My friends were telling me that jaguar had an aluminum v12 at one time that's the same size as a 350 sbc, could we possibly be onto a new engine swap? Could a Jag V12 fit? and is it before or after Ford bought them?

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PONTIAC FIERO OUTLAW

-JESSE JAMES-

1984 Pontiac Fiero SE
Project Weekend Warrior has started...
(350 SBC) :)

Hmm, I looked the engine up, and it really only makes 302 hp, probably too expensive to adapt, but the engines go for as little as $600 on ebay. 5.3 liter V12

The main difference between the SBC and the Jaguar engine is what they are designed to do. A long stroke V8 has much more low end torque than a short stroke V12. For this reason, the jaguar accelerates slower from 0-80, but after 100 mph, the jaguar flies. I've actually driven one, and I could tell that it was built for top speed.

This is the same difference between NASCAR and F1, besides the body style. F1 cars have much less torque, because their stroke is so short. It's designed to spin ungodly fast. The NASCAR engine is designed to have lots of torque, which in turn means horsepower, but the F1 engine has tons more horsepower simply because of the RPM.

If you put one in the fiero you WOULD have issues fitting it. Jaguar engines are meant to be rear drive, front engine mounted. You would have to do the same to fit it into just about any other car.

sorry but no v-12 is going to fit,
it is way too long[wide] in a fiero

what your freind may have ment is the jags used a th-350/400 bolt patern on the automatics
roll royce used th400 auto allso in most of their cars

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Question wonder and be wierd
are you kind?

quote Originally posted by ray b: sorry but no v-12 is going to fit, it is way too long[wide] in a fiero

I disagree!

In theory you could make a 6" or smaller V12! A V12 doesn't have to be any longer than a v8. Come to think about it the V12 Northstar was the same size as the V8 Northstar. (I think)

Alot of the Kitcar guys use them but the chassis is far from stock in most. I'm not sure but I think they mount them longitudnally(SP)?

Though, the engine in question and most that have been made for street cars are prob to long.

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I would like to have one .....but to many money to do it (longitudnally) and some people even take the Jag V12 for a Chev V8. So if they change it out maybe I would be better off with the Chev V8.

Older Jags engines were unreliable pieces of crap, so you wouldnt want the swap. I have seen several swaps of 350s into Jags.

quote Originally posted by 87FieroGTx: I disagree! In theory you could make a 6" or smaller V12! A V12 doesn't have to be any longer than a v8. Come to think about it the V12 Northstar was the same size as the V8 Northstar. (I think) Alot of the Kitcar guys use them but the chassis is far from stock in most. I'm not sure but I think they mount them longitudnally(SP)? Though, the engine in question and most that have been made for street cars are prob to long.

The experimental N* V12 was designed to fit in the same size package as the Vortec 8100, not the Northsta V8. In the process, the V12 is horribly compromised (port entry angles are horrible and the thing makes $h!t for torque.

How much horsepower do NASCAR engines make? They spin up to 9k, and yes, the displacement is much larger, due to the long stroke of the cylinders.

Since CART engines push out around 900 hp, and F1 cars are much faster, I would assume that they push out much more than 900, even with out the turbo.

This is much less than many drag cars, but these engines have to last for hours of abuse, not multiples of 5 seconds.

F1 engines are now so high tech that they are more concerned with piston acceleration than they are in stroke. Horsepower in F1 is probably no higher than the other classes listed, I'd have to check that, but don't put quite as much emphasis on long stroke. Basically torque is the force produced by the engine and horsepower is a calculation based on torque and rpm. This means that if you want an engine to maintain a constant speed (such as NASCAR where most races involve no shifting at all) than you would benefit from a high torque, low rpm engine (that is a lot of weight to push around). In F1 light weight cars are constantly shifting gears and changing speed, they need engines which have very low internal friction, short strokes to reduce piston acceleration, and low rotating mass to allow rapid change in rpm (low polar moment of intertia) the result is an engine which delivers its power much differently from the NASCAR engine. This is really apples and oranges here, one class relies on low technology and big displacement to make for very evenly matched cars while the other restricts displacement but allows for exotic technologies.

As for the comment about short V12s, if the displacement is very small it could be short however compare an inline 6 to a V8, now add some length for the offset of the second bank of 6 and you have the length of a V12. Anything less would be an unrealistic compromise which would result in a complex engine with no performance advantages. (as stated here already.

Ira

quote Originally posted by iluvmacs: How much horsepower do NASCAR engines make? They spin up to 9k, and yes, the displacement is much larger, due to the long stroke of the cylinders. Since CART engines push out around 900 hp, and F1 cars are much faster, I would assume that they push out much more than 900, even with out the turbo. This is much less than many drag cars, but these engines have to last for hours of abuse, not multiples of 5 seconds.

F-1 motors are around 800hp now
but the cars are about 400lbs lighter dry
and carry much less fuel loads then cart or irl cars do

older turbo F-1 cars were up to 1500hp in Q form for a few laps run [thats a 1.5 "gas" motor] but droped to under 1200 in full race tune

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Question wonder and be wierd
are you kind?

The Jaguar V12 engines are not a good candidate for the swap because of the size, they have an overhead cam design and therefore fairly tall. They originally came with either 4 SU carbs and later fuel injection. I believe the chevy sb swap was so common because of the difficulty and expense of working on the V12 engine. The engine itself is ok, just the electrical systems on the older jags was typical Lucas system. There is an old joke about why the British drink their beer warm - they have Lucas refrigerators. Disclaimer - I actually have a 1979 MGB that I am restoring and would like to one either a E-type(6) of XJS(V12).

quote Originally posted by rogergarrison: Older Jags engines were unreliable pieces of crap, so you wouldnt want the swap. I have seen several swaps of 350s into Jags.

same here, the 12s are expensive as hell to repair and people just through in small or big block chevys to be more reliable

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--Adam--
1987 Blue GT 5-speed
IM AOL: FieroGT5speed
16 years old and already selling my stuff to pay for repairs to my Fiero...which i sold my stuff to buy in the first place

something else to consider is maintenance. You can only go to jaguar shops to get it worked on, and I don't know of any. It takes 13 quarts of oil, 12 sparkplugs, and every other part is either bigger or much more of them. There is also barely any room to find let alone fix anything that needs fixing.

I spent a couple weeks just trying to mess with some power steering in a V12 Jag convertible last summer, and with the factory service manual we couldn't figure it out.

A Jaguar engine in a Fiero?

Novel idea, but as it has already been stated by people who have actually seen this huge engine, it'll never fit. Even though she's aluminum, it's also a very heavy engine, too. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be on some serious drugs.

The Jaguar V12 itself was fairly reliable, but extremely expensive to have repairs made. Parts availability is another issue - you can't just run down to your local parts store and get what you need for the beast. For these reasons, a swap over to a chevy engine was do-able. Not to mention that a replacement Jag engine alone was worth way more than a chev engine plus installation costs. So, people who still wanted to hold onto their Jags, but didn't want to be faced with the cost of replacing their tired V12s went to the chevy alternative.

What made any Jaguar unreliable was definitely the electronics as one person pointed out. There are many phrases, but one of the most popular is this: "Lucas, prince of darkness."

Ford's influence has undoubtedly improved quality control & reliability for the Jaguar.

quote Originally posted by iluvmacs: How much horsepower do NASCAR engines make? They spin up to 9k, and yes, the displacement is much larger, due to the long stroke of the cylinders.

Why are you so obsessed with stroke? Haven't you heard of bore size? Engines have different numbers of cylinders, too. Nascar uses V8's, F1 uses V10's.

quote Since CART engines push out around 900 hp, and F1 cars are much faster, I would assume that they push out much more than 900, even with out the turbo.

Nascar engines are close to 750 HP. F1 engines range from 750-900 HP. Like rayb said, F1 cars are lighter with than CART and IRL cars and have more aggressive aero packages.

GT: I've had (2) Jaguars and tell u for sure the V12 would not fit our fieros. The v12 was last made in 1995 or 96; the new ones are all V8s. My last was a 96 XJR which had a supercharged in-line 6, If anybody has a jaguar engine fetish, this would be a good engine to use but you might need an engineering degree from MIT to make it work - even if you got all the mechanicals to work, I'd bet the farm that you'd need God Himself to help you figure out the wiring. Be advised that ANYTHING jag. is $$$$$ - an oil change in the XJR was $138, which included 9 quarts of synthetic... How about $45 for a spare key (dealer-only)? That's why I now have a fiero and a Mustang

could you fit 2 of this V12 in?
http://www.fineartmodels.com/scerri.htm

"This 12-cylinder engine just isn’t any 12-cylinder engine, it is a 1/3 scale Ferrari 12-cylinder engine with the same beautiful sound. It took Pierre six months of running the engine on his own dynamometer to tune the header pipes so they would give off the same sound value as he had recorded from the engine of the real car."