Jeep Strokers

Hello strokers,

I have had my heart set on stroking a Jeep since before I bought a Jeep, I thought it sounded like a sweet, no brainer, with few complications. I even bought a 1998 XJ with a blown motor just so I could have a reason to stroke it. Now, however, with the block stripped on the stand, and I am trying to hammer out details of the build, specifically those related to tuning, I am almost ready to just do a stock rebuild. I really need to figure out how, if its possible, to get this thing to run right after its all over without breaking the bank. I have seen so many posts on NAXJA and other random places of people talking about their strokers and how they just threw all the parts together and bam its been running great for 100k, and other places like on here people are talking about having to run piggybacks and ECU reflashes along with bigger injectors, FPR, adj. MAP, and whatever else. So come on now, can someone give it to me straight?

Some details on the planned setup, so maybe someone with something similar can tell me what they had to do:
1998 XJ
4.0 Block bored .060
4.0 Rods
4.2 crank
KB944s that are supposed to end up at 9.6:1 C/R or whatever
99+ Intake manifold
Whatever header and high flow cat and cat back etc

It would be nice to just be able to run 24# ford injectors or whatever other injectors with the stock 49psi and call it a day, maybe adjustable MAP, the Hesco FPR if I must, but its expensive (96+)

No current plans for big cam, just re-use the HO, no plans for serious head porting or zero decking or anything else, unless someone tells me one of these is a necessity.

So please guys, lets talk, because I would really like to be able to go through with this.

I went with the Mopar cam because it was just one step above stock style cam so it would breathe a little better with the higher compression and all. Plus the lobes on the Mopar cams are much wider then most other aftermarket cams.

I have a very similar setup as yours. I only have 200 miles on it but it seems strong. I am still breaking it in so I havent gone past 1/3 throtle.

Thanks. Yeah, about the cam, I went out and was cleaning things up a bit from the teardown, and I noticed some nicks in the HO cam, So I'll be going aftermarket, I guess I'll have to figure that out too.

I would never run stock injectors on a stroker. I had stock injectors on a 4.6L stroker and after the vehicle sat for months without power the Apexi lost its programming to add fuel after 2000 RPM. The head had a bad valve guide (among other problems such as sunk valves, wrong springs, etc) that created a ticking sound and I was going to replace it with another head. Basically a junk head. After a long hill climb at high RPMs the ticking sound disappeared. Odd. After pulling the head off I found why the ticking had stopped. The exhaust valves had become tulip-ed and pulled up into the head due to the high RPM climb with lean AFR.

The 24lb ford ones that people use aren't the ones for the 98 fuel injector harness. You can buy adapters though. I run a set of for Cobra injectors and they work out to 26-27 lb/hr on the higher pressure fuel rail. Runs rich after 3000 RPM or so. Search on here as someone recommended a set of injectors off a Taurus, which seem to have a lower flow. I wouldn't recommend the Hesco FPR. Its expensive and personally I rather keep the fuel pressure where it should be. I'd rather tun a piggy back of some some sort, Unichip, SCT, Split Second FTC1, or an Apexi. I have an Apexi and while it only does fuel it works fine. Easy to program, no notebook PC needed, on the fly changes. However, SCT and the Unichip add other functionality such as eliminating torque control, reducing the temp the stock efan comes on at, increasing the rev limited, increasing the top speed, change timing and others. If I were to do it again I would probably go with the SCT as it just modifies the stock PCM with no piggy back. The SCT is very popular with the Jeep V8 crowd and MarineMJR on here sells them.

I would also advise at least getting a narrow band O2 gauges. Wide band is much better and gives you your exact AFR.

Thanks for the info guys, I am going through with it. I am going to pretty much mirror Dino's build.

I'll be back with lots of questions for sure.