Much more special than a push road V8. That's for sure. It's not a milk truck.

It was good enough to be the base for the Aston V8! And the Aston sounds fabulous. It's just the tuning Jaguar went with, or rather probably had to go with. The thing is that the XK8 was not supposed to be a sports car and was not supposed to make the DB7 look bad. If Jaguar was not owned by the same company as Aston, I have no doubt the XK8 would have had a sport tuned, manual transmission version.

So it's not the engine!


.

 

you make an excellent point which is part of the appeal for me. V8's are geometrically perfectly balanced. they cannot have by nature an even spaced firing order over the 360 degree rotation of the crankshaft. this is why a harmonic balance wheel is required. due to this a small displacement V8 can be quite a smooth affair. my motorcycle riding friends tell me that bikes that sound great are often those that you will regret taking for a long trip. fatigue is an issue that most people do not realize until it is removed. the xk8 and xkr are some of the few cars where you are sorry that the trip is over. i have driven some very long distances in this car and can tell you that they achieved a car that can just eat up the miles and not you. yet, you can still have a lot of fun and enjoy the engine. the harmonic balancing for every engine actually has a sweet range which is selected carefully, usually where you will cruise in a car such as ours. rev it up a bit and the burble and growl become more apparent. if the manufacturer did it right, this is also designed to be within the character of the car. it would be fun to sit down with the engineers and designers and actually find out what was their thinking. chances are, they knew exactly what they were trying to achieve. sometimes the market appeal is at a subconscious level, not because they want it to be that way, but it is just the way that people work. this is why ultimate numbers can fool you. now mix in the trade-off and realities that the designers and engineers had to work within. this is why it is fun to watch what that Foose designer does with older cars. in many cases he is actually achieving what the designers originally intended if tooling and realities of the earlier time of manufacture were not factors.

this is why with a car such as this from the day that i test drove it back in late 2000, i always ask what where they trying to achieve. why is this particular thing this way. you have to give them credit as they were handed a company not in the best state and parts of a thirty year old platform with commensurate limitations. this is where it can be fun. if you can truly find where the engineers wished that they could do something in line with the original intentions of the car, you can achieve something very nice. take for example our near useless rear seating. i have considered recreating the rear seat delete kit, however the design of the interior actually flows visually very well and is exquisite to look at in the coupe. our wheel arches are a little high which captures a sixties look with modern handing and envious ground clearance of which my fellow European car guys are envious. yet the lowered mods, especially in the coupe are stunning. differences of opinion are interesting, wonder what it must have been like during the design phase.

i own another car that could not be more different other than year of manufacture and it actually has the same characteristic that others have noticed. you feel better after driving it. sound and vibration and ride characteristics are a big part of the appeal.

there will be those of us who seek to discover the intent of the design and like it that way and those who are taking it to another level. execution is the key and sometimes efficiency as in a lower cost fix is known as elegance.

i close with something that appeared in, i think, Automobile magazine many years ago regarding restoration and originality. an example discussed was a rare Lincoln car from the early twentieth century, great car, awful engine. one version, all original, was praised for only having some smoke while running. another version was equally well restored, however the owner modified a Ford Cleveland engine to bolt up to the stock Lincoln mounts. He hid the electrics and gauges in the glove box. All of the modern additions involved nothing original, "being cut, welded or destroyed." thus, it was a responsible way of making this beautiful classic roam the roads more than its completely original cousin that was pushed on and off trailers. if someone figures out a way to keep a specimen from being destroyed, its chances of being around for the future are much greater instead of rotting in a field. the Jaguar Specialties kit does not destroy the originality of the car and perhaps someone who cannot afford or does not desire to keep an original engine running keeps another clean specimen in form.

 

Hello all-

For those of you interested in the pure tech related to conversions that has been discussed in this thread, we have just posted 2 new updates on our current XK8-LS Gen4 conversion project. This is the 97 XK8 using a drivetrain from a 2009 Pontiac G8- it's an LS Gen 4 L76 engine (6.0L , 361 hp, with displacement on demand) and 6L80E (6 speed automatic) transmission. You can see the introductory installment of the project on the link below which will also lead you to parts 2 and 3:

Jaguar Specialties

I hope you find it all interesting. For me, as a certifiable auto techgeek this has been a really fun build....

Thanks

Andrew

 

All I can say is don't knock it till you've tried it.

Probably my favourite car that I owned was a series 2 (1975) Daimler double six. The V12 had needed major work which made it uneconomical to repair, so the person I bought it from had replaced the V12 with a 350 chev, 010 block with LS1 heads, large valves, uprated pistons and a forged crank to stroke it to 383 cubic inches, or 6.3 litres. It had a relatively primitive cam optimized for low rpm torque, since he used it to tow his cobra replica to car shows. The T400 transmission had a stage 2 shift kit so the thing would break traction changing from 1st to 2nd under reasonably spirited acceleration.

Looked like this:
Sounded like this:

 

I am all for saving these jags by putting in an LS engine if necessary... I figured my crappy ZF 5-speed would have A-drum failure and then I would do the LS swap. Turns out the motor went at 38,500 so instead of rebuilding and waiting for the ZF tranny to blow I opted to drop in a 408 stroker. I WILL be doing another thread to detail all of the specifics, but Andrew at Jaguar Specialties has been awesome. This car is not an investment, it is a "toy"... but since my jag was long paid for and was worth about ZERO with a blown motor, it made sense to me to spend $20k on a new LS motor and trans swap. The car I really wanted (1969 442 convertible with a 4-speed) was $50++ so this is a bargain.

To each his own, but I have no qualms about doing the LS swap... the car will still be beautiful as ever and now FAST (the 408 should put out between 450-500 hp and 500+ ft lbs of torque). FUN, FUN, FUN...

 

Same here. I would not do a swap "just because", especially if the Jag drive train is performing fine. However, I love the XK8 coupe and always wanted to do a swap, so I purchased a '97 XK8 coupe with a bad engine and swapped in a LS1/4L60E from a low mileage '99 Trans Am. Using Andrew's kit (Jaguar Specialties) and taking my time I'll be ready to take my first test drive with the new engine/trans VERY soon.

 

Sweet. Beautiful looking car.

Until I experienced this


I hadn't properly understood the potential of swaps