2004 Jaguar XJR - Gastrogod!

I'm picking up four of these on Thursday...

And four of these will be arriving on Friday.

Someone drove on a flat, most likely. Or under inflated. Enjoy the new shoes. 

Current budget spent: $1399.99. Wheels and tires are sorted. I might add some small spacers, but the car could basically compete as-is. Next order of business is seeing if a PDR place can help with the fender and taking it up to speed to see if the vibration is still present.

Well, well... the last couple of months have been busy ones in the Jag's life.

I got news that I'd be traveling to Indiana for work, so I rushed to get the car titled and registered before I left. I also took the car to a PDR place. $350 later I had a nearly perfect fender. I was sure this wouldn't be an option since the fender was aluminum, but The Dent Company in Tampa did a fantastic job. My company provides me with transportation, but I thought the job in Indiana would give me a great chance to visit Indy-Guy and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. 

After a flawless trip to Indiana, it turned out to have been a very good thing I brought the car. I started getting detonation at high throttle positions and engine speeds. I had no tools or time to diagnose the car and was really concerned the car wouldn't be running right for the challenge. There aren't exactly Jaguar specialists on every street corner in rural Indiana, but I had seen a mechanic's shop on the side of the road with some interesting cars in the lot. Sure enough it was Professional Awesome Motorsports! Grant is the mechanic I wish I had back in Tampa. He ultimately diagnosed the issue as a failing catalyst and we made the decision to gut the cats. Then an ignition coil failed! Grant fixed that problem late on a Saturday night and is a hero of a mechanic in my mind.

Then it was finally time for the Challenge itself. Prep work consisted of ordering my costume, putting it in the car, and driving to Gainesville. After two failed attempts to enter over the course of 10 years, I was finally there and it was everything I wanted it to be and more. The even was run extremely well and I was surrounded by kindred spirits. 

I had never autocrossed this car or drag raced at all before this event, so there were some big lessons to learn. The first was that the car is fundamentally good. Dave Marcus remarked that it rotated really well, especially on the brakes. The trouble was putting power through the open diff. A good amount of Kumho rubber sacrificed its life to give the spectators a show all weekend. After getting the best dynamic score for any gastropod class car, I failed pretty hard in the concours. The car just wasn't modified enough to do well and that's kind of a shame. I ended the event 3rd in the gastropod class and 24th overall.

In hindsight, my major wish is that I had welded the differential. I figure this would've been worth as much as a second on the autocross course and a half second in the drags. I could've gone even further in the name of concours points, but as AAZCD said to me after the event, "Most guys have to figure out what to do with 3,000 pounds of scrap sitting in their driveway for the next year. You can go to the opera."

In the context of the challenge, it feels like I brought a knife to a gunfight in some ways. Reality might be closer to bringing a gun to a full-blown arms race. But what an arms race it was! I can't wait for next year. Now, pardon me while I go get some opera tickets...

You may be able to swap the diff carrier to older jag stuff that is dana 44. 

And then you have all sorts of cheap lockers/LSD/ratios available.

Singleslammer put some gears and an LSD carrier from a Jeep in his xjr. Higher ratio too.

Unfortunately the X350 seems to use a different style rear end than the cars that came before it and the newer differentials have similar mounting points but look like they're from a different planet.

Looks like this car has a new owner.  Thread continuation or will he start a new one?