LS drivetrain possibilities

Well I'm 95% sure my XJ is going to get an LS of some sort.

As for trams and trams-case I am not sure. I like the 480le or what ever its called but, I want 100% manual control of it so maybe 700R4 then?

Trams case..... What can a 231 handle being pushed through it?

I've done a lot of reading and google searches but im even more confused now.

Why not use the aw4?

hasta
V8?!? In a Cherokee?!?!


BWAHAHAHAHA..........

It'll fold like a taco!!


Head over to the Street and Performance forum.

Not sure about the trans info.

A friend of mine ran a 5.3L in his TJ for a while with the 231 with no mods before he swapped it for an Atlas.

search function works..
There are a few threads on here where people have put the 5.3 in an XJ.

clean4drxj said:

search function works..
There are a few threads on here where people have put the 5.3 in an XJ.

Click to expand...

is that his screen name? i've done some searching but mostly find old threads that have just died and no posts since like 2007 that don't even really answer anything.

did you check out the 5.3 swap thread on pirate? its like a billion pages long

Is that the one with the shortened D60 in front with RCV shafts?

I read over parts of that but I'm looking into options that dont cost so much.

Tony_SS said:

Why not use the aw4?

Click to expand...

No one makes an adapter and the race team that tried to kept blowing up transmissions. It's posted on here

Frank Z, John D and xj+rks have all done Ls style swaps.
As for the trans, if you want auto, best bet is probably 700R4 no electronics to deal with. Or, if you can find one a 4L60H (non Elec.) Was available for a couple years.
To save time and energy. I would recommend picking up, at the very least, rad, headers, and motor mounts/adapter from Novak. Yes, it is some $$$ but will save you in the long run.

i do plan on getting the motor mounts from Novak and maybe the headers.

turns out one of my armorers knows XJ+rks so i'll be talking to him some, hopefully getting to see the thing.

what adapters do i need if i'm running an all Chevy drive train? just X-member mount?
i found a guy with a 4L60E out of an S-10 with transfer case driver drop for $500, i'm waiting to hear back on the exact number of the trans case.

Well, from an S10 it's the wrong 4L60E. The S10 uses the SBC / V6 torque converter, front pump & bell housing. IIRC it could be adapted to the 5.3 with a $50 machined aluminum piece but I'd look for a full running drivetrain from a Tahoe or some such. Get the whole damn thing in one shot. Trust me, it will save you time AND money in the long run. No guessing games about which year and model trans interacting with whatever engine you come up with, no games with the t case...
Buy the whole mess. ECU, TAC if required, engine, trans, harness, brackets, accessories... The whole mess.
Piecing it together sucks - I know this - I did it on my '57 truck project.

ya no way am i spending that much on one of these. transmissions are $250-500 on CL and trans cases are around $250. i don't need this thing done by october or anything so i'll be playing the piece by piece game.

i'll just make sure that all the dive line parts have come out of 1500 or larger trucks.

Look up bow auto in nh, they have sweet deals on complete engine/pull outs that include everything you need... Harness, cpu's,everything... An there priced really cheap

hmmmmm thats of great interest to me. i'll be contacting them soon

sardo_67 said:

i do plan on getting the motor mounts from Novak and maybe the headers.

turns out one of my armorers knows XJ+rks so i'll be talking to him some, hopefully getting to see the thing.

what adapters do i need if i'm running an all Chevy drive train? just X-member mount?
i found a guy with a 4L60E out of an S-10 with transfer case driver drop for $500, i'm waiting to hear back on the exact number of the trans case.

Click to expand...

I'm willing to bet drivetrain mounting is going to have to be pretty custom.

If I was going to swap in an auto I would get an entire matching setup or even a donor truck. The pcms are tuned to run the trans as well. You can always delete it if you truly hate automatics working like automatics lol. Pretty sure you can manually control a 4l60e and 4l80e as well. 4l80e might be a pain to fit under an xj though.

great-white said:

Look up bow auto in nh, they have sweet deals on complete engine/pull outs that include everything you need... Harness, cpu's,everything... An there priced really cheap

Click to expand...

btw that lq9 you sold me was an lq4

Frank Z said:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?p=244555413#post244555413

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thanks for that one, also so much info in the past 3 days.... i'm not sure if i understand more or just confused the hell out of myself.

few questions:
now the LS blocks are all the same just internals determine 5.3 vs 5.7/6.0/6.2, right?

i like the truck 6.0 but do not want the iron block, i may be able to get a 5.7 aluminum block for damn near free.... put the 6.0 internals into the aluminum 5.7 block, makes 6.0?


i think i will go for a "truck" LSx and that alt bracket to lower it some. keeps alt higher, no intake issues, simpler and uses more stuff from donor vic, sound good?

at the very least the LS will get rebuilt, worn parts replaced, balanced, larger cam, CNC ported heads, ECU tuning, and.... anything else i will need to upgrade other than injectors?
will a high lift cam that causes low vacuum at idol be able to be fixed with an ECU tune? just tell it to idol at XXX RPM regardless of vacuum?

computer:
i would like to only have a computer for the LS, no trans comp and will that remove the one from the XJ as well? i have a 1999 XJ limited, power everything, no ABS, auto
is it possible to get a 100% manual valvebody auto trans for this? i have read that the older 700R4 transmissions don't bolt up to the LS.

The only thing I can offer here is to forwarn you to plan for total custom gauges. AFAIK no one makes a converter/driver for the electronic Jeep gauges. That includes the speedo...