Well looks like my wife blew up the Jag. She pulled into another parking lot and this time totally busted out the LH upper mount of the radiator. From there she drove it about 15 miles where the gauge shot up to H and she stopped.

Now the car has a dead spin while cranking except for one hard spot (probably the cylinder taking on water.) The dead spin isnt making sense to me. I can smell gas in the coolant tank so I am fairly certain it has blown HGs. I am thinking at this point it may be cheaper to install a used engine. I wanted to do the chevy ls series swap, but if thats going to cost me more than a regular used engine, it just doesnt make sense.

So....used Jag engine? Fix heads (176k on this engine, btw?) Chevy engine swap? Thanks in advance!

 

I see allot of xj8 low milage engines on Ebay from $850 to $3500.

If you cannot fix it ,then that would be a option ?

When ever think of selling the car than it also has a Jag engine..

 

I can't see any point to the chevy swap on an x308 ... what is the point? They did this in the 70's because of the cost of the replacement engines (12C) and the power of the 6C.

Best to determine total costs of the fix and what the cars is worth after it is all completed.

 

I want an aj27 for <$1000 that has less miles than mine and I will be "happy!" The chevy swap sounded very cool to me, but $1400 just for the kit to switch it over to something that has $30 VC gaskets instead of $300. I'll probably regret this, but I am going to stick with the Jag engine.

I dont think I am going to bother with fixing the current engine. What do you all think? I would bet it would cost in the neighborhood of $500-1000 in parts, if not more, to fix my engine with 176k. At that point, I think I am in used engine territory. I can do all the work myself unless I run into something that has crazy expensive special tools. What is the newest year engine I can directly (fairly few modifications/full functionality) swap in? Thanks in advance!

 

From the sound of it you are probably right, you would have to invest quite a bit of time or money to find out how bad the damage really is and the chances are you would be pulling it then anyway.

 

Good to think someone else thinks this way too. I dont know how far the aj27 can run, but im probably already over halfway there mileage-wise!

Is it correct that I can use any 99-03 engine? My current engine has the old grey and orange valve cover gaskets which a 99 is not supposed to have. I think I should run far and away from this engine soon and switch to a newer model. Thanks in advance!