaw came out with the TWR styling kit, I knew I had to have it. I put on the European style kit which does not have the bumpers protruding through the fiberglass front and rear. As the car was originally blue, I painted the bottom silver with a double red pinstripe to seperate the colors. Other exterior modifications include the European Headlights with wipers, rear fog lights, dual stainless exhaust tips, and the later 1992 -> front grill.
The Interior has 1990 XJS seats covered in matching Biscuit Conolly leather. There is additional wood around the instruments, radio, console, ignition and light switches. The sound system has a Blaupunkt head unit, 10 disc CD changer, 800 Watt Sony amplifier with uprated cables wiring, cables, and speakers.
Most of the effort on the car went into the engine. It took over a year to build (spare time). The pistons were "B" grade pistons honed to fit into "A" grade liners. A special torque plate was made to simulate head torque on the liners during honing. All moving parts were balanced. The heads were highly honed out and polished for flow along with a three angle valve job and pinned down seats. The heads were also "CCed" to match the compression ratio from cylinder to cylinder. I fabricated the intake manifolds to take dual throttle bodies on each side. The whole intake system was adapted along with K&N filters, larger inlets on the air filters, and cold air intake picking up behind the headlamps. Compression was raised to 12.5 or standard European specs. The ECU was also modified with a later 16CU unit with 8 selectable program maps and mixture adjustments on each. This was carried out by Roger Bywater of AJ6 Engineering. Further modifications were done when I installed a manual transmission.
I came across a manual 6 speed Richmond transmission in a XJS that the owner could not drive anymore and needed to convert back to an automatic. We made a deal and the car transformed again. The kit had come from Grand Tourismo who is no longer. The clutch was a double disc racing clutch with a lighteded flywheel. Really fast response but impossible to drive smoothly in traffic. It came out shortly and was replaced with a single Centerforce clutch with a standard aluminum flywheel. Other modifications included making the shift lever come out in the stock position and a single piece driveshaft. The final drive on the car is a 3.058 (not a 3.58) which gives very relaxed cruising and explosive acceleration from a stop.
Suspension modifications include TWR 6 litre front springs and Jaguar Sport rears. Delrin bushing on the front lower control arms and rear trailing arms . The sway bars are uprated to 1" front and 7/8" rear where the stock car did not have one. Steering rack is specially weighted for firmer control from TWR. The front brakes are AP racing aluminum one piece calipers on thicker and larger directional rotors. The rear are also vented and the rear calipers are out of a Daimler Limo with larger pistons for a stronger grip. Wheels are the TWR wheels 8x16" front and rear. Front tires are 225/50-16 and the rears are 255/50-16.
All of the modifications have made for a car that is a blast to drive, so much so that it is my everyday car. The modifications have been done over the past number of years, not overnight as trial and error to find what worked and did not work. Some other pictures below or see this XJS in action at a Slalom XJS in Action (Warning: 7 MB in size)