Which Engine?

Which Engine Should I put in the Jeepster? (Its has a generic 4.3 V6 now)

  • 4.3 V6, Stroker, roller rockers and hot cam, High compression, flat top piston SCREAMER

  • Lazy 5.7 V8 Torque Monsterr

  • High tech, low mod, Run of the Mill LS,

  • Other, specify

Results are only viewable after voting.
ckruzer said:
What about a roller cam 5.7 tbi?
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'87-'92 truck motors tend to have the bosses for the roller lifter spider, '93-'95 are spotty, '96-'00 engines have the spider. TBI engines have a tiny 161 int./165 exh. duration cam. Vortec roller cams are 191/195. Push rods/cam/lifters/retainer plates all bolted onto my '87 TBI engine.
 
If you feel like messing with a wiring harness, moving motor mounts, changing bell housings (?), potentially changing some of your exhaust, potentially changing your cooling needs, and potentially changing some of your fuel line routing/adding a return, then do the LS.

If not, keep the tried and true 4.3

... or do an AMC motor because it is a Jeep.. :p
 
ord.sgt.26NC said:
hmmmm,I get by with 60 horse flat head so your 4.3 being under powered falls short with me. Toyotas can pull the space shuttle stock soooo what ya trying to do?
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5000 lb rig. So many times it doesn't have enough ass to jump out of a hole or over the rocks that I need to get over. MOST of the time it totally rocks but who wants to leave anything alone?
 
orange150 said:
If you feel like messing with a wiring harness, moving motor mounts, changing bell housings (?), potentially changing some of your exhaust, potentially changing your cooling needs, and potentially changing some of your fuel line routing/adding a return, then do the LS.

If not, keep the tried and true 4.3

... or do an AMC motor because it is a Jeep.. :p
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I know, that's why this ain't gonna happen... And no AMC in this one, it is originally a Kaiser with a 225 Buick motor. I even considered getting a Buick 350 and TBIing it but there is always cooling issues with them in that swap. Plus its a very old motor.
 
ord.sgt.26NC said:
might be time to go on a diet. You weigh only 1200 pounds less than my 92 f350 CCUB.
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I've already gone through all of my gear and reduced it. Took off spare and carrier. I will be cutting down my front bumper and reworking my rocker guards because they are built with thick steel (early build mistakes) but I'm not going to be able to reduce but maybe 200 lbs...but every little bit helps.
 
Not really knowing your budget, mechanical ability, and your wheeling style I voted LS.
I had a LS swap done in my Jeep and can give a couple words of advice.
-Dont trust people when they say you can do a complete swap for $1500. I'm not saying it isn't possible but it won't be right. I had almost $10k in mine with no labor. But included the tranny.
-go ahead and pay up and find a good 6.0. 5.3s are cheap but by the time you do lots of mods to get the hp up in one you will have the price of a 6.0 in it w/o the 6.0 torque.
-Install the largest radiator possible.
-when you swap it you better hold on
 
orange150 said:
If you feel like messing with a wiring harness, moving motor mounts, changing bell housings (?), potentially changing some of your exhaust, potentially changing your cooling needs, and potentially changing some of your fuel line routing/adding a return, then do the LS.

If not, keep the tried and true 4.3

... or do an AMC motor because it is a Jeep.. :p
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The bellhousing pattern is the same on the 4.3, 350, 6.2 diesel, 6.5 diesel, all LS based motors, the 8.1s, and even the Duramax engines. :D

You could also do a carbureted LS motor, but fuel injection is realllly nice.
 
Croatan_Kid said:
The bellhousing pattern is the same on the 4.3, 350, 6.2 diesel, 6.5 diesel, all LS based motors, the 8.1s, and even the Duramax engines. :D

You could also do a carbureted LS motor, but fuel injection is realllly nice.
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No carbs for me! I am trying not to overthink or over do this next move. A fresh TBI stroked 350 may be where I end up. My PCM will hook right up to it and everything else will bolt up too. I may need to upgrade ujoints in driveshafts, I've survived with 1310's for ever! (knock on wood)
 
When it comes to changing a lot of things with a TBI engine, they can be a bear to program. One company makes a plug and play ECM that you can tune with your laptop. The only real way to get one running good if you stroke it, go with a decent cam or some better flowing heads is to data log and find someone to burn a chip for you. You can find a lot of information on thirdgen.com. Heard a membership comes with a free mullet, lol.


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iwaxmyjimmy said:
When it comes to changing a lot of things with a TBI engine, they can be a bear to program. One company makes a plug and play ECM that you can tune with your laptop. The only real way to get one running good if you stroke it, go with a decent cam or some better flowing heads is to data log and find someone to burn a chip for you. You can find a lot of information on thirdgen.com. Heard a membership comes with a free mullet, lol.


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With a small bit of soldering you can burn your own chips for around $100, I'd go that way before paying someone else for a generic tune. You can tune and retune til its just right. And thirdgen and binderplanet are great resources. Thats how I have a maf equipped tbi system on my f150 crawlers 351m. I just tuned the tpi system on my dads 67 c10 rat rod too. There are a few of us on this board with tuning experience that could help with advice.

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Tim C said:
With a small bit of soldering you can burn your own chips for around $100, I'd go that way before paying someone else for a generic tune. You can tune and retune til its just right. And thirdgen and binderplanet are great resources. Thats how I have a maf equipped tbi system on my f150 crawlers 351m. I just tuned the tpi system on my dads 67 c10 rat rod too. There are a few of us on this board with tuning experience that could help with advice.

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Good to know, I know they have the moates stuff so you can tune it yourself. I wanted to build a 383 but decided leave it pretty stock besides TBI intake, vortec roller cam, headers, and a 14 psi FPR spring.
 
iwaxmyjimmy said:
Good to know, I know they have the moates stuff so you can tune it yourself. I wanted to build a 383 but decided leave it pretty stock besides TBI intake, vortec roller cam, headers, and a 14 psi FPR spring.
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Moates is what i use. All you really need is a zip socket, the flash burn 2, a cable either bought or homemade and some chips and youre youre tuning. The main fuel and spark maps are easy to tune, thats what the driving and datalogging does. The hard part for me is the cold start tuning because you only get one or two shots a day, lol.

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EBL_Flash

This is pricey but it's a flash tune compatible and has a heads up display you can use on your lap top.

GM 1985-1995 : Moates.Net

This is the moates stuff we are talking about. The generic chips from everything I've read don't do anything.

TBIchips.com has some goo info on TBI engines but again I'd stay away from generic chips unless you've got a way to datalog and let them tune from that


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Tim C said:
Moates is what i use. All you really need is a zip socket, the flash burn 2, a cable either bought or homemade and some chips and youre youre tuning. The main fuel and spark maps are easy to tune, thats what the driving and datalogging does. The hard part for me is the cold start tuning because you only get one or two shots a day, lol.

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I still need to do the IAC reset on mine.
 
I vote another run of the mill 4.3. Your rig is built for it. Changing motors will be expensive and time consuming. If your have both those then you might as well go 5.3l
 
None of the options are bad ways to go, so it would also depend on how long you want to be tinkering after you're "done" with the project. When you change everything up, you'll spend time ironing out the bugs after the swap is done.

Bone stock LS would be the way I'd go if you don't mind some ironing and you want to upgrade the front axle. For a quicker swap with less ironing, I'd go either a mildly built 4.3 - vortec heads with the marine or edelbrock intake to retain tbi, good low-mid cam and roller rockers. You'd probably be at a good 20-30% more power - enough to move you around easier, but not so much that you are raising the risk of breakage to a great extent. The 5.7 tbi would be decent, and simpler than the LS probably, but that's a bit of extra weight.
 
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