Harry M and the Project 8

[mik]

Whilst grabbing a lift to the pub he explained (because I'd not heard this previously) that indeed the V6 up front was an 8 with two cylinders locked off.

Yeah - not the most elegant design solution is it?

[Jobbo]

Sadly you can't just buy a couple of extra cylinders and conrods to make your V6 a V8:

[mik]

Should mean the v6 can be pushed out to at least 3.75l though. (If they weren’t discontinuing it of course)

[Simon]

It'll still be available in other markets. IIRC the US spec XF only gets the V6..

[ShockDiamonds]

Does feel a little 1970s or BL-like in terms of cheapo engineering solutions. Just watched the vid. Bit surprised at the sound tbh it didn’t quite have an evident V8 burble at low speeds. And with the seats removed it’s a ludicrous way to spend money. Plus the front looks bloody awful. I’m never quite convinced Harry doesn’t push these because maybe he has to. There again, he’s forked his own money on them.

[mik]

I would like to think he promotes them cos he has been involved in the process and likes the end result.

I am sure he gets a very healthy employee discount though (like all employees).

[Marv]

I’m never quite convinced Harry doesn’t push these because maybe he has to.

Damn it, I thought Harry was a consultant at Jag SVO, turns out he's just a social media influencer

[integrale_evo]

I always thought it was quite a neat solution. Sure there's going to be a cost to the extra material in the v6 block being v8 size, but as a raw material I expect it's pretty low, and the tooling itself not a lot more expensive than a normal v6 block, but I expect there's a large saving in not having to tool up twice and design, make and stock duplicates of all manner of ancilliary items to suit two different engines with a few inches difference in length.

The bl solution would have been the opposite and have every manufacturer in the group make its own entirely different variation of a range of different size engines unable to share a single component between any of them.

[Jobbo]

Harry, the casting is obviously different though, and the heads are different. I'm pretty sure the crank is different despite being the same length. So they may as well have just cut the length of the block down or even cast a specific 60-degree V6 block rather than have wasted length and a compromised 90-degree V.

[ShockDiamonds]

Whenever I hear things like this my mind goes back to Jaguar's design of the XJ40 in the BL days. Worried BL would insist they drop the Rover (née Buick) V8 into the new model, they designed it specifically to only accept a straight six. Then Ford spent £30 million getting it V12-ready several years later. Or is that folklore?