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Anybody put a 4.0L in an 82 CJ7?

old_man

NAXJA Forum User
I am going to help a buddy upgrade his 82 CJ7. I have scored a 4.0L and I am going to rebuild it as a 4.7L stroker.

My first question has to do with getting a high pressure fuel system. Did you go with an external pump and a return line, or did Jeep have a compatible high pressure tank with a return on a later or different model?

To keep things cheap and simple, I am going to keep the T5 / D300 combo. That means that I need to mount a CPS. I figured I would pull the existing bell housing and machine it for the new CPS. Anybody ever done this?

I have a cnc mill and can build up the aluminum before machining if needed. Anybody ever done this or have a good link. Dimensions would be nice, but I can pull them off of an AX15 if necessary.

What did you do for a clutch disk? Does the CJ setup work with an AX15 clutch disk?
 
OK, since you're the expert, if I switch the tranny, then I have to switch the tcase.. That means a custom cross member and different drive shafts.

He doesn't do any serious off-road or hotrod it.

I am just looking for a simple fuel solution.
 
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Thanks, but I don't want to swap the tranny or tcase. My question was about a solution for the fuel injection.

Back to my original statement..........

You'll have a harder time modifying the bell to accept the CPS than you will modifying a cross member.
The answer is to stick with an AX15.

As to the fuel system.......inline regulators are about $100 last time I looked, mount to the frame rail and return to the tank.....simple enough.
 
You'll have a harder time modifying the bell to accept the CPS than you will modifying a cross member.

I have my own shop and mill and 40+ years of experience. That mod is pretty easy. Fabbing a cross member isn't hard, just having the drive shafts modified gets pricey.
 
Personally, there is no way I'd do any amount of work to keep a T5 behind anything, especially a stroker. By the time you figure out the sensor stuff and the flywheel/clutch, you'll have an old, weak, one-off transmission.

With an AX15 at least you'll have some strength to show for your troubles. Modding driveshafts really shouldn't cost much, less than the headaches you'll go through making a T5 work then promptly needing to replace it.

My local driveline guy charges under $200 to make those kind of changes when I need them.



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There is an off the shelf fuel pump that was recommended to me. E2000 I believe it was. I would use an OBD1 fuel rail and computer. Fuel regulator is on the rail. So all you would need is a return line into the existing fuel tank I believe. Of course I'm not going on any experience just theory.
 
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If you do the Hesco kit with the harmonic balancer CPS, make sure that its clocked right and loctite the bolt. I spent a long time troubleshooting a car with one of those kits to discover that there was play in the assembly and the timing was not only off, but would change with hard bumps.
 
If you do the Hesco kit with the harmonic balancer CPS, make sure that its clocked right and loctite the bolt. I spent a long time troubleshooting a car with one of those kits to discover that there was play in the assembly and the timing was not only off, but would change with hard bumps.

Good to know...did the system work well for you, I'm spending alot of time and money to make sure this CJ is perfect.
 
I didn't install it, and after getting it running right never saw the car again, but driving it around for a couple of days it seemed to do pretty good. Stock renix 4.0 in a CJ5 with the CJ's manual trans. If I were doing one I'd probably want to keep the auto.
 
Didn't Bezzel sp? put a xj drive train in a CJ6?
 
I didn't put one in an 82 CJ7 but I did put one in a 73 CJ5. Close enough? :looney:

Started with a rotted out 95 as a donor. Auto, but that's not very important.

It's in front of the factory T150 and t-case. Same reason you stated. Mild dirt roads and summer fun driving, no hard rock crawling, only reason was because the 4.2 was getting tired and the owner (a friend's dad) was tired of fiddle-****ing with the carb every spring.

Harness I based off of the XJ one, customized to fit and trim a lot of emissions and accessories fat.

For a water pump I used a YJ/ZJ 4.0L one - why? Because it is the right size to put a ZJ or YJ clutch fan on, which lines you up with the center of the CJ fan shroud opening. I don't know if the fan will fit the CJ fan shroud or not (he wanted an aluminum radiator and custom fan shroud... I would have tried to use stock parts otherwise) but my guess is a CJ, YJ, or ZJ one will fit, and the CJ fan will probably bolt to the water pump. You need the YJ/ZJ water pump pulley too, junkyarded that.

I used the Hesco front mount CPS. I personally would have machined the bellhousing like you want to, but again that's what he wanted to spend money on and it made my life easier so I wasn't about to argue.

I can't remember what clutch, flywheel, pressure plate, etc were run but if I had to guess, it was stock 258 parts. It may have even been the originals. I can ask if you want. Remember that if you machine the bellhousing, you're going to have to use an EFI 4.0 flywheel from the right year to give the CPS something to read off of, and then you might need to use the 4.0 pressure plate (which could affect what clutch actuation system you need to use) as well. I'm also not sure what clutch disc you should use, but that's pretty easy, compare the stock T5+258 clutch disc specs on rockauto to the stock AX15 clutch disc specs for the donor year. You can double check all that data on Novak's site for sanity sake.

Pilot bearing you should double check what you'll need. I believe he bought a custom one from Novak designed to make a 4.0L mate to a T150. You'd obviously need the T5 one instead. Measure your bore (the 4.0L has two bores - 1.816"ish outer, plus a smaller inner that's 1.0" or 1.055" depending on year - the old jeeps and Novak pilot bearing I believe fit the latter pocket, so you need to know which you have before ordering) and throw money at them, problem solved. If it's a 0.75" pilot tip you can use an FC69907 bearing and spacer kit, if it's 0.59"ish I believe there's some 70s CJ7 w/ 304 pilot bushing people like to use.

I kept the serpentine belt drive because it is easier to adjust and seems more long lasting than older V belts. This allowed me to keep the stock AC compressor bracket (he plans to use the AC compressor for OBA) and alternator bracket and not have to screw around finding the right pulley to make the water pump V-belt compatible. I bought a rebuild kit for the power steering pump, disassembled it, gutted the pressure bypass valve, TIG welded it closed, removed all the sector plates from the pump, installed new seal and bearings, and reassembled, then capped off the return line and put a bit of power steering fluid in it. It's now the best-lubricated idler pulley on this planet. If you wanted, since you have your own machine shop, you could just build a bracket to use a water pump bearing and an extra pulley instead of doing this, but he wasn't sure if he'd want to swap to power steering later so we just gutted the pump and left it in place. I also took the XJ mechanical fan and clutch off and simply bolted the pulley back on without it as an idler. We considered rerouting the belt but the easiest cheapest route was just to keep it stock and disable a couple things. Sure is nice to be able to walk into a parts store and just ask for a 95 XJ 4.0L serp belt, too, instead of having to remember what length it is or worse, pick up the remains off a half mile of interstate to try and find the part number on it.

For fuel system I believe I used the stock 91-95 fuel rail and regulator plus... I want to say a Ford Mustang fuel sender and pump assembly he had sitting around. We had to hack it up and customize it to make it fit into the tank. You're kinda on your own on that one, I'm real fuzzy on it and I recall not being happy with how I did it because I would have preferred to find some factory unit that bolted in and worked, while he just wanted the damn thing running and didn't care if things were up to my usual standards.

BTW... most of the instrument panel connectors on a CJ are Packard Type 56s. You can get the housings and crimp terminals for dirt cheap on mouser/digikey/the usual suspects, should you wish to rebuild your harness to mix flawlessly with the EFI harness. I did, because the existing harness was a mess.

Good luck. If you want my notes on wiring harness color codes and which wires are important and what they do, I'll gladly post them, I've done a couple swaps w/ these drivetrains now and it makes it a lot faster.
 
You guys do realize that this happened 18 months ago? :roflmao:

I worked with the settings and jetting and got it to run mostly OK. The carb was a good 50% too big and it was a bitch to get it dialed in. Luckily that carb has a pretty sophisticated set of adjustments.
 
I didn't, actually. I guess I should look at post timestamps :dunce:
 
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