Here's A Jaguar XE Project 8 Making More Power Than Advertised

The Jaguar XE SV Project 8 is plenty powerful. We can attest to that, having taken one to 186mph with rather shocking ease on a runway the other week, at the same time as having a passenger ride in the new F-Pace SVR.

But if you like to measure your power outputs in brake horsepower - generally the preferred units in the UK - you’re given a figure agonisingly close to 600. 592bhp is the official output of the car’s 5.0-litre supercharged V8, but don’t fret, as Evo magazine founder and car collector Harry Metcalfe - who also seems a bit miffed about the almost 600 thing - just stuck his own Project 8 on the dyno, and it turns out the car is making a little more than that.

We’ll be dropping some spoilers below the next image, so if you’d rather the results be a surprise, scroll back up and press play before continuing.

The peak power achieved was a mighty 620bhp, well beyond the advertised figure. A lower, ‘normalised’ rating accounting for temperature changes IRL is also given, but it’s still comfortably above the factory figure at 600bhp. Not bad, not bad at all. Torque, curiously, was a little down on the official 516lb ft figure at 506lb ft.

Next, we really need to see some drag races…