Gutless Late Model

I have a 2000 Cherokee 4.0. Everyone in our club says my rig is really gutless. It has a bit of lag, but overall it has no "punch" and while others can really get theirs to hammer, mine just chugs along slowly. Obviously the early answer is always tires and gears, but when you have a bunch of rigs all with 35-37"s with the same motor, you can really see the difference quickly. With that said, I'm running 37"s on 5.13 gears on a D44/9" combo.

It's had a lot of work done to it over the past year and the issue hasn't gone away. Work includes new head, new cam, plugs, injectors, cat and exhaust, coil rail, radiator, thermostat, etc. No engine light. One of the guys in the club recommended I grab a fuel pressure gauge and check that I'm getting good pressure.

I have time to do that on the 5th, so I thought I should check in here to see what other advice is out there so I can check out a few things at the same time.

You know I forgot to ask while we were there, how many miles? Timing chain could have slack

Unknown. Prior owner put in reman but I don't have the paperwork. Best guess based on paperwork I do have is less than 30k.

FYI, I'm probably going to do this:

http://www.xjtalk.com/showthread.php?t=13190&page=2

Really slick setup and will be pretty cool for the long term.

Its a 2000 with the 0331 head, unless your are ready to spend serious cash, there isn't much else to do. A low cost mod would be to bore the throttle body to 60 MM, that does add a little bit of punch.

My 98, with 2x the miles, will run circles around my 00.

Wow, that much of a difference between the 4.0's huh? I thought about the throttle body from here:

http://www.strokedjeep.com/contact.html

I'll check out the fuel pressure, but if its solid I may look at doing that.

FYI, 63mm throttle body, fuel pressure is spot on, and a new rebuilt head. Has enough power around the city, but f'n gutless up hills. Running 37's and 5.13s and I can't keep it faster than 45mph up hills unless I'm to the floor.

I hear Novak has the solution for your lack of horsepower...but otherwise i cant think of anything that ive seen mine is a 98

spinaldex said:

FYI, 63mm throttle body, fuel pressure is spot on, and a new rebuilt head. Has enough power around the city, but f'n gutless up hills. Running 37's and 5.13s and I can't keep it faster than 45mph up hills unless I'm to the floor.

Click to expand...

Either super charge or turbo or gear deeper? Lol

I hear the 00-01's are gutless anyway from a few people, but I guess I was hoping to get confirmation that what I'm seeing is 100% normal for the motor I have. If so, then I need to either accept it, or ... look at another solution.

Novak is huge money because any motor with significant enough hp/torque to be worth the swap over the 4.0 means ... V8, new trans, transfercase, radiator, etc. That's a $10k build.

The 4.0 supercharger has always looked like a better solution. 80hp for $2500 is a much better deal because a stock donor v8 would be right around there and cost 4x as much to build. http://jeepsuperchargers.com/TJ_Wrangler_Supercharger.html has them for that price.