Looking to swap out my 2015 XF 3.0 Supercharged for a 5.0 Supercharged engine. Since searching for a replacement I've noticed the 5.0 are only $2,000 more than the 3.0

Has anyone done a swap ?
What are my pros & cons ?

 

Welcome to the forums Vaughn,

A frequent question across our model forums is swapping a Normally Aspirated (N/A) engine for the Supercharged (S/C) equivalent and the answer inevitably is it's cheaper to swap the vehicle. However, I don't recall this question coming up about going for a larger capacity S/C engine.

The nuts and bolts physical swap would be the easy part. I suspected the electronics could be the difficulty. A quick check of the Parts Catalogue shows both the engine harnesses and the ECM's are different for a start. Inevitably there will be other module and sensor differences.

Anything is possible provided you are prepared to throw sufficient money at it but the practicality of a successful swap probably requires having a 5.0 S/C vehicle available as a reference during the build.

Graham

 

I can tell you without even looking that the answer to this question is the same as an NA -> SC swap: It's always, always cheaper, easier, and quicker to just sell your car and buy a good example of a model with the engine you want.

People who ask these questions on car forums - and it's always on marque/model-specific car forums people ask this, because we suffer from a stronger-than-usual connection to our cars, sunk cost fallacies, "better the devil you know" fallacies, and all the rest of it - rarely want to be told this. I know, I've been there plenty of times.

But them's the facts. Especially with a car like ours where the used prices are getting lower and lower - it's not just the engine, there's all the other parts you get with a "better" engine variant: bigger brakes, often different suspension, sometimes nicer interiors. Are you going to swap all that too? At what point does it stop making sense to swap parts from one car to another and simply go with the car that has all the bits you want to start with?

Now of course, there are a couple of exceptions. Maybe the engine combo you want is exceptionally rare, but you can get the engine on it's own (not the case here), or maybe you have access to a workshop with extensive tools/equipment, or maybe you have a dirt-cheap donor vehicle (I'm thinking heavily crash-damaged, but good engine/drivetrain). But in the majority of situations, it doesn't make sense.