Jeep Strokers

Well as much as I’d love to not beat a dead horse I’m at my wits end. I needed to rebuild the engine in my Cherokee as it had some bottom end noise and I wanted to rebuild before it blew. So I figured what the heck I’ll stroke it. I used a clegg 4.6 stage 1 kit with a stage 1 cam. It’s only bored over .020. So here’s the issue, it likes to get warm on me. I can drive hours with it as long as I’m moving. If I sit still it creeps. It has a new water pump, new thermostat, new radiator (thick single core “2 core equivalent”), new electric fan, new ZJ fan clutch with a perfect fan shroud. With the AC on its gotten up to 230 once and with the ac off it will get to about 220-225. It’s hot in SC and the AC blows ice cold in my Cherokee so I don’t want to go without it. I’m about to take it wheeling again next weekend for the first time since the motor and I’m worried it’s going to overheat bad wheeling. So I’m stumped and I’m not sure what I should look at trying next. Any ideas or suggestions would be great.

The engine could be running lean. What year is your Jeep, and which injectors are you using?

Cheromaniac wrote: ↑September 8th, 2019, 11:36 pm The engine could be running lean. What year is your Jeep, and which injectors are you using?

1999 and I’m running 784 injectors. Whenever I had talked to the guys at clegg I asked about injectors and he said I should be fine so I didn’t get any when I built it. Also, she’s sucking a lot more gas than prestroker so that also had me thinking lean wasn’t the issue.

It's possible that the engine's still tight, and with more internal friction comes more heat. As you add more break-in miles, it'll loosen up and you'll see better gas mileage as well as the engine running cooler.

Cheromaniac wrote: ↑September 10th, 2019, 1:43 am It's possible that the engine's still tight, and with more internal friction comes more heat. As you add more break-in miles, it'll loosen up and you'll see better gas mileage as well as the engine running cooler.

I’m hoping that. I’m around 600 miles in now. I was hoping to have more miles on it before this trip, but I had driveshaft issues that needed resolved.

Installed an afr gauge today and at idle it’s bouncing between 14.8 and 14.6 and driving never got above 15. So definitely wouldn’t say running lean is my issue.

I think after 600 miles if your engine was tight enough to be overheating itself, it would have destroyed itself by now.

While I can't pin point your issue I can tell you how I set my 5 speed XJ to run cool with my turbo kit in 98*f ambient temps at 0 to 500 sea level. The turbo is water cooled which put a large thermal load on the cooling system but I didnt have a trans to cool either. Results may vary.

-3 row aluminum China radiator with a stant 16lbs cap.
-Block was flushed when I removed the 195 thermostat and drilled a 3/32 hole in the highest part before the sealing surface. Install it with the hole at the 12 o'clock position. I was surprised with the amount of sediment that flushed from the block.
-HD mechanical fan clutch.
-50/50 Prestone coolant mix.
There was a large amount of sediment in the old radiator as well.

The Jeep runs at 200*f and will max at 210* when hammering it. The radiator needs to be blocked partially in the winter. Maybe I don't need the thermostat hole. Not sure but it felt right at the time. I hope you get it figured out.

I’m wondering if my trans cooler is blocking too much airflow to the fan. It’s the height of the radiator and almost 10” wide. It’s a plate and fin cooler.

You could extend it with some longer hose and temporarily affix it to the bumper. Give you a good apples to apples.

So another thing I have issues with this stroker. It sucks gas, like 3 18 gallon tanks in the 500 mile break in. Also, with 4.56 gears and 35s it can't spin the tires which I know people with stock 4.0 can and I feel like it should be able to spin them. It just doesn't seem like it gained much from the stroker.

Have you verified that the temperature gauge is accurate?
I use an infrared thermometer to measure the temperature of the thermostat housing, where the temp sender is located. I tried several senders before finding a sender that provided the same reading on both the infrared thermometer and coolant gauge.
I verify the infrared thermometer by measuring the temperature of boiling water, corrected for the altitude.

The temp gun I have was reading pretty hot too, but I haven't checked to see if it is accurate or not by boiling water, and it was a cheap temp gun.