Go big or stay home.

I was reading about the racing history of V12’s in LeMons racing. 

It seems if you show up with one  you race in class C with zero penalty points.  And according to the article nearly every one has gone home with a trophy.   And yes they have finished and won! 

Jaguar, Mercedes, and BMW all have V12’s that are eligible.   Jaguar broke the ice in 2008 finishing 27 th out of 104 cars held up by the need to replace the head gaskets because the engine ran too lean and overheated. 

in Champ car (former chump car) in racing Jaguar gets an even bigger advantage  if you start out with a 1980 or earlier car you only have 100  of the 500 allowable non- penalty points.  (Only 25 if you race with the stock Turbo 400)  That’s a double bonus since the earlier cars are lighter by 900 pounds. Leaving you plenty of points for—- A pair of turbo’s (100 points)  manual gearbox (75 points)  Wilwood Big brake upgrade  (5 points per caliper total of 20)  all suspension upgrades etc  

Walkinshaw raced an XJS in Group one in Europe and made 500 reliable horsepower with the stock fuel injection and cast iron exhaust manifolds he did it using 17x12 rims under the stock fenders. Those who have raced the XJS claim it handles very nice, like a big  powerful Miata. Nice praise indeed. Gee would it sound better if a Miata handled like a Jaguar ?

Anyway buying an early non running project car                (Jaguar. XJS ) has a price tag around $500  there are plenty of them at that price point although some want you to bail them out of a stupid price they may have paid and gave up on when it was too complex. 

It’s not!!!!  The complex stuff is what you throw away to lighten the car.   It’s a simple motor really. More simple than a Chevy. It doesn’t even have pushrods and rocker arms.  The cam pushes the lifter which opens the valve.  Think of it as two six cylinder engines!  

I know a guy that builds V12 motors as a hobby.  His or other people's, Jag, Merc, Lambo, etc.  He said the stock Jag bottom end was good for 1K HP.

If you do this, the weak point in the Jag V12 is that the ignition module, or modules, I forget, is bolted to the top of the motor.  Uh, that gets hot.  Heat and English electronics don't mix.  Cheap fix is to unbolt it from the motor and move it to the fire wall.

In reply to Dr. Hess : only the last years 1992-1996 used coil modules and they were right off Fords  parts shelf. Before that they used a distributor.        ( which had it’s own issues caused by owners who didn’t read the owners manual. It clearly says the distributor needs to be oiled, without regular service the advance mechanism froze up and timing was off which caused overheating. Isn’t it amazing what a couple of drops of oil will do)? 

To be fair I don’t know people who race the 6.0 Jag V12 with the Ford coil modules so you may be correct. Although  since it’s in the intake (cool) side of the engine it might not be a problem?  

But you are right if it is a problem relocation will solve that problem.  The first XKE V12’s had to relocate the ignition amplifier because of over heating. 

It's the ignition module, or amplifier, or driver or whatever you want to call it that was bolted to the top of the motor.  The thing that drives the coil.  That's what went bad all the time.  My friend was a mechanic specializing in high end stuff in New Jersey for decades and he eventually refused to work on Jag V12's because of that.  It would get hot and stop working, leaving you stranded.  His customers would call him, he'd head out with the tow truck.  Let it sit for a while and cool down and it would start working again, and they would drive off and he would never find them with the tow truck.

IIRC, Ford ignition modules from the 90s (the "TFI") were notorious for having heat-induced failures.  So if the Jag is using one of those that could well be the reason.

In reply to codrus :

Nice to know. Thanks. 

Deja vu

I'm pretty sure the v12 I brought to the challenge will live again in 24hrs of lemons.

I heard the plan was to take a full 12 inches out of the middle of the 750il

In reply to Robbie :

I’ll bet that was fun! Can you tell me more about it? What all did you do to it? How cheap/ expensive was it?  Did you at least get the stock mufflers etc off so you could hear all 12?