Project Petrolhead

I’m not opposed to modifying cars, but I prefer to use mods to enhance the inherent characteristics of any given car rather than starting from the ground up. Given infinite time, money and resources there’s one modification I would love to make to my Jaguar XK; a heart transplant.

It’s no secret that, while under Ford ownership in the early 2000s, Jaguar was involved in a lot of collaborative development. This would involve a few companies from Ford’s “Premier Automotive Group” (Consisting of Lincoln, Mercury, Aston Martin, Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar) sitting down together and pooling their resources to develop components that could be used across their respective ranges. One of the obvious triumphs of this collaborative development was the venerable AJ-V8.

Versions of this engine were used everywhere, from the Ford Thunderbird and Lincoln LS to Jaguar’s XJR and (of course) the XK. The application I am interested in, however, is the Aston Martin Vantage. The Aston version of the AJ-V8 (Known as the AJ37) is specially modified to feature a larger 4.3 litre capacity, a race-style dry sump, different internals (crankshaft, camshafts, pistons and exhaust manifold) and is hand-assembled at the Aston Martin engine plant in Cologne, Germany. Later in it’s life, Aston Martin introduced the “S” spec V8 under the code AM14, which swelled the displacement even further to 4.7 litres. These engines produced 430bhp and 490 NM of torque, rivalling even the supercharged 4.2 litre engines that Jaguar were fitting to the XKR and XKR-S, while remaining naturally aspirated (for the benefit of the non-technical, “naturally aspirated” means that an engine does not feature forced induction in the form of a turbocharger or supercharger). That is what I want to put in my Jaguar XK.

I suspect, given the shared ancestors that both engines have, that the AM14 would be a possible replacement for an AJ-V8 and may even feature the same mounting points as well as similar dimensions. Obviously, I’ve not been able to check this, as nobody else has ever been dim enough to buy an engine that’s worth double the price of the car it’s intended for, to see if it would actually fit, but I’m sure, given the right tools, the right setup and the right help, I could make it work. Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, and all that…

I can only imagine what the end result would be, an XK with an extra 130bhp that retains the lovely long-legged GT car feel of a large capacity, unstressed V8 would be an absolute dream. And why not just buy a Vantage to begin with? Because that would be the boring, obvious conclusion and that’s simply not why we’re all here.

So all I need is a spare AM14 V8, a 2-post car lift, an engine hoist, around 10 years of mechanical engineering experience, another car to drive around in with the XK is off the road and several burly friends who are willing to spend all their free time helping me achieve an absolute folly. Brilliant, I’d best get started then!