DIY Improvement to Performance and Economy of AJ16 Engines

[AndyStodart]

I can understand people's potential scepticism just reading the title of this thread. Could there really be a cheap and simple modification that improves both performance and fuel economy? If it was that simple why didn't Jaguar do it?
Well the reasons are quite complex, but I will try to explain them.

When I worked at Jaguar between 1988 and 1995 it was std policy to map the ignition timing 3 degrees retarded from borderline knock on a mid-limit compression ratio engine, at all speeds and load where the engine was knock limited. The ignition timing to achieve borderline knock was determined by running the engine steady state on a dynamometer at each speed and load until the combustion chamber temperatures were fully stabilised. This is not a condition that tends to happen in normal driving in the UK where it is difficult to operate the engine at wide open throttle for more than a few seconds at a time, during which time the temperatures due not reach their high stabilised values.

Consequently the lower temperatures that occur during normal driving mean that the mapped ignition timing is significantly retarded from the level at which knock would occur.

A couple of years ago I designed a revised crank sensor bracket to take advantage of this situation. It was initially designed for the AJ16 engine and moved the position of the crank sensor with respect to the engine. As a result the signal to the engine ECU which should indicate when each piston is at TDC is generated 5degrees early.

Consequently each ignition event generated by the ECU occurs 5degrees earlier than the mapped value. It's a bit like advancing a distributor in the days when they contained contact breaker (unlike the one on an AJ6 engine). The extra ignition advance increases the performance at all speeds and load where the engine was deemed to be knock limited when tested on the dynamometer. I initially implemented my bracket on the AJ16 engine as the engine management system on this engine also has a knock sensing system, which I helped to develop.

This meant that in extreme circumstances should the extra 5 degrees cause any knock, then the system would simply retard the ignition timing out of knock. This bracket proved very successful and I have now sold over 340 of them.

A couple of years ago I was asked to produce a couple of brackets for some AJ6 engines which were fitted to race cars running on super unleaded fuel. At the customer's request, the bracket was designed with an extra 7 degrees of ignition advance. The two engines fitted with these brackets went on to complete a season's racing and the cars they powered were quite successful in their class in terms of performance. This was quite a severe test of an AJ6 engine to run at this level of ignition advance.

I was then asked by another Jaguar owner to design a bracket for AJ6 engines. Having produced a batch of these brackets which provides an extra 5 degrees of advance I thought I would offer these to other owners as well.

It takes under an hour to replace the std bracket with one of my brackets using nothing more than std tools. In fact, if like me you have had a lot of pratice, you can do it in 15mins on an AJ16SC engine which is the most complicated installation due to the neeed to remove the SC drive belt tensioner.

If you would like any more information about these revised crank sensor brackets for either AJ16 or AJ6 engines then feel free to email my wife Helen, who deals with any enquiries, on helenstodart@gmail.com

[ptjs1]

Andy,

Tks for this useful post in the XJ40 / X300 section and also for now giving the the same opportunity to owners of AJ6 engines. As you know, I picked up one of the AJ16 brackets from you for my XJS but still haven't got around to fitting it as I wanted to do some immediate back to back performance tests so I could write it up for the mag. Your post will now make me get off my backside and fit it in the next few weeks!

I will also copy this thread and duplicate it in the XJS section of the BB for XJS owners to also benefit. Hope that's ok with you.

Cheers

Paul Sinnott

[davidr]

I have just installed one of these on my XJS Celebration and I felt an real improvement when I took it for a blast this afternoon.
More detailed posts and photos on the X300 forum.
Regards
David

[AndyStodart]

Dear All,
I have done some research to determine to which AJ6 and AJ16 engines my revised bracket will fit. It appears that crank sensor bracket EBC1253 was fitted from 3.6L engine number 108835 to 4.0L engine number 161586. I can therefore provide a revised version of this bracket with an extra 5 degrees of ignition advance to any of these cars. Crank sensor bracket EBC5017 was fitted to all 4.0L and 3.2L AJ6 engines after engine number 161587 and to all AJ16 engines. I can also provide a revised version of this bracket with an extra 5 degrees of ignition advance. I currently have stock of both designs of revised bracket, if anyone is interested.

[davidr]

Just found this photo that I'd forgotten I'd taken when I had my radiator out