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Build thread White '99

So, it's been awhile since Ive posted here to the forum, and I do have some updates for the rig. I'll start with the current status of the rig, and it is broken, sitting in my garage, without a motor in it.


After the radiator was in I was enjoying cool running engine temps and all was good; up to the point at which it wasn't. I had a misfire code pop up on me a coupe times. #4 had a sporadic misfire that I cleared several times and when I went to troubleshoot I found what I thought to be the culprit, a loose injector connector with a bad clip. So I did a quick temp repair and safety wired the connector down and cleared the code again. Engine seemed to be running fine, and I had no reason to suspect that there was anything else going on. On my way to work a couple nights later, and now the CE light came back on and this time was flashing, with engine vibes. I pulled off the side of the road and shut it down. checked my safety wire job on the connector, and all seemed good, so now I knew it was something else. I got the Jeep home and began troubleshooting, And may I say, working with aviation fault isolation manuals and wiring schematics is 100000000x better than working with the chrysler's troubleshooting tips, or wire prints.

After checking spark plugs caps and injectors, and all of the other AllData recommended checks I did an exhausting wiring check out of the Fuel injector harness. I found that cylinder 4 had continuity across the pins in the connector and also had continuity with cylinder 3 pins. So, I found my real problem, a bad Ecu harness that had fused together several wires in the bundle right above the exhaust manifold by cyl 4. I contemplated just fixing the bad wires, however, I felt this left me open the the possibility of future problems.







So I set out chasing down wires and restringing a new harness with High temp 20ga stranded pair wires from the ECU to the Fuel injectors and some of the sensors on the intake manifold. I also gave it little aviation touch by adding two 10 pin cannon plugs. This gave me the ability to splice the new harness into the existing harness while also giving me the ability to quickly remove the engine sensor harness completely off of the engine and out of the bay. Preventing damage to the harness during engine maintenance. Since I was rerouting wires, and Chrysler doesn't draw prints as a system but instead as individual components, I drew up my own wiring print for the new harness.

As you can see, I consolidated all the information from 8 different prints into this one print, and illustrated my mod to the harness. P1 and P2 connectors are the two cannon plugs i added to the harness and labeled their respective pins. I essentially ended up with a cannon plug for the injectors, and a cannon plug for the manifold sensors.




















I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I even went through and used lacing cord to secure the harness, and then sleeved it back up with new plastic wire loom(?). After reinstalling and verifying all my pin outs were correct I started up the jeep. No CEL, or engine vibes, however, now the engine had a distinct ticking noise, like lifter noise.
 
Again, Back to troubleshooting, However this time, I suspected engine damage.

I did a compression test, and all cylinders were spot on 130 dry and 145 wet. I moved on to the valve train. I removed the push rods and checked them to be true and straight and all of them checked out fine. I again moved further into the engine, now expecting the worse. I checked all the lifters with a dial indicator and to my dismay I found the #4 exhaust lifter to be about .430" short. Since the Lobe on the cam only has .299" of lobe lift, I knew I had two casualties. I then Pulled the head and then the lifter and sure enough, the normally flat faced bottom of the lifter was domed in.




After almost 8 months, I finally started working towards fixing the jeep. I removed the block from the jeep, and cleaned it up. I removed the cam and wouldn't you know, #4 exhaust lobe was nearly flat.



Of course, this had to be from the issues from the #4 injector wiring being shorted together with its neighbor and after sitting and thinking about for awhile, I am beginning to wonder if the failure of the original engine could be attributed to the my wiring woes.


Anyway, I'm in the process of putting this pig back together. I ordered the same cam that I had before, Comp 68-232-4 and new comp lifters.

This time around I also took RCP Phx's advice and purchased an adjustable timing set, JP performance double roller set.





I started degreeing the cam to the cam card and installed straight up I was getting -4* retarded with my Intake CL AT 114*. I also wanted to verify the timing events to check that my math on the degreeing was done correctly. This is where I got extremely frustrated. Comps card advertised that all timing events were at .050" however when I checked the events, they were all +/-20* off. I checked these measurements a dozen times and kept coming up with the same results. I imputed my results in a cam calculator and found that my duration and Lobe separation were correct to the card, and when I imputed the card's info into the calculator, it came out with completely different durations and lobe separation. So I knew something was up. I gave comp a call and after talking with their tech specialist for about 20 min we discovered the card was a misprint, and instead of the timing events being at .050" they should have been notated as @.006"







After I got all this straightened out I was able to check the events and my math. Everything checked out to be -4*, Intake open was @ 9* BTDC instead of 13* and so on. I adjusted the crank gear to +2 and rechecked everything again and now i'm a little less than -1* within spec. Good enough for me.





So, hopefully in the next 2-3 weeks ill have a weekend to put this stupid motor back together and get this Pig driving again. And maybe my second attempt at this stroker will be more successful than the first.


More to Come,


Maybe,



:patriot:
 


Dude, :doh: I just read your thread and I feel your pain. Chrysler did an absolute terrible job and drawing those prints, and they are a pain to find. I also tried the dealer and online searches to find that harness and came up with nothing. And not feeling real keen on finding one and risking having another bad harness building my own was well worth it.
 
That sure brings back memories!
P1080507_zpsbnzjnnlo.jpg
 
Yeah, I wish I had done all this back on the first install. also, thanks for the recommendation on the adjustable crank gear. Before you mentioned annoys that, I had no idea there was such thing for a Jeep. How's the Stroker working out for you?

I had to do a little bit of research on this, but I'm glad I learned it. There is a Guy on you tube named JafroMobile, his videos gave me the best insight into this process. Highly recommend his channel for anyone that is looking into engine building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbWWCKPuZG4

of course, this is for a 4G63 and not a jeep but the principle is the same.
 
Just an update to this thread.

I got the engine running back in august. Took quite a bit of figuring to get the cam to cooperate. ended up talking with an engine builder, he recommended doing a cranking compression test at each setting on the adjustable crank gear. Which ever degree setting on the cam gear netted the highest compression is where the cam should be. For mine, It was +6 degrees.

makes no sense, but now the engine runs great.


That being said, my wife had been pushing me to sell the jeep, so as of 3 days ago, the jeep has been sold. It was a said day, 7 years of memories and hard work. but happy wife.....

Anyway, if the guy that I sold it too finds this thread, hopefully he'll add to it.

thanks for the memories.
 
So sad to hear that you sold your jeep!

Have a question, how was the gas consumption, from the stock engine and the stroker, was there a big difference?
 
No not a huge difference. Wasn’t great, maybe 13-15 average. I was getting about 230-240 miles out of a tank so. However I didn’t do a ton of freeway, mostly around town.
 
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