Was wondering if that might be possible. The reverend lady that I sold Scrapper to a few years ago is still dealing with a seized engine, after it sat for over 2 years w/o being started. I know a friend who has an XJ8 who is needing $$ and wanting to sell it very badly (and cheap), so it crossed my mind whether the engine swap would be possible. Main problems I would think of ,right off the bat, though, include:
1- Space in engine compartment. I would think the V-8 would take up more space than the inline-6 (AJ16) of the X-300. Even if not, the mountings would be different.
2- Transmission mate-up issues. The X-300 uses the old ZF (Bosch?) auto. transmission and the XJ8 uses the electronic trans (made by ?).
The reason why the x308 came was for the v8
Different subframes and all
Anything is possible but don’t kill yourself
You can buy a beater 308 for peanuts and you can buy a great 300 for small amounts
The straight 6 4.0 in the x300 is such a good engine I personally wouldn’t consider the hassle of trying to put a v8 in. The electrics alone would be a hassle not to mention the dashboard gauges. The transmission talks to the engine so you’d be best transplanting engine and transmission together if it would fit. Both are zf gearboxes i think but different models if the xj8 is like the xk8. Not sure about xjr but the early model xkr had a mercedes box in. Unless you like a big challenge and are prepared to put a lot of hours in, i’d hunt down another x300 engine.
