Pre-Stroker Mods Question, Head/Cam.

[CburbXJ]

Been reading much as i can but figured id make a thread to get more specific help to my scenario. My jeep is getting heavier as time goes and i have 35s with 4.56s and lockers and whatnot, i also need it to tow things with a medium sized trailer. Im really mainly just wanting it to have plenty of uphill and towing power nothing too crazy. I want to stroke it but im not sure when that will happen and how i will go about it. Ive made my mind up im not going to try and build myself due to not having a proper place to store things and perform work.

As of right now i was curious if i could do something like a head and cam kit now and sometime not too long down the road get a stroker kit to finish it off. Hopefully i could make my head/cam choice work fine as my jeep is now and also for when its stroked. That and it would be a little easier money wise and my jeep wouldnt be down forever. The other thing i was thinking of doing was just buying a stroker crate engine from somewhere like golen or ATK, problem with that is most of those crate engines ive looked at dont have much in the head/cam department and if they do the price is way up there. I could also do it the other way around and buy a basic stroker crate engine, swapping it in then later on get a better head and cam. The cam and head i was looking at was from 505 performance the stage 2s. Not sure how many places sell reputable crate strokers seems like golen, atk, hesco are the only ones and titan is iffy i guess. Ive also heard about russ pottenger building engines but unsure of price and all that.

My jeep currently has all the necessary bolt ons as well. AFE intake, magnaflow cat, super 44 muffler, 2000 intake, 2000 ev6 siemens deka injectors, 63mm TB, Hesco FPR @ 49 psi. This setup is closest i saw to what i want to do, any guidance would be appreciated.

4.6L low-buck stroker

Jeep 4.2L 3.895" stroke crank
Jeep 4.0L 6.125" rods
Keith Black UEM-IC944-030 pistons
9.6:1 CR
CompCams 68-231-4 206/214 degree camshaft
Ported HO 1.91"/1.50" cylinder head
Mill block deck 0.020"
Mopar/Victor 0.043" head gasket
0.050" quench height
Ford 24lb/hr injectors with adjustable FPR or MAP adjuster for '87-'95 engines, Ford 24lb/hr injectors for '96-'04 engines, '99-'00 Chevy LS1 26.2lb/hr injectors for '05-'06 engines
264hp @ 4900rpm, 324lbft @ 3500rpm

[Cheromaniac]

Right now you could just port the head and add the 68-231-4 cam, and then rebuild the engine into a stroker later on. However, you'd be tearing the engine down twice and that would incur unnecessary extra costs.
I suggest you wait until you've saved some extra cash to buy the 258 crank & IC944 pistons you'd need to build the stroker and do it all in one go.
If you want to minimize downtime, you could buy a good junkyard 4.0 engine and slowly build that up into a stroker that would be ready to swap into your Jeep over a weekend. Then you could sell your old 4.0 engine to recoup some of the cost.

[CburbXJ]

Yea that's kinda what I figured. What about just buying a basic stroker crate from atk or golen? If I were doing that route I would sell my current engine to recoup some of that money. Much as I'd like to slowly gather parts I just don't have a good work area for that kinda stuff. I learned how annoying it was recently when I rebuilt and did work to my axles.

[Cheromaniac]

What about just buying a basic stroker crate from atk or golen? If I were doing that route I would sell my current engine to recoup some of that money.

That's another option. A crate stroker would cost a lot more than building your own but the decision is yours.

[CburbXJ]

As much as i would like to build my own stroker with my dads help who is a diesel mechanic im going to have to pass on something extensive like that for the time being due to not having a proper place to do it. An open pole barn with dirt floors and tons of crap in it just wont cut it for me i want a decent clean area with some room, rebuilding axles there was a nightmare alone. If i bought a crate id have enough extra parts like power steering, intake, header, injectors and whatnot that i could sell my current engine complete for 500 bucks or so and still have my performance bolt ons swapped to the crate. I think the ATK seems most appealing right now, this deal from summit http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATK-High-Perfor ... 46&vxp=mtr ive read on another size its only claimed 205 hp 280 torque which i thought was a little low unless those numbers are without bolt ons. Ill have to do some more research i suppose before ill be able to decide what im going to do.