Jeep Strokers

Well everything was going great today. Had the engine out in 3 hours. I routed the new harness in place, and i was gettin ready to swing the new engine. I realized i do not have a pilot bearing in the crank

Well the idiots at the local autozone said they had one, but couldn't find it. I'm pretty pissed too. If i had one, i could have had the engine landed tonight and most likely up and running tomorrow.....

I'm going out to find one at a few other local parts places. Wish me luck!

Perhaps the $3 pb77hd--worked on my early 80's 4wt crank. It's a bushing not a bearing like the ones for the 4.0.

After searching 6 different stores, i finally found one!

I'm just trying to decide if its a good place to stop, or if i should press that bearing in and start swinging motors

Dr Dyno has which bearing to use for which crank or transmission one his site. http://www.angelfire.com/my/fan/install.html Down near the bottom.

So the highlight of my day was driving to six different places to find the pilot bearing, only to find it nestled inside of the throw out bearing in the new clutch kit HAHAHA!

Out with the old, and in with the new! The engine has landed! Tomorrow will consist of mounting the remainder of the wiring harness, and hooking everything up. I'm going to run into a big problem trying to adapt to the exhaust. Oh well, one step at a time. Maybe i'll break it in with an open header

After chasing down a new crank position sensor (had one but had the wrong plug) and installing a new battery cable, i turned the igntion.

Fuel pump primed and shut off, everything looked ok, no big sparks or any signs of smoke from under the hood

I rolled the jeep out of the garage and onto the blue stone (good thing too). I cranked for just a few seconds and it started to fire on a few cylinders. It started shortly there after, but would barely stay running. You gotta plug the vac line into the MAP sensor dummy!

After getting that completed it started and ran -OK-.... My cam probably had the worst break in ever.... I guess the tach signal from the ECU is different then it was on my renix 4.0 off of the ignition coil, and my digital timing light was not working.... So i guessed at what "sounded" like 2000-2500 rpm. After 5 minutes, i let go of the throttle and looked inside, the temp gauge was almost at 230F-ish. Had that damn stubborn air bubble keeping the coolant from circulating. So i shut the engine off and of course about a gallon came boiling out of the radiator (like i said, good thing i was on the blue stone!). So i topped off the coolant and it had itself primed at that point and i felt the thermostat open by touching the upper radiator hose. After that she stayed at 190-200 with no further problems. I continued to rev it at what i hoped was around the correct RPM for another 10 minutes. At this point it was pretty much dark out, and i noticed the exhaust manifold was glowing a dark red.... is that bad?

I let the engine idle for a minute to let the exhaust cool down. I was also annoyed that the charging system is not working, but wasn't too surprised since i tampered with the alterntaor. I was removing the tools off of the fenders and walking back from the garage when the engine stalled. I cranked for a few seconds (on a low battery) and it wouldn't start. So i start looking over everything with a flashlight. Turns out the fuel pressure line blew off of the fuel rail. The hose i was using was 5/16" and i couldn't really get it onto the fitting on the fuel rail. So tomorrow i'm going to exchange the alternator at the local autozone and replace the piece of fuel hose that isn't the correct size. Will report back tomorrow.

BTW, can anybody recommend a good intake system? i don't even have an air filter for it right now and would like something with a cone filter

Alright, well it charges now

I can't keep it running with the TPS sensor plugged in. I'm going to post my questions in the main section of the forum as i don't seem to get much traffic on this thread

Typically a redhot glowing manifold is a tell tale sign of a clogged catalytic converter.

Glad to hear its running!

I wouldn't doubt it. That cat has seen a lot of carb'ed engine miles that didn't run worth a poop, and the renix had a bunch of blowby and burned oil too! I have a 3 inch cat in the basement that i'm gonna bring with me when i get the exhaust done. Thanks for the heads up though, i thought sure it was because it was running way too lean, which it may have been with the malfunctioning TPS sensor

Clogged cat can make them run hot, too lean can make them glow in the dark, too rich will be the more common reason to glow hot as they are burning fuel in there. Most of these strokers will make their headers glow during break in though. Sort your wiring and sensors out before worrying about the header glow.
John

Great thanks for the input guys. I'd rather be running rich then running lean!

I'm pretty sure i've got the sensors straightened out. The wiring is going to be touched up here and there. I'd like to grab the dash idiot light panel from a newer YJ and wire in the check engine light and the upshift indicator. Other then that, i need to finish the exhaust (gonna leave that one for the pro's, but thats just cause i don't have a mandrel bender), and get a better air filter system

So i've had a few straggler threads here and there, i'll sum it up here just to keep my "diary" going

I had uploaded a picture, in another thread, of my experience with my axle snapping on the highway while heading to have a root canal done.

After replacing both axles, and discovering that there was some air trapped in the wheel cylinder common to the failure, i hacked the cat off the exhaust cause i felt suspicious that it may have been clogged. Much to my surprise, i was able to see through 90% of it with no problem. I installed the closest diameter flexpipe i could find in its place and had the most horrendous exhaust leak. I haven't driven it on the road since monday. Tomorrow (thursday), the "Custom" exhaust fabricater will be at the local muffler shop. I'm bringing with me a high flow 3" in and out cat, and a Flowmaster 50 Delta Flow 3" in and out muffler. Hopefully they won't rail me too much for the pipe and the labor to bend it.

Once the exhaust is completed, i'll see if i can get some more miles on her, possibly a few video's, and get my PSC wired in to start modifying the fuel maps

After all is said and done, i think the biggest mistake of my whole stroker project was the 3" exhaust. I'm happy with the way that it sounds, but not happy with the expense it took to get it here. I paid $150 for the manifold, $30 for the collector, $20 for the stainless wire to weld the collector, i paid $80 for the 3" cat, $99 for the Flowmaster 50 Delta Flow, and $550 to have custom pipes made and everything installed!!!! I'm not crazy about the exhaust work either, because the muffler shop didn't even do TRUE mandrel bends. I can see some crimp marks on each radius bend where a die must have made the markings. Its definitly not kink bent piping, but not true smooth mandrel bent piping. I would have left it all stock and bought a high quality header back system for this price. I don't think that the 3" exhaust is enough of a benefit to this engine for the extra expense of near $1000.

At least i can say that the exhaust won't ever be the bottle neck of my system!!!!!

So far, everything seems to be running great. I'm trying to decide which wideband o2 package i want to go with. I don't know if i should do something that logs data, or just a hard mounted gauge in the cab.

I like my lm2 and I would recommend it if you have an obd2 and want to datalog/scan codes as well. The lm2 also has 4 analog inputs so you can tap into whatever sensors w/ an ob1 or renix and log those as well. The lc1(can be had for $180-220 w/ gauge) is a good wideband without the above.

Cool i'm runnin OBDI

Anything against a permenant mount gauge? i can see that an advantage of a gauge with memory and other inputs might help pinpoint RPM and Throttle position to create a 3D fuel map