• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

Project Unicorn - a light duty trail rig

Sooo.

Back on the lift. Disconnect the fuel system.

20190405_183116-me.jpg


Pulled the crappy factory pump out of the tank, and replaced it with a new AEM unit.

20190405_190344-me.jpg


20190405_190351-me.jpg


20190405_190757-me.jpg



CRAP CRAP. Rockauto sent me the wrong fuel pressure regulator and its about 10pm. Guess I'm done for the night.

20190405_192526-me.jpg
 
In the morning I ran out to pickup a FPR (ouch, $120) and 5 gallons of 91 (ouch, almost as much..)

20190406_131652-me.jpg


Rolled out the new to me Genrite 30.5 gallon fuel tank and set it on the work cart. A pretty impressive chunk of aluminium wrapped in an equally impressive chunk of steel.

20190406_082502-me.jpg


20190406_082505-me.jpg


20190406_082525-me.jpg


20190406_082531-me.jpg


20190406_083359-me.jpg


20190406_083406-me.jpg


20190406_083418-me.jpg


Now that I'm done finding the inside of a gas tank sexy, lets work on putting it together.

Getting to here was more work than you'd think.

20190406_084646-me.jpg


And then I turned around to find the fuel sock sitting on the tool cart. crap crap.

Back apart.

20190406_084913-me.jpg


And assembled.

20190406_084952-me.jpg


20190406_085933-me.jpg


Roll the cart under the jeep and lower the lift until everything is close enough to line up and feed bolts through. The tank installs and is held up by the skid plate bolts and not by the straps, which means you're trying to line up the tank/skid, trailer hitch and exhaust hangers all at once. Actually kind of a bitch to install during which i may or may not have (did) crush Dallas's project cart with the lift and now owe him another one.

IMG_20190406_105158_01-me.jpg


For some reason the gas tank used one bolt hole that my car had but nothing else used, and did not use the one the hitch and exhaust hanger used, so I had to drill a hole in the skid to mount it. Also kind of a bitch, and I suck at drilling holes, but i managed to nail it.

20190406_111107-me.jpg



All installed. Its bigger for sure but doesn't actually hang any lower. Extends forward a couple more inches and uses every bit of space, where the OEM tank is very rounded.

20190406_112721-me.jpg


20190406_111413-me.jpg


20190406_112740-me.jpg


Dumped the 5 gallons of fuel in and it read just under 1/4 tank. I'm guessing it stays at full for a long time before it starts dropping.
 
Figured while it was up on the lift, I'd do the new SFR AW4 skid. Sexy sexy.

20190406_132554-me.jpg


And the girl has been complaining about the ride with the 250 pound PAC coils up front. Apparently she likes it rough but not *that* rough. Picked up some Currie 9132 4" progressive coils, a much softer ride.

20190406_122909-me.jpg


A nice shot of that Moroso pan while its out.

20190406_122912-me.jpg


Unable to avoid putting it off any longer, I opened the shop door and turned the key to the jeep.

*click*click*click* DOH

20190406_133228-me.jpg
 
Once the battery charged up I rolled it outside, and cranked the key.

20190406_142632-me.jpg


*BOOM* Strait to 6000 RPM. Those forged pistons with 20 some odd thousands quench just loved that shit.

I didn't get a photo, but the cruise control cable was not seated in the bracket all the way and was holding the throttle open. I checked that it was closed all the way and opens all the way - before I installed the cruise control.

Once I fixed that, all worked perfectly. Shoved a 1/8"ish chunk of wood under the throttle plate which put is at 2K RPM and ran it for 30 minutes to do cam break in.

20190406_143602-me.jpg


I've taken no more photos from here, but I'll give you the story. Ronbo (from naxja) was there when we fired it up, so after break in we left it running and went for a drive. Pinged like a mofo. Constantly. I mean it was pinging driving down the driveway. Went around the block and it just got worse. Came back to the shop, drove it on the trailer, cleaned up and went home.

The next morning Mark came down to look at it with me. We found it only had ~20 psi fuel pressure (should have been 49). Pulled the relay and jumpered the fuel pump and it went strait to 50.

Replaced the relay with the one from the AC (which is still not charged) and it read 45 psi. Went for a drive, no pinging, but no power. I mean it was clearly a torquey little stroker but it just did not want to get up and GO. Until the parking break wore out, which took about 4 blocks. After that I scooted along pretty effing good, no pinging.

Drove it to dinner that night up the highway a ways. Pings just a hair when it locks up the torque converter, but wasn't sure I didn't have a relay problem. Parked it and loaded the camper up, the misses and I were leaving on vacation the next morning, we got back this morning.

Today I ran out and bought a new relay, and tested fuel pressure. Now I'm getting 62 psi (wtf?) and no pinging - but, I am using a crappy $19 harbor freight fuel pressure gauge instead of Mark's snap on. Tomorrow he's coming down to do some more diagnostics and start some ECU tuning.

So I don't really know where we're at on the fuel or the pinging. My brain is still sitting on a beach in Ventura drinking beer and relaxing. :)

I'll update more after we have figured out what's going on and done an initial tune.
 
Probably not. I have a lot of work travel coming up, and haven't started on the front end yet.

But I'll still be there camping.
 
Sexy af... Love the attention to detail man.. And dreaming of having some of that bling one day myself!

Hope the tune and fp get this beutiful beast purring and ready to roar like she wants to! Keep up the good work- habitually stocking this thread for updates and pics
 
This project is no longer "Project Unicorn"...

but instead...

"Project NO Expense Spared"

:laugh:

Looks awesome, but I feel every other post hurting wallet, and it's not even my build.

Might have already been asked, going to get it on the dyno for some real world numbers?
 
This project is no longer "Project Unicorn"...

but instead...

"Project NO Expense Spared"

:laugh:

Looks awesome, but I feel every other post hurting wallet, and it's not even my build.

Might have already been asked, going to get it on the dyno for some real world numbers?

You might be surprised how often I feel like I cut corners to save a few hundred bucks.
 
Interesting day tuning yesterday with Chris Jenson and Mark Nelson. Will write it up later.

Until then let's take bets on cranking compression. Closest guess gets a surprise in the mail.
 
On 91 octane fuel?
 
Last edited:
9.35.1 if on regualr pump gas
 
Cranking compression.

The static and dynamic compression are in listed in the engine build thread
 
Sooooo... I win? LMAO
 
#fail
 
Back
Top