Motor swap question

My friends grandfather is going to supervise our motor swap. He told me to do some resaearch to find out what will work and what will not swap out on the two jeeps I own.
I have a
1996 4.0 auto 4x4 (high milage) the body has been totaled
1988 4.0 auto 4x4 (bad motor) other than the motor the rest of it is in great shape. I was told the lower half of the 88 was shot and not worth rebuilding.
The 96 ran before it was wrecked. I was wanting to know what should I do, save the 88 head for the short block after I rebuild it or just rebuid the whole 96 engine and put it in the 88 body. will any of this work? I just want reliable transportation when I'm finished. I have about 1100 bucks to spend.

the intake and exhast manifold are different. The easiest swap would be to take the 88 head and put it on the 96 short block. That way you won't have to deal with swapping the intake and exhaust manifold. If you want to swap the entire 96 motor you'll have a few things to contend with:
The 88 TPS needs to be modified to fit the 96 throttle body.
The the accesory brackets for the power steering pump are different for the 96 motor, dont wuoate me on that one, but I'm pretty sure.
You won't be able to hook up the EGR system in the 88 using the 96 head and manifolds, a problem if you have to pass smog inspection
The 96 block may or may not have the threaded boss for the Renix knock sensor. I've seen varying reports of that.
Other than stuf like that, it will work, 4.0 blocks are pretty much the same for the entire production run.

http://www.off-road.com/jeep/cherokee/99/09_sept/engswap/engswap.html
^^^^ This link answered almost all questions I had during the swap.
Modify your TPS & the electric fan sensor to work & swap stuff around. Having an entire donor vehicle saves LOTS of hassle. Just use the entire newer exhaust system. You'll have to swap out tranny kickdown & throttle cables to HO ones if you use the HO intake like I did, pretty simple.

My motor swap came in way under that amount including all fluids & misc I needed.