Rebuilding a monster
Modifying and upgrading race cars as well as road cars takes you into some interesting territory, often with great benefits, even when you revisit a car you think you know well. This month we are going to take a further look at my X300 XJR6 that took me to the 2022 Jaguar Championship.
After securing the championship, I put the car away and it’s hardly turned a wheel since. After several people told us that we were ‘barking up the wrong tree’ or just ‘barking’ and that a XJR6 would never be a successful race car, I felt we had proved our point, and the technical regulations were being directed against the car, so I felt like it was the right time to park it! We moved onto other projects, Jack’s XK8 the X Type SCV8, that we are still trying to find the time to finish and other customer cars. You know what they say however, you never forget your first love! That XJR6 was mine. It was the car I built over the winter of 2016 and made my debut racing at Snetterton in April 2017, call me sentimental but it was important to me, not to let it rot under a dust sheet. Last year I took the decision to pull the car apart, totally refresh it and make some serious upgrades using some of what we learned from Jack’s car and using technology that we didn’t have when I first built the car like 3D scanning and modelling.
I previously covered that the roll-cage needed upgrading to meet new regulations and to give added protection with the track speeds we were achieving at circuits like Thruxton. We fabricated in-house a fully welded in cage that utilised and braced suspension mounting points to add as much strength to the chassis as possible and reduce flex. A substantial benefit not only in safety but handling over the original bolt in cage. This enables the car to retain its contact patch on the circuit as much as possible for maximum traction in corners, braking and acceleration. The now fully caged car was stripped right back it was delivered on a dolly to our paint-shop BLS Body Repairs nearby. While the body was away it meant that we could send the suspension arms, subframes etc. to Amitec UK owned by our friend and fellow racer Andrew Maynard for coating. At this point as well, we could send the coilovers back to AVO Technics to be recommissioned after hard use on the racetrack.
With the freshly painted X300 bodyshell back in its new colour scheme, reassembly could begin. The newly coated subframes having the suspension components attached with new bushes all-round before being reattached to the car. The engine having been inspected and thoroughly checked fortunately didn’t require fully stripping down fully. The billet components were cleaned up and block/ rocker cover painted. Reassembly with new belts and gaskets in the engine bay kept everything fresh and maintenance free while new plugs, coils and sensors were swapped due to these components lying dormant for a couple of years. A new aluminium boot floor was added to receive a Nuke fuel tank which come with inbuilt swirl pot and AN fitting fuel line plumbed in and run through the car.
We covered last year the importance of corner weighting and car balance. Building a car around the driver is the best possible scenario, legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey talks about this in his book, ‘How To Build A Car’. Whilst we aren’t building F1 cars we can use some of the same principles to achieve driver seating position and balance in the car and then adding components around this. These are things like the CAN (Controller Area Network) Button Interface, which are the switches that connect to the ECU, and PDM (Power Distribution Module), the driver needs these in easy reach. The same with the hardware, being the peddle box, gear shifter and handbrake. We have now established the position of these with me sat in the car. Now we are in the process of adding the wiring the AIM digital dash and dash skin, adding these back in with everything kept at a minimum to keep the overall weight of the car as low as possible. Corner weighting has been used also the balance the position of other components Vs the driver position and enable the side-to-side and diagonal weight to stay as close to even 50/50 as possible, and completed by mounting the battery, fire extinguisher, weight plates and electrical system in the empty passenger side floor/ footwell.
The engine is mounted back in place, the radiator the pipework for cooling, brake lines, fire extinguisher lines, fuel lines etc. are due to go back on followed eventually by refitting doors, body panels, and racing grade Perspex windows. I’d hope that we can be testing in the car perhaps by the time you get to read this and have at least one outing in the car before the season ends. I’m looking forward to testing the upgrades we have brought to the car and running it on different tyres, possibly even some slicks depending on what we decide to run it in, so watch this space!
