98xj 5.3 swap (the poverty method).

[NorIdaWheeler]

Discovered I've got a leak in the trans/tcase adapter (in the join between the two parts). Not sure why. There's a big o-ring in there. Will have to tear it off later to figure it out.

Those are notorious for leaking. Pull it apart and put a nice big bead of Right Stuff on the mating surface.

 

[John D]

Mine leaked until I did the RTV also.

 

[blistovmhz]

WTF? Both of you have the AA adapter?

Mine leaked until I did the RTV also.

Looking at your exhaust, you seem to have WAY more room than I've got. Are you not running a d30 up front? I'm not entirely sure I can fit the drivers side under the bellhousing without interference from the front DS. Looks like I'll be scary close on compression. Mine is routed exactly the same as yours.

Edit: Wait, your driver side turns into a 90 immediately after the header doesn't it?

 

[NorIdaWheeler]

WTF? Both of you have the AA adapter?

No. mine is a th350 to an atlas using a factory chevy adapter. its very similar though.

Good luck on the exhaust. I hated every second of building mine lol. Lucky for me I have the very offset ford dana 60 so i have a decent amount of room. it is high pinion though so that made it a little tighter.

 

[blistovmhz]

Oh, I forgot I DID get pictures of my gas pedal.

The GM pedal is WAY too big (long) and offset too far to the right to fit properly. The base can't really be moved to the left to compensate as the steering column is in the way, but turned out to be an easy fix.

The pedal has a curved part to it. I just cut the curved part out completely.

And welded the straight bits together.

I set the new pedal on the ground beside the stock pedal and pushed it to it's farthest extent (ie: floored) and just matched it up with the stock pedal in the same position. Gave it two tacks and checked throw. Throw is identical to the stock pedal, and it looks like I can use the top bolt hole in the pedal base with the top bolt on the chassis side. Cut off the lower bolt and will install a new one for the lower hole. May have to flatten out the base a bit, or may just weld in a piece of flat stock to the chassis to keep things tight/flush.

 

[NorIdaWheeler]

Almost ready for a fire up. I think I'm bang on my original schedule, which had my first test fire tomorrow.

Well does it run?!!!!!!!

 

[blistovmhz]

Well does it run?!!!!!!!

I FAILED! *throws self on sword*.
The exhaust gave me issues for a few hours, and the roomie had all the electrical tools with him at work, so the wiring didn't even get started till 6pm.

I did make some progress though. Exhaust downpipe is done, O2 sensors wired up, relocated the battery to the rear (loose fit right now), got the pedal base angled and folded right and bolted down and connected, and a bunch of other little stuff.

We've got the day off today, so we'll definitely at least be "test" firing it. Just need to stick the rest of the external wiring into the harness, find our crank signal, and bolt the exhaust back on. I may even pick up a muffler today (I've always been a fan of the super 44 but all I can get locally today is a super 40 or a 40 series... I've heard mixed info about all 3. Which of the three is loudest and which is deepest?).

Today I'm also going to pull the t-case again to seal it up and maybe take a look at the linkage. The thing is, I wanted to do a direct linkage, but the shifter end is only about 1" forward of the case end, and it's about 1.5" above. I'm not sure a direct link will work here, unless it's 1" long and I extend both arms about 1/2" each.

Will also get pictures of my hacky exhaust. I got fed up and just stuck something
together. Will re-work it later (again, when I know the motor runs).


Oh right! I thought of a question.
I've heard a few guys talk about clocking the water port (upper) to point it straight to the passenger side or over towards driver. How is this done, or does it need to be cut/welded? I got a hose on there, but it's of course right in the way of my intake tube.

 

[John D]

Oh, I forgot I DID get pictures of my gas pedal.

The GM pedal is WAY too big (long) and offset too far to the right to fit properly. The base can't really be moved to the left to compensate as the steering column is in the way, but turned out to be an easy fix.

I set the new pedal on the ground beside the stock pedal and pushed it to it's farthest extent (ie: floored) and just matched it up with the stock pedal in the same position. Gave it two tacks and checked throw. Throw is identical to the stock pedal, and it looks like I can use the top bolt hole in the pedal base with the top bolt on the chassis side. Cut off the lower bolt and will install a new one for the lower hole. May have to flatten out the base a bit, or may just weld in a piece of flat stock to the chassis to keep things tight/flush.

I was surprised how well the pedal assembly fit after shortening it some. I used the one Jeep stud for the top mount too.

 

[blistovmhz]

I was surprised how well the pedal assembly fit after shortening it some. I used the one Jeep stud for the top mount too.

Yea, it's like it was meant to go there!.

Any idea on clocking the water outlet on the pump? I know I've heard guys say they did it for their swaps, but no one ever mentions how it's done.
Also, can the outlet be replaced with a 90 degree piece? If I could exit the water pump parallel to the ground, directly out to passenger side, I'd just need a simple 90 degree bend in the hose and it'd be lined right up with my cooler.

 

[NorIdaWheeler]

Yea, it's like it was meant to go there!.

Any idea on clocking the water outlet on the pump? I know I've heard guys say they did it for their swaps, but no one ever mentions how it's done.
Also, can the outlet be replaced with a 90 degree piece? If I could exit the water pump parallel to the ground, directly out to passenger side, I'd just need a simple 90 degree bend in the hose and it'd be lined right up with my cooler.

Heres how i did mine. I just cut a notch out of the pipe and bent it over and welded it back up. To twist it i just stuck a piece of tube in the neck and twisted. It as to hard to twist.

 

[John D]

I used an LS1 pump, outlet goes straight out the front.

 

[blistovmhz]

Okay, so everything's in, but no start.
Cranking is still dead slow. A buddy happened to swing by so I had him check the amount of torque required to crank over (he has the same engine) and he says it feels normal.
Maybe time for a new starter? What else could I be missing? Do these starters need to be shimmed or anything?

Next, OBD reader can't connect to ECM. It worked on the bench, doesn't work in the Jeep. Verified my OBD plug port 2 is to the ECM serial data pin, it's got power and both grounds. I'm also getting no spark.

So, OBD reader can't connect to ECM, and no spark. What's it mean? Theories?

 

[blistovmhz]

Cranking fixed. Never underestimate the voltage drop incurred by booster cables. A good connection they do not make. Figured this out AFTER I went and bought a new starter, which broke on installation, had to drive all over town to find another one, and it didn't fix anything . While I was grabbing the new starter, I happened to find some proper battery terminals (we have tonnes of wire but no big crimpers, cause at the shop).
Cranks normal now.

Next problems are electrical and I suspect most will have to do either with a missing ground or two, or a mixup between ignition and crank voltage.
1. No spark.
2. No fuel. - Fuel relay is receiving signal from ECM and is correctly closing on ignition (have to check on crank as well), but pump is not turning on. *sigh*. As I neither cut nor labled any of the fuel wires, I'm not sure what could have changed, but I wasn't the one actually tying the ECM/Harness into the Jeep. Left that mostly up to my roomie, and we've already found a few mixups, so I'll spend this morning double/triple checking wiring. Still though, I have power leaving the big fuel pump wire and we didn't touch anything outside the engine bay. The pump was bench tested in the tank and connected to the fuel rail. What changed between then and now? *shrugs*.
3. Cannot communicate with ECM via OBD. This I think may be the key to the first issue. My OBD reader cannot communicate with the ECM, but I am sure the wiring is correct (again, all bench tested). All I can come up with is that we're getting EM interference on the serial data wire. Can anyone else think of a reason why the serial link couldn't be established (keeping in mind that the ECM is tripping the fuel relay, so we know the ECM is on)?

 

[blistovmhz]

GREAT SUCCESS!!

5.3 is running... suspiciously well. Not throwing any codes which surprises me.
The lack of spark was due to a missing ground. For some reason the ground from the coilpack terminates on the lower front of the block just behind the crank pulley. Missed it several times. Just lazy I guess.

Engine seems to run really well. Once we had spark, it fired up on the first try in about 1/2 a second. Just barely bumped the starter and it roared to life! Made a bit of smoke off the headers, and blew out some dust for sure, but revs up and down real nice. Wind up is way faster than I expected.

So, I've got LOADS of buttoning up to do on the harness now, as well as running vaccum's permanently, but at this point, everything on the engine seems to be working perfectly (even making battery juice).

Next on the list is going to be the transmission. Perhaps someone can chime in on what's going on.
No drive shafts attached, start it up, stick it in reverse, works fine. Stick in OD/3/2/1 and it idles up to 10km/h, but when I give it throttle, the t-case output slows down. VSS shows speed drops to between 4 and 6km/h.
Tranny dipstick shows normal on the hot mark, but it's clearly not hot. I heard somewhere there's a process to getting the fluid circulated everywhere. Could this be the issue?

Here's the first test fire.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BenjaminSelinger/posts/jEMPhJ6Xg2q?pid=6134015477691189346&oid=112001053228186547918

 

[John D]

Congrats on the start-up, I know it feels good after a lot of hard work. I got killed by the same ground, I was going crazy for a couple days. I woke up from a dream where I remembered that ground at 2:00am. I actually got dressed, went to the barn to check and sure enough there it was. I hooked it up, started it and spent the rest of the night playing with it

 

[blistovmhz]

Congrats on the start-up, I know it feels good after a lot of hard work. I got killed by the same ground, I was going crazy for a couple days. I woke up from a dream where I remembered that ground at 2:00am. I actually got dressed, went to the barn to check and sure enough there it was. I hooked it up, started it and spent the rest of the night playing with it

Hahahaha! Awesome!
Yea, feels good. Love that V8 wind up.

Trans is working properly now (I think). Was just super low on juice. Low enough that I suspect the pump was having a bit of a time trying to get any circulation going. Level looked good, let it warm up a bit and went through all the gears a few times, checked the level again, empty, add more, repeat 10x or so. 9 liters of ATF later and I think it's done. Reverse now reverses, and all forward gears seem to work.

OBD works now, but only when I hook up the connector right in front of the ECM. Suspect signal interference. I've got a bunch of extra wires going through the firewall, so I'll give a few of those a try before breaking down and stripping a shielded cable for the task.

Only PROBLEM right now is coolant temp. I've no idea what temp LT1swap programmed the fans to come on (and my fan isn't connected yet anyway), but at 107C I shut'r down. Rad still cold, so I'm guessing the thermostat is seized. So much wasted coolant. Will try to find a new t-stat tomorrow if anything's open. Might I be missing anything else?

What exactly is the "steam port" coming out of the throttle body? Scared the hell outta me when I was standing right beside it with my head in the engine bay, and got steamed in the back of the head. Should this just get routed to my overflow?

 

[yossarian19]

The steam port gets plumbed either to the top of the radiator or to your upper hose.
Google "steam line ls1tech.com", should turn up some reading.

 

[blistovmhz]

Will do.
Also, anyone know if the following are supposed to be reported via OBD?:
* trans temp
* engine oil pressure
* ... I'll think of something else.

I really don't like the idea of wheeling an auto without knowing trans temp, and oil pressure is always a bonus. I didn't have a tonne of time to check all the reported PID's as the T-stat wasn't opening and it was getting hot fast.

 

[Hoooper]

oil pressure yes. Trans temp I don't think it's available even though something about the temp is known because the computer compensates shifting based on fluid temp. Thinking about it, the temp might be available over torque but not possible to get on a normal gauge pod. Obviously a lot more is possible on torque since the ecm doesn't need to be set up to send it out to a gauge

 

[blistovmhz]

So what do most guys do for trans temp? I really hate to have SOME physical gauges and the rest on a proper LCD. As I mentioned before may be the plan, i may end up building my own CANbus black box and just write the software to deal with the PIDS manually, but that's definitely not a "I'm going for a drive tomorrow and want to see trans temp" sorta project .

I'll look more into the GM PID's tomorrow. Anyone happen to have a complete list for an 04/05?