Have to be carefull how you take what you read.
I thought it was the 4.2, but wasnt sure where the 2.5 came from.
Anyways, the 2.5 is a 6 with two cylinders cut off.
When they re vamped the 4.2 to the 4.0, they mimic'd some dimesnions from the 2.5, but.....
You can still take everything off of a 4.2, exhaust, intake, crank, rods, cylinder head, etc etc etc, and bolt it on to a 4.0
The 4.0 still excepts the same camshaft used in that basic 6 cylinder design since 1956. You can go to cranes site and look up 4.0 cams. The specifics are "AMC 6 cylinder, 1956 and up"..........lol
THe only thing they did was change the bore and stroke on the 4.0, the same as they did when they designed the 2.5
So its kind of a chicken before the egg thing, but basically, the root design of the 4.0 is 30 years older then the original 2.5
Saying the 4.0 was designed based on the 2.5 is a bit misleading IMO.