I just bought XJL 2.0L 4-banger last year. Been driving for months and not satisfied with the performance. Is it possible to swap the engine to a 5.0 V8? Since I saw some X351 5.0 v8 engine for sale from ebay and cost pretty cheap considering trading in my car to 5.0 sc would cost about $80.000 here

 

IMHO more trouble than its worth. Just sell your 4-pot and then buy the V8. Easy peasy !


BTW, I don't see where you get that $80k to swap from, you would surely buy an equivalent year and mileage V8, not a new one ?

 

Marvel, keep in mind that the engine is probably fairly cheap, but that is just one of many pieces that you are going to need. In short, you are going to be needing: Motor, tranny, ECU, TCM, the engine wiring harness, tranny wiring harness, new intake (assuming it didn't come with the engine), potentially a new radiator, messing with the motor mounts to get the proper dimensioning, and I am sure there are a bunch of other things. It is not like the old days where a few wires came off, you pulled the one motor with the tranny, dropped in the new motor/tranny and then relanded the wires and you were good. Sure, you had to mess with the motor mounts some, but that is easy compared to what you are looking at doing.

Like Fraser said, you get an equivolent 5.0L engined car and you will be even if not slightly ahead than doing what you are talking about. The other thing to keep in mind is that when someone starts seeing that someone has pulled one motor and put a different one in, they are going to start asking why. If it is a dealership, they are going to give you low dollar on the car as a trade in because they figure something has happened to the car and they will probably not want to deal with all the possibilities.

 

I live in Indonesia where tax on vehicle is very expensive but labor is very cheap. I bought my car for $185.000 last year where a 5.0 SC cost about $345.000 for a new one. Thats why I am thinking of swapping the engine which cost at most $20.000. Just for a comparison, a new subaru BRZ would cost about $75.000 here in Indonesia.

Please put my situation into your consideration. Because I think $80.000 is too much money for that. However, If I live in the us I could buy the 5.0 sc with that budget.

So I am thinking importing the parts from The States and find a great mechanic here to do the job.

 

Thanks for your info Thermo, however do you know the rough estimates cost for all the parts that I need to change including the engine?

Please put into consideration that I live in Indonesia where tax on vehicle is very high and trading in for 5.0 SC does cost a lot where my rough calculation on swaping the engine would cost around $20.000 at most. Also, I am considering to keep this car since it is my first car bought from my own pocket and really love the interiors n mode though.

 

Welcome to the forum.

There is way more to it than swapping the engine, there is so much involved I don't have the time to list it all out for you. Hundreds if not thousands of differences between a 2.0L and a 5.0L S/C car.

Seriously, this is going to be an impossible task for you. Sorry but it's not just swapping an engine, way more to it than that.

 

Thanks Cambo,

If thats the case, I might back up. Because I still have the 5 years warranty. Maybe I would try them after warranty ends.

 

Yes, trying an engine swap would definitely void your warranty lol

IF you were to try and do this, the only way it could even be feasible is to find a wrecked 2015 XJR or SS, and literally swap the entire drivetrain along with all the ancillaries and electrical systems. And then you still have the headache of reprogramming the car to make it run.

There's only one guy on the planet who I believe could do such a job, and he's a long way away from you.

 

I will try to find a wrecked one the in the next 5 years, where would you suggest me to find the wrecked car with the lowest cost possible since no one is driving an XJR here in Indonesia, even for XJL, there are less than 30 in the entire country...

I was thinking to find it in The States, but how about Australia? Does the price of a wrecked car prettt low? And what about the population of an XJR there?

 

Marvel, I am thinking that to get all the parts that you would need, you are looking at spending around $20K USD (or roughly 70,000 in your money). This is before labor. Then, like was mentioned, this is not a simple unplug, unbolt a few things, put it all back together. You need a special computer (dealership level piece of equipment) to get access to the ECU/TCM to make them accept and be able to talk to the other computers in the car. There is a lot of security stuff that has been incorporated into the vehicle. So, even the cars of 10 years ago were still much simplier than these cars. Atleast those you could swap the modules around for the most part (some were still locked down pretty good).

I think you are going to be better off simply getting the car that you want than trying to upgrade everything. Like was mentioned, having a wrecked car to pull what you need from is probably going to be your best bet, but also going to cost you a pretty penny too.

 

If you do choose to go down this road, after switching all the components and find a "dealer" equipped with an SSD I'd try to use the VIN from the donor jag to update the systems. IMHO

 

Yes that engine is waaaay to small for that car. That engine is sold in places where gas is very expensive and performance is not a concern. Swapping the engine is NOT an option. I would just sell it as soon as you could get a fair price and buy an XF if the XJ is too much. You will get better performance for a smaller engine. Or buy a used XJ.