www.jec.org.uk

Since Mike Kennedy sent me a link for Adamesh ( http://www.adamesh.co.uk ) I may be changing my mind. I was set to buy a Borla exhaust but the prices at Adamesh are much more affordable. Does anyone know if the Jaguar X Type performance exhaust they have for £299.00 is on a par with a Borla or Arden?

Hello Trevor,

Adamesh prices always seem more than competitive to me. Their kit always seems to do what it says on the box with complete satisfaction in my experience.

As regards comparison with other products out there, that is likely to be a difficult and very subjective subject. I suppose one has to gather together all the other similar products available on paper and then start ticking or crossing the features, advantages and benifits boxes.

If I were in the market for an exhaust again, I`d consider, price, grade of construction material, availability of adaptor kits, warrenty, sound and net gain in horsepower. The last two items are perhaps the most difficult to quantify. Is the sound to my personal liking, and what are the true hp gains likely to be? Unless two or more cars are lined up together, all fitted with different systems, how would you compare the sounds of those different systems? The same goes for the hp increase. Impossible unless all those differently equiped cars could be run on a rolling road.

So that is the problem and unless you can achieve such a comparison, it is unlikely that you would ever be able to form a really well informed appraisal. Realisticly, on those two points alone, any system you buy is going to be a shot in the dark.

It is worth looking on u tube to see what the ton up kids are fitting. The short video clips are with sound and that might give you an idea as to how you want your car to sound.

My V8 S has a Miltek system fitted. It is a sleeved down modified S-type R system, with 50mm-60mm sleeves to fit the humble 4litre smaller sized cat converters. It has no intermediate resonator boxes, just plain 60mm pipes which run to 60mm low resistance back boxes. The noise produced is a true V8 warble, slightly louder at idle, rather noisey around town and exceptionally loud at full throttle. Cruising noise is greater than a standard system and there is a resonance that can be felt through the floor pan at around 1200-1500 rpm around town. That can be irksome if one is a little tired at the end of the day. The refined aspect of the standard exhaust, is none existant and the character of the car changes once fitted. Passengers will always remark on the fact that the exhaust sounds very loud and wonder if it is about to drop off. Technicalities are frequently lost on them!

The Miltek system is constructed to a superb standard. Welding, reinforcement and finish is above anything I`ve previously seen. If the car remains in my ownership, warrenty is for life.( What happens under gun fire, is another matter). That warrenty sounds good to me as I stand the ever present risk of knocking the system off now that I`ve the 25mm lowered uprated Adamesh spring kit fitted. I can tell you that was the best £260 I ever spent on the car. A seriously good spring kit at half the price of an Eiback or H&R set up. Wonderfull!!

The Miltek did not come cheap. Mine cost around £1k fitted, but the V8 effectively is two systems joined at the hip by a balance pipe half way down the plain pipe part of the unit. I had my system supplied and fitted by Paramount Performance at the same time as an ecu uprate was carried out. ECU and exhaust fitted with K&N air filter gained a useful 30hp at full throttle in third gear. I`m told that the exhaust accounted for approximately 5hp. I would not of expected more as the cylinder heads were unmodified and to gain much more grunt, the heads would have to be reworked to obtain the best from the exhaust.

Without ramp facilities, exhausts can be impossible or awkward to fit. That was the reason I left the work to Paramount. If I had fitted it myself, I could have saved £250 but quite frankly, I wasn`t interested in the hassle.

I chose the Miltek solely because Paramount supply the best and do not want come backs after fiment due to failure. I could have fitted other systems but went on their recommendation. Expensive but probably as good as it gets.

There are many systems on the market for your car so there is some research to be done. The Arden system is expensive because it is well made and carries the Arden name. As for the others, I`ve no experience of the other manufacturers products so would not be able to comment with conviction. At the end of the day, the choice is probably going to be down to cost, availability, apparent construction, and whether you like the sound of what the sales person says.

Vroom, vroom!

Give me a call sometime for a chat, Trevor.

Mike Kennedy. S-type Coordinator

The X Type exhaust (yours an AWD??) is a tricky to fit as the rear axle gets in the way and the exhaust is bent over the rear axle
I got mine from www.mijperformance.com (cheaper than the rest inc Borla etc) and opted for the quads as I liked the look and got a lifetime guarantee
Re the HP increase you're going to be disappointed whichever system you get as not going to get much increase in bhp (see my vid on youtube with it on rolling road search buckmr2 and quads) even if you remove the restrictive cats which are near the heat of the engine (engine mounted differently to S Type equivalent and so suffers from heat more hence 10hp less std)
MIJ custom build every exhaust as no two X types are the same and you can choose how loud or quiet you want it to be on a sliding scale.
http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i136/ ... 762a1d.jpg

An interesting site Buck.

I see the cats back system for an S-type is around £600. Appears very good value as there is a lot of heavy pipework under the car.

The different combinations of parts available for any car exhaust is almost unlimited. Exhausts with resonators but no back boxes, exhausts with back boxes but no resonators etc etc. Differing prices as a result of the selected combination.

Cost wise in a tuning programme, the exhaust is an expensive item set £s against hp gain. When my S went to Paramount, I`d already fitted the K&N panel filter which cost £45 and gained me around 5hp. Good value.

The ecu uprate cost around £600 including rolling road session and gained around 20hp. A expensive 20hp.

The exhaust cost £1000 and gained 5hp. Not such good value at all.

The net result is an extra 30hp over a standard engine. Noticable extra grunt when required but the best part is the easy running, torquey power flow and laid back running characteristics. No change in fuel consumption but rather more urge and character. The car drives like a big slobbery American V8.

Mike

An interesting site Buck.
The net result is an extra 30hp over a standard engine.
As said Mike the X Type wont give the same gains as there are more restrictions than on the S Type due to the engine being mounted transversley compared to the longtitudinal mounting of the S type.Due to this there is more heat near the 2 cats sapping more power which is why the std S Type with the 3.0 engine is rated at 241BHP but the same engine in the X Type is 10 BHP less.
Re the exhaust £1000 to gain 5 BHP is an awful lot to pay for not much power in return and Joe Bloggs wouldnt notice any difference.
Going for the cheaper option leaves the cats in place sapping power again probably the most restrictive part of the system.
All these mods add up quickly for not much gain and as said gains are LESS on the more restrictive X Type so you cant compare figures and expense from the S Type.
Moving forward and spending no money this shows you step by step how to increase the breathing on an already good Jag air intake for free and which will also benefit the exhaust mod with more air flowing
http://jagmotorproject.blogspot.com/200 ... thing.html
Additional info
http://jagmotorproject.blogspot.com/200 ... e-1st.html
This shows you step by step how to increase the exhaust flow for free taken from X Type expert Karl Wolf on the roadfly forum
If you can use a drill you can do this modification.I will do my best to explain it. Please do not even try it if you do not understand what needs to be done. This will reduce backpressure at higher rpm's but is not noticeably louder than stock.You will need a 1 1/4" bimetal hole saw and a 12" extension. These are available at most hardware stores.(Home Depot)

The XType mufflers use a twin perforated tube design to reduce sound. This design requires the exhaust to flow thru the first perforated tube allowing some flow thru the perforations but most of the flow has to pass thru the tube, make a 180degree turn, make another 180degree turn and then pass out the second perforated tube. This does a great job of reducing noise but also reduces airflow. If you take a light and look in the muffler (driver side to the right, passenger side to the left) you will see one of the perforated tubes.

You will also see that the tailpipe curves inside the muffler to connect with the perforated tube. On the drivers side you want to carefully saw a hole in the pipe inside the muffler where it curves. If the holesaw with extension is not in the pipe about 12" you are not where you need to be. You want to open the side of the pipe INSIDE the muffler. This exposes the perforated tube that connects to the inlet side of the muffler. This allows some of the exhaust gasses a path straight thru the muffler. You can fine tune the exhaust note by how much metal you remove.

The passenger side is just opposite of the drivers side. This is not boomy or as loud as the Borla exhaust as it is not a totally straight thru design like the Borla but no one would ever know it was done if they didn't know what to look for. If you have a shop vac it is good to vac out the shavings then finish off with a good hi temp spray paint.

Low restriction exhaust for less than $25 including the drill bit. Just make sure that you make sure the bit is tight in the drill. Don't want to have to fish it out of the muffler!
PLEASE NOTE THE ABOVE IN QUOTES IS FROM THE USA SO REVERESE DRIVERS SIDE AND PASSENGER SIDE!
Good luck

Yes, that exhaust was rather pricey and the return on that part of the project rather less than hoped for.

The cats are really the problem as they are rather restrictive. The sports cats are some £2k a pair!

Reworked pair of heads something in the region of £2.6K.

Fitting that lot would get the best from the exhaust.

Then would be the rather weak 5R55N gearbox to replace with a Merc box

I`ll stop at my present level of tune. To improve much more falls into the bounds of daftness.

Interesting debate. Keep us informed of what you do eventually buy Trevor.

Mike