OK, here goes - this is probably gonna be a long one.....

First off, the bad news. There's just nowhere to fit an amp easily in the XJS. If you're really lucky, you might be able to get a couple of smaller 2 channel amps in under the front seats - but this'll mean removing the seats to fit them, and believe me, you'll regret doing that. Jaguar chose to use a stupid captive nut arrangement to hold the seats in place, and unless you're blessed with extremely small hands, you'll have a real nightmare trying to get the seats back in.

Slightly better news is that it's really not that hard a car to do an install on. It takes longer than average, but doesn't really require any extraordinary degree of skill. Personally, I'd go for a decent sized 4 channel amp. All the Wilton carpet and sound deadening seems to soak up sound so much that you really need a healthy dose of power to get anything remotely decent in terms of performance. The best place to fit the amp is probably in the nearside (ie. passenger's side on a RHD UK model car - opposite side to the battery) of the boot/trunk. Where the chassis rails run under the floor, you end up with a large step either side, and outside of this, there's a small well. What you need to do is get hold of a small length (about 12inches or so) of right angle section aluminium. If you screw this down to the floor on the back edge of the chassis rail cover/step section, you can then drop an MDF panel down into the recess, and screw straight through the aluminium section into the MDF. You need to make the MDF panel big enough that it protrudes above the step by enough to mount the amp onto. Once this is in place, it should be reasonably sturdy, but it's probably also a good idea to fabricate an L bracket out of steel/aluminium to secure the top of the MDF to the steel cover section over the rear tail light cluster. Trim your MDF panel in a nice matching shade of carpet, and you've now got somewhere to mount a decent sized amp without using up any of the precious boot/trunk space.

Cabling's not too difficult, but there are a few things you do need to know. First off, power's easy, as your battery should be just a few feet from the amp. You'll need to run RCAs from the front of the car to the amp, and the best way to do this is down the left hand side of the car (same side as the amp - opposite to the battery/engine power feed to keep interference down). In the front footwell, on the side of the centre tunnel, there's an airvent with two self tapping screws holding it in. Remove these, and the whole tunnel side cover panel drops off, making it nice and easy to run cables away from the Empeg itself. Connect 2 5metre runs of speaker cable to the existing front speaker cables in the dash, and run these, together with the RCAs under the carpet to the back seat. Run the (orange) remote feed, and the ground (using something like 16amp cable, whatever that is in AWG - never can remember :-) down to the back of the car at the same time, but try and keep these 6-12inches from the RCA and speaker cables. This shouldn't prove too difficult, as the carpets just lift out, and those that don't can be gently peeled back. Once you reach the back seat, remove this completely - there's 2 8mm nuts on the underside of the lower seat squab, then the squab just lifts out. At the base of the seat back, there's 2 self-tapping screws to hold the back in place, which then lifts vertically out of 3 hooks at the top. Once the seats are out, remove the 1/4 panels either side - to do this, you need to remove 1xself-tapper at the back of the panel itself, pull the door rubber away in the door shut, peel back the leather and you'll find 2 more screws hidden abotu 2 inches in from the door seal edge. Then remove the seat belt upper mount (17mm bolt, plastic cover just pulls off), coat hanger (self-tapper hidden behind plastic cover plate that flicks out with a knife blade/small screwdriver), and the trim panel below the mount. Now, you'll see the final screw that holds the 1/4 panel in place. Once that's out of the way, a bit of gentle persuasion should have the trim panel removed.

Now, on the amp side, you'll see there's a nice big (2inch dia-ish) hole, straight through the rear bulkhead into the rear inner wing - which should mean your cables come out right beside the amp board. Get all of the above cable run through, then run 2 new cables into the boot from the rear speakers. You can use the existing cables, but there's a resistor in each one (mounted in a plastic fuseholder, about 12inches back from the speaker) which tends to catch fire/melt the fuse holder at anything above about 20w RMS.

Then it's just a matter of connecting all of the cables to the amp and hopefully you're all sorted, bar getting it all back in one piece again :-)

You may have interference problems. Jaguar being British chose to use Lucas to build their wiring harnesses, and these are a little bit less than perfect in a lot of respects. If you run the Empeg's earth cable down to the back of the car, as suggested above, then earth it to the rear chassis rail cover box section, along with the amp earth, noise should be kept to a minimum. As usual, decent RCAs are essential for the same reason. It's probably worth experimenting with the ground point for the RCA ground adaptors supplied in the Empeg kit. Try grounding them to the amp ground terminal to start with, and if you do have noise problems, try a few different points on the bodywork around the same area. If you still have problems after that, then get back to me and I'll see what else I can suggest.

As far as the rest of the system goes, it's worth spending a little more on some decent speakers in a car like the Jag. The standard ones are heinously nasty Philips units normally, totally out of place in a car that costs as much as a new Jag. The fronts can be easily swapped for something like Infinity Kappas, although you'll probably have to mount the tweeters on the dash top, as there's very little room in the doors. Run off a decent output though, these sound pretty good without being ridiculously expensive. Subs in the boot area are pretty much a complete waste of time, as there's a thick steel bulkhead between there and the passenger compartment. What you can do, is fabricate a replacement panel that fits within the rear 1/4 to take a 6 inch mid-bass driver, which should give you a decent increase in bass without going over the top. You can even squeeze an 8", or even 10" driver in behing this panel, and I have done in the past, but it takes some doing, and is probably best left to someone who does that sort of thing on a regular basis, unless you're really practical, and not averse to some pretty extensive woodworking.

I think that just about covers everything :-) I've tried to explain as clearly as possible, and hopefully all of the above should either allow you to do the job yourself, or at least give a pro-installer a few useful pointers. Needless to say, if you need any clarification on anything, just give me a shout - I'd sketch a quick diagram of the boot arrangement, but my artistic skills never were too good :-)

Dominic - in Haynes manual mode ;-)


Cambridge Car Audio
http://www.cambscaraudio.co.uk