Car is an 02 XJ8 Sport, built in August 2001. Bought it a week ago, and it cake with excellent service records. The timing chains and tenisoners were replaced January 2013. But honestly, I don't know if the metal ones were used. Here is a vid of a cold start. Should that sound concern me?

 

Really hard to tell from the video as things tend to be amplified.
Try a long screwdriver method and see if you can isolate the sound to one area.

 

Somewhat unrelated but if you take off the steering wheel cover it will reveal a beautiful textured wooden Jaguar steering wheel

Here's how my primary tensioners sounded when one broke (when i bought the car) https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5...2FjQkEyZnE2V0E

Secondaries might not sound as bad, but pulling the driver's side (or both) cam cover is cheaper than finding out the hard way later down the road.

 

Thanks for the vid. Yeah I was thinking of pulling at least the driver side cover. I do about 85% of the maintenance of my 93 Vette, so hopefully I'll be able to pull one cam cover. And yes! I wll remove that weird wrap over the wood.

 

I still plan to remove the cam cover. But how does it sound to you guys in this video? Car sat for like 20 hours on this start.

 

I just finished changing my chains, guides and tensioners. Before starting, I also pulled the cam covers, looking for some indication of the condition of the parts. The secondary tensioners looked fine. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the primary tensioners or guides. When I took them off, the right side primary tensioner was collapsed and not even touching the guide. All 4 guides were cracked and had pieces of plastic missing. I was very lucky to have no damage. So taking off the cam covers really didn't show me anything, just gave me a false sense of security.

 

Thanks Pasquo. My car had the guides changed as well. I'm just not sure if the metal tensioners were put in it. I'm not taking off the cam covers to see condition of the plastic tensioners(if it has them), I'm going to look for metal tensioners. If I don't see them, I'll put them in. With all that said, when I take the valve covers off, will I need to buy new gaskets? My valve cover gaskets were changed 2 years ago.

 

My experience has been those gaskets are reusable, and designed to be so, unless they are old and flattened out. I would think two years is not bad unless they have obvious issues.

 

Does the noise go away when the engine gets to operating temperature?

 

Yes, but it goes away quicker than that. Say a minute, and the sound is gone.

 

Could drop the oil pan and take a look from the bottom. This way you can also make sure there aren't plastic bits in the oil pump pick up from the chain guides falling apart.

 

Not to sound dumb, but is taking the oil pan out doable at home?

 

Yes, as long as you have ramps or jack stands to get it of the ground.
This is what I found in mine-