So many of those interesting projects that got underway late last year or in the spring are now starting to hit the road, and I wanted to share some details of an interesting one. Our customer Chris in Florida had a gorgeous 2001 XK8 with only some 38k original miles. You can see from the pics below it was sweet car. Suddenly, with virtually no warning, the engine developed a rod knock- uh oh. He'd just had a lot of other work done on the car and loved it, but he lost faith in the Jag engine and wasn't ready to go down the road to repair it, regardless of cost. Anyway, he got in touch with us and we talked, and then I connected him with one of our oldest (long ago, not age) XK8-LS customers  (who did the LS on his maroon coupe you may have seen in the XK8 gallery section) who just happened to live in the next town over. The 2 Jag lovers got together and took a spin in a converted LS XK8 coupe and Chris was sold- his XK8 was going LS.

To make a not so long story shorter, the project commenced late last year and has now been on the road for a few months. The drivetrain here was a little out of the ordinary in that the engine uses a custom (stroker) 408 cubic inch short block, Corvette LS6 heads and intake, a medium hot cam, a full 2 1/2" dual exhaust system with center X-pipe, and an accessory drive in front made up of all stock GM pieces (including  fully functioning AC- you do need that occasionally in Florida). The transmission is a warmed up 4L60E  (4 speed auto overdrive) which was built specifically for this application.

All went well and a local LS conversion shop did the work, which included a few tuning sessions on the dyno, just to be sure everything was fully up to snuff. And boy was it. After a little tweaking here  and there with HP-Tuners, this combination, running through the stock Jag (non-posi) 3.08 differential made 390 hp at the rear wheels. (!!!). And the car performs as good as it looks, thus far already surprising more than a few Camaros and Mustangs, and even a beefy Mercedes or BMW or three. We are really happy to have been part of this project and even though this engine package was probably more on the high end as far as power/cost for this application, the more typical stock LS1 (345hp) or LS1 (400hp), measured at the flywheel, still would make for a great performing car. Most of our customers do their conversions with a good used engine/trans package which gives great output while also keeping overall costs down. What's the final word? Using our kit, and whatever LS package he chooses, any XK8 owner could get an exciting, reliable, fun result on his own car....

Interested in an LS into your XK8?? Get in touch to talk further

Here are some pics of the car, the installation, a nice shot of it on the dyno, and the dyno sheet itself