Piston Slap: A Supercharged Way to Cheap NOS Parts?

Keith writes:

Hi, I’ve recently acquired a 2003 Jaguar S-Type R. Sort of rare. It’s the supercharged V8 model. The car is in good condition, but has 140,000 miles and needs some TLC, to say the least. I’m having trouble finding parts. Salvage yards tell me they have parts, only the donor cars are standard S-Types. I’ve been on Jag forums and found help with engine, supercharger, and mechanical parts.

I need the lower (under engine, trans) body panels from the front valance back through the trans including inner fender wells and spoiler. The correct parts have cooling channels for brakes and trans. Jag dealers want small fortune. I’m trying to get salvaged parts. I even bought all new aftermarket pieces from eBay UK. Struggled installing them, five hours on my lift, altering parts to fit. So, obviously not correct, as a “Jag expert” assured me. During my first test trip I saw my new panels in my rear-view, bouncing off the highway into a million pieces.

So, I’m looking for some direction in finding R Model parts. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Read more
  • The Oracle Good riddance.
  • Lou_BC Makes sense. I've seen a few dealer inventories listing 2022 "heritage " Trucks .
  • Lou_BC I doubt many will ever get any air time or shred a dune. Probably be fun on a logging road but anywhere else, it's as wide as a one ton dually.
  • Chris "If" our performance future is electric"??? Make no mistake..it is. There are a plenty of examples of performance EV's that beat the crap out of most ICE cars. My Kia EV6 GT will beat most cars on the road in a straight line (11.3 s 1/4 mile- best pass). This is only the beginning. When a Tesla Plaid, at around $73K used can beat most dedicated races cars...the future is upon us. Why fight it.
  • Mister Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a single-cab version in the current generation of RAM trucks. So I guess Stellantis is giving up the bottom dollar fleet market entirely.