The Long Story of Land Rover's New Twin-Turbo V8

With the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, Land Rover has begun to move away from their venerable AJ-V8 powerplants. The new Rangies use BMW’s N63 twin-turbo V8, an engine new to Land Rover but with a long history in BMWs.

The BMW N63 is a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8, which has been used in various BMWs since 2008. Those who know their Land Rover history may be feeling PTSD from the early days of the L322 Range Rover from 2003-2005, which featured a problematic implementation of BMW’s 4.4-liter M62 V8. But the N63 is a clean-sheet design, introduced in 2008, with no technical resemblance to the troublesome unit in those early third-gen Rangies.

The N63 debuted in 2008 in the X6 xDrive50i, the first high-power iteration of BMW’s large “Sports Activity Coupe.” It was the first V8 to have the turbos in the vee of the motor, with what’s called a “Hot Vee” design. Most V8 engines have the intake manifold in the vee, where one manifold can feed both banks of cylinders. A Hot Vee engine has the exhaust and turbos in the vee, and the intakes on the outside of the motor.

This puts the turbos in the middle of the hottest part of the motor, with engine heat all collecting at the top of the block, but it allows for a very small distance between the exhaust ports and the turbos, which virtually eliminates turbo lag. By nesting the bulky turbos, it also reduces the engine’s height, allowing for sexier vehicle designs and making it easier to comply with European pedestrian safety laws which regulate the height of engine bays.

BMW has made a number of revisions to the engine over the years, and the exact engine designation used in the Range Rover is N63B44T3. BMW makes what are called “Technical Updates” to their motors over the years, groups of changes to increase performance and reliability. In abbreviated BMW-Speak, the motor in the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport is the N63TU3 (“Technical Update #3”). The motor also shows up in the high-performance versions of the 5, 7, and 8 Series, and the X5, X6, and X7.

While the regular V8 is used in the high-end Range Rovers, there’s almost certainly going to be a high-performance SVR version of the Range Rover Sport again, and for that, it’s very possible Land Rover will look to BMW’s M department for a high-power engine. BMW’s Motorsport engine variants are designated by putting the letter S at the start of the engine number, so the S63 is the M version of the N63. The S63 has a special exhaust manifold that keeps constant exhaust flowing into the turbo and has up to 617hp and 553 lb ft of torque in the X6 M Competition. (the regular N63 rocks a not-shabby 444hp and 479 lb ft.)

The N63 was known for being incredibly problematic in its earlier years, with a well-deserved reputation as one of BMW’s least reliable engines ever and a class-action lawsuit from disgruntled owners. But BMW put major effort into it in the 2010s to try and mitigate this poor reputation, which culminated in a 2014 “Customer Care Package” that was a recall in everything but name. Some impacted cars had over 40 hours of engine work put in to mitigate design flaws. Today’s N63 motors bear very little resemblance to the nightmares of the mid-2000s. The first major technical update came in 2012, with a second in 2016 and a third in 2018. So much has been changed that the modern N63TU3 that will go in the Range Rovers that very little interchangeability with the troublesome 2008 original.

As Land Rover looks to its next generation of V8 engines – the only vehicle still using the old AJ-V8 is the Defender, which rides on the previous D7 platform that it shares with the outgoing Range Rover – the N63 will suit the role of high-power powerplant nicely. As the V8 becomes less and less a part of the lineup of Range Rover powerplants as electrified models become more and more a part of the market, the N63 will still make them special and powerful machines for those who want them.