The 5.0 litre motors are so good that us 4.0/4.2 XKR owners could live with the regular 5.0 litre non-supercharged motor and be just fine with those paddle shifters.

5 litre supercharged, yikes, that is serious Powaa!

 

As part of my job i got to grips with a Range Rover Sport 5.0 S/C last weekend, i have to say....what a motor....$100,000 oh wish i did have !!!!! TS

 

I first bought an XK8, was sorry, now have an XKR not sorry anymore. Learned and when I bought the F-Type I went for the V8S. But I'm into power and I know I'd regret not having it. I even put a supercharger on my FX35. Figure I'll only go around once, it might as well be supercharged!

 

No, I wanted a coupe or nothing. I have toyed with the idea of getting an XK8 convertible as a second car at some point but my XKR is my dream car.


Mark

 

The 4.0 is a beast, supercharged or not, these cars don't weight as much as most others.

I bought a xk8 because of less worry about the mechanicals in the engine compartment, that are very expensive to fix and keep maintenance on, and my xk8 gets great gas mileage.

However, I watched a XK8 dyno 310rwhp by removing the restrictive bend in the exhaust at the rear,, then run them under axle,upgrading the O2 sensors and running a fender-mount cold air intake.The variable valve timing engine will scream and pull hard after that.


Jag tuned these cars for extreme comfort, that's that.However, due to the price of tuning our ecm, I found it not worth tuning,however the gain in power, was jus the power curves came faster and lasted longer, but im happy with all my power on top with stock tuning.

 

Remove that bend over the axle and you gain power at the high end of the rev range BUT you lose low end torque down low. I drove for two days without any mufflers and while amusing, the loss of low-end punch was discernable. I drive mostly in the city so 1800rpm-2500 rpm pull is way more important to me than 5000-6000rpm.

mlaris, I went for the coupe to avoid convertible problems and I wanted the far greater chassis stiffness (not a big difference in the next gen model 2007+). The curves are hard not to appreciate over the convertible. However, my wife disclosed she sorely regrets saying ok to the coupe as she really misses convertible. (but putting on a tonneau cover was a big backwards step from prior Boxster).

 

I have both a 2001 XK8 conv. and a 2001 XKR conv. I love the XKR but unless you are foolishly going to try and beat Aston Martins and late Corvettes, the XK8 is cheaper, adequate power and better gas mileage as it has the variable valve timing. Just saying. Tom.

 

I say go for what you can afford (especially with an older model that might need some TLC) because you ARE going be spending money on mods to personalize your car...

...and then if you still want speed, go buy a liter bike and beat ANYTHING (just about) on the road - mine does 0-60 in 2.9 seconds and the 1/4-mile in 10.7

 

I was looking for an XK8 and an XKR fell into my lap, now I'm happy it did.