Engine swaps

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Discussion

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Thursday 21st July 2016
quotequote all
OK just playing with an idea here. Having recently seen the "reborn" MGB's running Mazda MX5 engines and countless swaps over the years got me thinking. I have a Jaguar XJC and it currently has a 6.0 XJS v12 in it (but annoyingly not the one with the four speed box).

My question is.... how do you work out what engine swap would actually fit the car? Say if I wanted to fit a 3.0 Diesel engine and 8 speed box out of an XF or the V8 supercharged XFR engine. How would I go about it to even make a start assuming I could lay my hands on an engine.

This is just hypothetical at the moment as the car is in for restoration.

Enlighten me....

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Thursday 21st July 2016
quotequote all
//j17 said:
Height is offer the killer with classics because modern engines need to be really tall for some reason.

Unless you're doing something common where enough people have trodden the path that someone's made parts you will hit issues and have to engineer around them, but that's part of the fun.
Yeah height was the issue I thought it would come up against. Most of the cars that have had swaps away from the original engines are in the states so they have LS3 Chevy V8s in them

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Thursday 21st July 2016
quotequote all
tortop45 said:
Think this is what your looking for. But you can,t have it as its in my coupe.
I don't want a manual box. I could do that easily but I want to keep it auto but if just upgrading the gearbox then the late v12's 4 speeder is the only way, apparently.

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Friday 22nd July 2016
quotequote all
I guess another of the limiting factors if you don't want to hack the car to bits is the size of the gearbox. I am guessing the modern 6-8 speeder autos are bigger than the old three speeders

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Friday 22nd July 2016
quotequote all
finishing touch said:
"OK just playing with an idea here. Having recently seen the "reborn" MGB's running Mazda MX5 engines and countless swaps over the years got me thinking."



Shirley people don't spoil an MX5 engine by wrapping an MGB around it do they ? confused
http://www.frontlinedevelopments.com/vehicle/mg-le50/

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Friday 22nd July 2016
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TooMany2cvs said:
NOOOOOOO!
haha I did say hypothetically and if I did do it then it would be the modern v8

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Monday 25th July 2016
quotequote all
NomduJour said:
The electronics side of it is the issue (particularly with the JLR diesel).
I think I would be hunted down and murdered if I put the diesel engine in that car hehe

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Monday 25th July 2016
quotequote all
Cheers 300bhp that is pretty much my thought
I am sure the GM box can fit and there are adaptor plates available. Have had an initial quote of 2k for a gearbox and fitting. This would give it some improved oomph off the line and a quieter and slightly more economical cruise at motorway speeds.

The later 6 speed GM boxes are physically bigger so would require some hacking of the car I guess

The most popular engine swap for these cars and other series 1-3 seems to be Americans replacing the engine with a 6.2 LS3 Chevy v8 and the aforementioned GM four speed box.

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
In the case of the op, if all they want is different gearing, there are lots of potential answers. Such as an OD/slitter unit. It attaches to the output of the gearbox and before the prop (short prop needed) and allows you to split the gears. So could turn that old 3 speed auto into something with affectively 6 gears.
Tell me more / point me in the right direction please

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Friday 29th July 2016
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Mailed them, lets see if I get a reply. Cheers guys.

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Tuesday 2nd August 2016
quotequote all
Shame the range is so limited. I quite like the idea of turning my XJC into a Tesla just to see the reaction of the traditionalists haha

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Tuesday 2nd August 2016
quotequote all
Yeah would be interesting to know how much space the batteries would take up to get 250 mile range with decent performance in a car that weighs 1800KG

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Tuesday 2nd August 2016
quotequote all
Yeah but the 1800kg weight includes the hulking great 6.0 v12

craigjm

Original Poster:

17,959 posts

201 months

Wednesday 19th October 2016
quotequote all
Just to bump this topic a little bit. I never could get a response from gear vendors that 300BHP posted about in terms of the transmission splitter. However, i found a company in the UK and the response was that one suitable for my car would be 3 grand plus vat and fitting! hmm thats a lot of fuel based on a 25% saving on cruise! The UK supplier said that the mod would give me the lower RPM at cruise I was looking for and 25% fuel saving on cruise but then started talking about If you wanted better acceleration they could do a higher stall torque converter and install a valve body reprogramming kit which apparently would make the vehicle launch better and make the shift faster and cleaner. Not sure what that entails though so have replied to ask for more details.