4.0 Engine Swap

Our '93 XJ has a 4.0 High Output engine. It's shot and time to go. (Otherwise, it's a 4.0 NO Output, lol) We are planning on picking up another engine from a salvage yard and are curious about what years of XJ's will simply swap in with no issues and what issues will have to be addressed if we swap in a 4.0 from a 1997 and up.

Preferably we'd like to put in a 4.0 from a 2001 with low miles but are concerned about computer issues, etc.

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

There are three basic "generations" of 4.0 I6 engines - 1987-1990 ("Renix" or pre-OBD), 1991-1995 (OBD-I with ChryCo Electronics), and 1996-2001 (OBD-II with Chryco Electronics.) The OBD-II setup can be further divided into distributor ignition (1996-1998) and distributorless ignition (what I seem to recall is called "Direct Ignition System" or DIS, 1999-2001, had no distributor and six coils that were mounted directly on the spark plugs.)

Your 4.0 is second generation - OBD-I, and anything from 1991-1995 should toss right in without any major electronic issues. I believe the early OBD-II blocks will work as long as the sensors are changed to OBD-I spec, but the DIS/OBD-II is an engine where I'd probably want to bring as much of the donor parts along as I can!

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from doing a Frankenstein job - go with an OBD-I block (your current, if there's nothing seriously wrong with it,) OBD-II cylinder head (which will swap across generations) and OBD-II intake and exhaust (which will improve intake air flow and therefore power to a noticeable extent.)

How much of a boost are you looking for above OEMR? Have you gone over Dr. Dyno's page yet? He's got a lot of home-shop-doable mods and some really good stroker motor info that you might want give a look... I don't have his URL, but look up one of his posts and there is a link at the bottom.

5-90

I have a 91 and put a 97 engine in it. I put my old TB on the new manifold and had to find a place for my temp gauge sensor as my new motor didn't have the hole in the back of the block. That was the only "electronic" changeover I did. I should note that the engine came with a distributor, intake, exhaust and all brackets. If you want a list of the changes I had to make-none were difficult at all- let me know. I did swap all sensors from the old intake to the new one (3 maybe.) Which took about 3 minutes. I can shoot some pix of "visible" ones if you need.
HTH

Thanks so much for the help, sincerely!

I'm not sure exactly what we are going to do. I have found an engine from a 2000 and 2001 at great prices but do not know exactly what donor parts are included.

This project is definitely over my head a bit. I'm just trying to make certain I buy what we need for the project and do it in a way that makes for a simple swap AND gets us the best engine I can find for the buck!

I would like to go with the newer engines we have found which would be the DIS OBD-II as described above. If we go that route, what parts should I make sure come with it?

Thanks again for your help.