My first engine “build”

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Oh, and any YJ people out there. I had to do some research to figure out what 3” lift was on this YJ. Turns out it was a cheap kit off Amazon as best I can find. And to be honest, after driving from Florida to NC on it, it rides pretty damn good. I’d guess with as smooth as it is, it does good articulation wise as well.
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Sooo, I haven’t really updated this thread in awhile. I’ve been dropping updates in the “what have you done o your rig thread instead”. Thought I’d give a little update here.

At this point, the engine and drive train are in. I’ve been working on fit and fitment, cleaning things up, figuring various aspects out and trying to wrap up the last few steps. You know… all those steps that take a lot of detail and attention.

After much back and forth, a lot of research, managing finances, against my preference at this time, I’m going with the 4.0 header, 258 intake, and MC2100 carb with an HEI ignition.

I have enough expense to finish out what I have now with that set up, to not worry about added expenses of a better intake or fuel jnj action at this time. Luckily, that all easy enough to revisit at a later date and not have to spend money on this set up for now.

So, what I ran into. With the automatic column actuated shift linkage, the header collector pointed right at the shift linkage bracket. I did find that I had my transmission mount in the wrong location, and that didn’t help. So I moved that the other day. This shifted the tail housing to drinker side and that helped, but not enough. Then yesterday I realized that I had the 4.0 motor mount brackets on instead of the 258 motor mount brackets. Swapped those today and that again shifted things again and centered and aligned the motor in the engine bay.

So with that, I still needed to modify the header and the shift linkage bracket. So, out came the ankle grinder.
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Need to run over to my cousins house to weld this up, but it’s going to fit quite nice now.

Next is the intake. Had to grind down the alignment tabs on the bottom side to get the correct alignment with the head intake ports. That wasn’t too bad. Just need to fab up some custom washers to grip the intake flanges and bolt the intake down.

Note the motor mount bracket in this photo is the 4.0 version. Differentiated by the through hole location for the bolt. It’s lower and more inboard. You’ll see the difference in a later image.

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So today, changed motor mount brackets, re routed electrical for fuel pump from firewall and took it through the interior instead of down the firewall and under the tub as it has been.

Played with cleaning up wiring and took a look at the loom wrap. Probably just procrastinating trying to figure out electrical as I just love it so much… 🙄
(Note motor mount bracket in this photo)
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Learning loads in this process! So that’s cool.
 
mbalbritton said:
Sooo, I haven’t really updated this thread in awhile. I’ve been dropping updates in the “what have you done o your rig thread instead”. Thought I’d give a little update here.

At this point, the engine and drive train are in. I’ve been working on fit and fitment, cleaning things up, figuring various aspects out and trying to wrap up the last few steps. You know… all those steps that take a lot of detail and attention.

After much back and forth, a lot of research, managing finances, against my preference at this time, I’m going with the 4.0 header, 258 intake, and MC2100 carb with an HEI ignition.

I have enough expense to finish out what I have now with that set up, to not worry about added expenses of a better intake or fuel jnj action at this time. Luckily, that all easy enough to revisit at a later date and not have to spend money on this set up for now.

So, what I ran into. With the automatic column actuated shift linkage, the header collector pointed right at the shift linkage bracket. I did find that I had my transmission mount in the wrong location, and that didn’t help. So I moved that the other day. This shifted the tail housing to drinker side and that helped, but not enough. Then yesterday I realized that I had the 4.0 motor mount brackets on instead of the 258 motor mount brackets. Swapped those today and that again shifted things again and centered and aligned the motor in the engine bay.

So with that, I still needed to modify the header and the shift linkage bracket. So, out came the ankle grinder.
View attachment 458908
View attachment 458909
View attachment 458911

Need to run over to my cousins house to weld this up, but it’s going to fit quite nice now.

Next is the intake. Had to grind down the alignment tabs on the bottom side to get the correct alignment with the head intake ports. That wasn’t too bad. Just need to fab up some custom washers to grip the intake flanges and bolt the intake down.

Note the motor mount bracket in this photo is the 4.0 version. Differentiated by the through hole location for the bolt. It’s lower and more inboard. You’ll see the difference in a later image.

View attachment 458910

So today, changed motor mount brackets, re routed electrical for fuel pump from firewall and took it through the interior instead of down the firewall and under the tub as it has been.

Played with cleaning up wiring and took a look at the loom wrap. Probably just procrastinating trying to figure out electrical as I just love it so much… 🙄
(Note motor mount bracket in this photo)
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View attachment 458914

Learning loads in this process! So that’s cool.
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The carb/ hei is a great combo, easy to troubleshoot too and no points to maintain
 
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Ugh… have I ever told you guys how much I hate electrical?

And while I’m complaining about electrical (mostly due to my ineptness with understanding it) when lookmup reference materials and videos, why this hell don’t wire colors, gauges, locations, routing match up?

Example, one reference says “look for the 12ga red wire spliced to the blue wire….” Mine is a yellow 18ga spliced to a brown and black.”

And mine is obviously factory wiring.

Gonna go find my CJ Hanes Manual from the late 90’s (old enough to not have to explain that you don’t drink battery acid). To see if the wiring for it might be A good cross reference. At least the way those are drawn, I’ve always had an easier time reading. Not a fan of the TSM version drawings that I have.
 
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