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96 xj sport 5.3 swap

Good luck with the house. That's one of the reasons my XJ was put on the back burner 2 years ago. Now we've moved to Texas and are looking for another house (back burner again). We're having another baby in May (back burner again). After that I'll have zero time (back burner lol).

I'm glad you can make time to work on it!
 
Good luck with the house. That's one of the reasons my XJ was put on the back burner 2 years ago. Now we've moved to Texas and are looking for another house (back burner again). We're having another baby in May (back burner again). After that I'll have zero time (back burner lol).

I'm glad you can make time to work on it!

thanks, im still shopping around. im having trouble finding something with a 2 car garage in my range that isnt trashed or with a foundation in one peice. i wanted to save longer but the rommies having his GF move in with him and giving me the boot so i had to move up purchasing.

the nice thing now is im at a new job and i dont have to work 30hrs of overtime for 3-4 months at a time. so i've got more spare time.
 
got the tach and speedo working, to get the speedo working i needed to get 5v reference to the sensor so i broke apart a cheep usb car charger an soldered wires to it to send the 5v, with the 34 tooth speedo gear its actually pretty close, may need a slightly different gear tho

shifter is done, kinda, i cant manually shift to 1-2 because part of the floor is hitting the heim bolt :/ but i have to pull the case since the AA adapter is leaking :'( lsxj initiation tradition lives on

i did some tweaking and maybe got my shifting problem worked out, ill test it out in the morning

I was hoping you'd be able to give more info on how you're getting you're 96 gauges to work. I'm in the process of swapping my Comanche but plan on using the dash harness etc. From my crashed 96 and thus using the 96 gauge cluster.
 
Good luck with the house. That's one of the reasons my XJ was put on the back burner 2 years ago. Now we've moved to Texas and are looking for another house (back burner again). We're having another baby in May (back burner again). After that I'll have zero time (back burner lol).

I'm glad you can make time to work on it!
I did a majority of my swap wiring when my (now 4 year old) was just 2 months old, I would put him in a bouncer in the back of the gutted XJ while I worked on the wiring/interior.

I bought another rig which is getting turned into my Overland rig (Diesel Chevy Colorado) so my XJ will now be a dedicated trail rig. I am gonna ditch my a/c setup, any interest? We are talking about all my Kwik performance mounts for the 5.3, compressor, all the custom lines/hoses, receiver drier, condenser. Basically everything from the firewall forward to run a/c in a 5.3 swapped XJ.
 
I did a majority of my swap wiring when my (now 4 year old) was just 2 months old, I would put him in a bouncer in the back of the gutted XJ while I worked on the wiring/interior.

I bought another rig which is getting turned into my Overland rig (Diesel Chevy Colorado) so my XJ will now be a dedicated trail rig. I am gonna ditch my a/c setup, any interest? We are talking about all my Kwik performance mounts for the 5.3, compressor, all the custom lines/hoses, receiver drier, condenser. Basically everything from the firewall forward to run a/c in a 5.3 swapped XJ.

well if hes not interested i am!

cant believe i just now saw this lol. i have been strongly considering going your route on the a/c anyways and using the oe compressor of oba.

now that im settled in my place im finally gonna work out all the bugs in this thing so i can start using it! and re-doing the a/c is on the list. even when it was working it didnt work all that great
 
I was hoping you'd be able to give more info on how you're getting you're 96 gauges to work. I'm in the process of swapping my Comanche but plan on using the dash harness etc. From my crashed 96 and thus using the 96 gauge cluster.

sorry i didnt see this sooner

its no different than the 95- stuff. they wrok the same even though its factory obdii. they didnt start the BUS controlled stuff till 97. so the cluster is identical to the older ones, even though most company say 96 and up require other stuff. they dont.

the water temp gauge is plumbed into the passenger cylinder head. i forget what adapter size i used. used the factory jeep sending unit

oil pressure is plumbed in to the block off plate on the driver side of the motor.(i will be moving it to the factory gm location however since i intend to use that oil passage for an oil cooler in the future) used the factory jeep sending unit

the speedo is slightly more complicated. im using the factroy jeep sensor in the trasfer case to drive only the gauge( the gm pcm get its signal from the gm sensor mounted in the transfercase adapter) this sensor requires a 5v referance in combination with the signal wire and a ground. for the 5v referance i ran it to the egr 5v ref pin on the gm pcm. and ran the other wires like factory.

tha tach is the only one out of wack. for one i had to boost the signal since it wasnt powerfull enough out of the pcm to drive the gauge http://www.lt1swap.com/lsx_tach.htm
it reads about double the actual rpm. im not 100% sure if i can just program the pcm to send the right signal, or if ill have to go in an either put in an in line potentiometer or find the right resistor. its not high on the list because i know the reading is double so its easy enough for me to figure out what its running. also i am either running tourqe on my phone or i have scan gauge plugged in, both of which tell me exactly what its doing
 
here's a list of stuff i want to accomplish so i can use this jeep again

-gonna pull the trans and rebuild it. i still have the rebuild kit i bought and didnt use cause i chickened out the first time. when i changed the shift solenoids the fluid had a lot of glitter in it, and its not down shifting right. so im gonna rebuid it and replace all the electronics and harness. it'll also get a shift kit, and corvette servo.

- gonna pull the heads and put in new lifters, im also gonna clean the heads really well change the valve stem seals, lap the valves, and throw in some ls6 valve springs for the cam i want to run(not doing a cam right now, how ever since i will have it apart, i might as well do them now)

-going to rewire the whole engine bay. im really un happy with my wiring job even though it works fine. i want to integrate the harnesses better, wire everything to the xj pdc, and locate the pcm in a better space. i also want to create a diagram for it all so i can trouble shoot in the future if need be. i already have a "new" 5.3 harness. also throwing in new knock sensor and the theyre harness like i should have before even putting the motor in, and cleening the ls1 injectors.

-fix whatever is causeing my massive vibrating issue at 45+ its not drivesaht related, used 2 different shafts no change, unit bearings are in good shape, ujoints are good. i suspect its in the front axle gears.

- then some little stuff like fixing the e-brake
 
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