MENUJaguar XFR Tuning
The XFR sports car has all the essential elements, power, handling and sheer visceral appeal.
With the right mods you can enhance what is already a very good car, in fact the Jaguar XFRs make excellent project cars and respond well to tuning.
The XFR is a good car tuning project to play with. With the right mods your XFR can be transformed into a stunning project. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade.
Handling modifications are usually your first port of call for the XFR. We suggest that you fit uprated suspension and lower the car by 30-35mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with sports suspension.
Top end power should be your overall aim on the XFR with a nice fat peak torque band.
The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.
Engine Tuning.
These mods are usually performed by our members. Decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you begin.
Getting the right mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motorsport parts just don't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.
Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.
Best Engine Mods for your car
- Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings, aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
- Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
- Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
- Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
- Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.
Typical stage 1 mods often include:
Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Lighter flywheel, Remap.
Typical stage 2 mods often include:
Fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam, Ported and polished head, Power clutch,.
Typical stage 3 mods often include:
Engine balancing, Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox.
Your goal when tuning the engine should be a nice flat torque curve. You don't want all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a motorsport car.
The whole aim of this article is to give a limited introduction to car tuning modifications and point you in the right direction. Our forum is the best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your project and all aspects of modding cars.
A fast road camshaft is generally one of the best NASP power mods you can do in a single upgrade to your engine.
The intake and exhaust flow play a large part in your car's power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully realise your gains.You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to uprate the fuelling.
Frequently power losses and erratic idling after modifications are done can be traced to fuelling or timing issues.To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. If you've uprated your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.
Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Induction kits will only help to increase power if the air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and its need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction. For most XFR engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of needing cold air.
Sports exhausts increase the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust pipe is too large i.e. over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a great deal of your flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.
Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional porting and polishing. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods.
A good fast road performance clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never cut corners or expect the standard OEM clutch to cope. NA (naturally aspirated) engines do not achieve big power gains if you tune/remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A tuned/remapped turbo will give large power gains and take full advantage of the strength of the block.
We've also come across some owners experimenting with twincharged conversions and making some seriously high power gains.
Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos give boost in increasing proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult. Superchargers will give a boost which is proportional to engine speed so is simpler. Alternatively you could perhaps fit water injection to control knock.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are usually less heavy than steel ones. The downside to large rims on your XFR is that you alter your final drive ratio so this will have a negative effect on acceleration. Due to this fact, endeavour to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel close to your OEM settings. In all cases avoid going bigger than 16 inches.
If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our car forums where you can discuss XFR options in more detail with our XFR owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Jaguar tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.
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