Hello all, I have been silent for awhile because I finally got my 2002 XK8 to the point where it pretty much runs and drives as I hoped it would. Recently a deal fell into my shop that I couldn't pass on. An elderly man had bought a 2000 XKR and parked it about a year ago because it has a valve cover leak. Unfortunately he put a cheap tarp over it and left it set outside. The tarp must have blown off or leaked because the beautiful leather interior is ruined.
My question to you is ,what problems will I likely have if I transplant the supercharger onto my XK8, or just swap the engine. He says it ran really well and had lots of power. Of course before I would attempt anything I would check out how good it really is. I paid him a pittance for the car because he just wanted it gone. He has about a dozen other collector and performance cars in his collection. I know I can use a lot of the little parts that my car can use to be complete. It has a nice set of 18" wheels and tires that should be worth close to what I paid for it.

Am I asking for trouble, or is this a great idea? I run a hot rod shop, so I know something about engine swaps. But the complex systems in the Jag are not my usual fare.
Thanks,any advice is welcome.

 

This has been mentioned before. Something about the tarp-over-convertible top that causes leakage. Probably a wicking or surface tension thing.

My take on it is that you would be better off restoring each car separately to their original spec. Let the XK8 be an XK8 (simpler, slightly higher revving engine with VVT, ZF trans), and let the XKR be an XKR (more torque, vented hood, Merc trans). I bet you locating and buying the missing parts on both would end up saving $/time over some form of cannibalizing operation. I think your idea of bringing the XKR to a running status is a great starting point...

 

The compression on the XK8 is to high for using a supercharger first. Second the electronics wouldn't work to control the engine with the supercharger.
In order to transplant the engine with the supercharger you would have to transplant the XKR's complete wiring harness to the XK8. If you look in the MK I/MK II forum there is a fellow who has transplanted an XJR into a Mark 2 and you will get an idea of what is involved in a transplant.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/m...ark-2-a-94824/

I would think in the overall scheme of things you would be much better off reliability wise and dollar wise to work on restoring the interior of the XKR.

 

I'd transfer interior bits from the 8 to the R. Part out the 8 then and get quite a bit back.

I just bought some parts from a guy who is turning an interior neglected and an exterior neglected pair of XK8s into a REALLY nice one. He's looking like he'll have 3-4k into a nice 2000 convertible and a nice set of spares to run it cheap.