2005-06-16 18:47:51 | pauls writes:

Car was mentioned/described in this article:
www.uta.fi/~vt72556/jag/1962_jaguar_e-type_turbo.pdf


An excerpt from the above description:

1962 Jaguar E-Type Roadster, OTS, LHD, 3.8L, Series 1

Car no 876831

Engine no R 4320-9

Body no R 3257

Gearbox no EB 3468 JS
The origins
This E-Type left for the United States in March 1962 from Coventry factories, England.
The importer in the US was JAGUAR CARS INC. 32 EAST 57TH SREET, NEW YORK,
N.Y.22. From there this E-Type left for retailer BILL BRUMETT IMPORTS INC. Jaguar-
Studebaker-Renault-Peugeot Sales and Service, 1037 SOUTH HILL ST. OCEAN SIDE,
CALIFORNIA.
Owners in the United States
In 27.6.1962 Robert M.D. Connor made a right decision and bought this white Roadster
from the retailer. The first license plate number of this Jaguar was MGH-973 which
lasted for the whole time spent in the US. Nearly two years later, in 20.3.1964 Robert
sold the car on to Dinal Andersen. Andersen had the car for long time, almost 19 years. In
19.3.1983 James E. Young from Gainesboro, TN 22, bought this Series 1 car for himself,
driving it for over four years. In 6.9.1987 a German forwarding agency Herman Vogel
brought the Jaguar into Europe and to Germany.
The beginning in Finland
From Germany the car came to Finland to Ari’s British Classics Ky. In 24.5.1988 the car
was sold to Olli Kaukola from Vammala and the license plate number in Finland became
NPP-7. At this point, the car had already been driven for 26 years and desperately needed
a restoration. Olli and Ari’s British Classics made a contract in which there is a paragraph
that states: “the car’s body is to be thoroughly fixed and to be painted with the original
white color afterwards. The engine would be tuned and repaired etc.” Olli drove his
restored Jaguar for the summer 1989 until he had a stroke of genius in the autumn – or
did he?

2005-06-17 08:54:09 | pauls writes:

With permission, and thanks to Kai Tuominen, the remaining text of the above pdf file is below. What a fantastic story and find!

The engine and its turbocharger
Olli wanted to have the most powerful E-Type in the face of this earth and decided to
install a turbocharger to the engine! At the same time the whole engine would be
inspected and repaired in detail. Soon Olli found a partner for this project, an “enginewizard” J. Heino (Moottorikoneistamo J. Heino, Kavallintie 40, 02700 Kauniainen). Olli also chose Aarno Erola to be the leader of this project (Taidevalimo ja –Hiomo Oy, Takkatie 13, 00370 Helsinki). Erola’s company manufactured the exhaust manifolds, the intake manifolds, the air take inbox and other modifications needed by the turbocharger in his foundry. They decided to use Stromberg’s pressurized slide carburetors (former Strömberg, e.g. used in Volvo’s turbo models). J. Heino for instance fitted the
carburetors’ needles by grinding them to the right values by hand. The turbocharger
(brand IHI) was ordered straight from Japan and it was the same turbocharger that was
used in Formula 1 -cars in the eighties. The installation required a lot of work because
there was hardly any space beside the exhaust manifolds. The charger was installed
beside the engine, below the point where the exhaust manifolds cross, just above the car’s
“base”. The adjustable supercharging pressure/overpressure valve leans diagonally
backwards just in front of the firewall. The air cleaner was placed below the battery, to
the left side of the turbocharger. Pressurized air is being led with a 60mm pipe from the
front side of the engine to the air take inbox beside the carburetors. The supercharging
pressure’s maximum value was set to 0.6 bars. Because they didn’t want to broach the
original cylinder head’s combustion chamber, they ordered special pistons and used a
lathe to grind off some material from the tips of the pistons, until they reached a 9.5 bars
compression pressure. At the same time they changed all the cylinder head’s studs to
more durable ones and the springs of the valves to stiffer ones. While testing they
encountered deficit of fuel, weakness of ignition power and of course, increased heat
problem. They solved these issues by installing an electric fuel pump, Piranha’s
breakerless ignition and an always-on cooler’s fan. Spark plugs were changed to
Champion N9YCC -plugs which have higher heat values. The gear box and the
differential were left as they were. The springs on the clutch are stiffer than normally and
the clutch plate is stronger “competition” –model. The ignition advance is 10 * BTDC.
The always-on fan used the electricity generated by the (direct current) generator during a
normal city drive, so they had to install an alternator and inverse the +/- polarity. There
are supercharging pressure- and fuel pressure –meters under a cover, on the right side of
the dashboard. Olli didn’t get the chance to see the completion of his project – he deceased in spring 1990.

The present time
Olli Kaukola’s heirs held an auction in 18.8.1990 in Vammala for Olli’s belongings. The
undersigned won and got the Jaguar. The car wasn’t introduced prior the event and not
until at the auction it could be inspected superficially. Because of this, I was very amazed
while driving the car towards Nokia-city – the acceleration was outstanding. However,
when I decreased the throttle the engine suddenly made a loud neigh! I popped the hood
open and started to inspect the problem. I noticed strange looking carburetors and a weird
chromed tube circulating the engine from the front side. Where is the big E-Type’s air
cleaner? As I followed the chromed tube I ended up inspecting the lower end of the
exhaust manifold. I said to my friend: “hey, isn’t there a seashell-looking figure down
there?” Then I added: “It can’t be a turbocharger…there aren’t ones in Jaguars this old,
right?” I was feverishly thinking what could be the explanation for this finding. Well, it
was a turbocharger all right and the auctioneer knew about it, but for some reason didn’t
speak of it at all. When I got home I opened the trunk for the first time and luckily there
were all the original engine parts: carburetors, air cleaner, pistons, valves, springs, studs,
clutch etc. Currently I’ve stored them all in wooden boxes.

In 29.10.1990 I changed the license plate number to JAG-62 and on the same winter I
started wondering what to do with the turbocharger. After all, I thought I bought an
original, restored car. The car is a 100% Jaguar, but that turbocharger? I decided to let the charger stay and enjoy its raw power as long as the engine would last, then taking the
charger off and installing the old parts. Now 15 years has passed and the engine still
works like a charm! There is a 60mm exhaust pipe leaving from the turbocharger that splits into two separate pipes which connect to the original decorative mufflers. These are in fact the only mufflers in the whole pipe – the wings of the turbocharger mix air incomprehensibly silent. Surprisingly, the car is more silent than a normal E-Type all the way up to around 2.000 revolutions per minute. The charger effectively starts activating on around 2.700 rpm and then the sound begins to change. When the rpm is somewhere around 4-5.500 the sound is convincingly strong and rumbling powerfully. Driving the car requires patience; it’s pointless to try to push the car to the limit on gears one and two. This way all that you achieve is broken tires, spokes, gear box and differential. Gears three and four give you the opportunity to enjoy the power provided by the turbocharger and the velocity increases from 100 to 200 km/h surely faster than from 0 to 100 km/h. A normally respirating car chokes on the lack of air when the rpm rises, but in this Jaguar there isn’t that problem – the turbo is so big and massive that on the fourth gear the engine would just keep rising the revolutions until it would break up. Of course I haven’t tried this and only once have I tried driving the car at the speed around 250 km/h on a race track. That one time was more than enough for me - I enjoy driving for all the other reasons!

The topic of this text might be a bit ambiguous but once you’ve read it, you know what I
mean. I believe that this turbocharged E-Type is unique, one of a kind sixties E-Type in
the world, even amongst the models meant for racing. If you know that this isn’t the case
and there are in fact other similar E-Types, I’m more than happy to receive information
about them!

I really think that this E-Type, JAG-62, is an abuser of air!
Kai Tuominen
Pajulankatu 7
FIN-37150 Nokia
Finnish Jaguar Drivers´ Club, member-301
kai.tuominen@boxia.fi