Dual Purpose TJ Part IV - Mickey Thompson Tuff Truck Series

K

Jeep got a Hammy.

Why? Yes, it does.

Sweet

you heard it right today on Xtreme 4x4. Our TJ roars with a 5.7 L hemi

swap plus no glamour in these pits, low buck weekend, tough truck racing, four wheel jamboree style.

Now, whether you love building off road vehicles like we

do or maybe your cup of tea is a muscle car or possibly a street rod. Sooner or later, there is one project that we all have to tackle and that is an engine swap.

Now a few years ago, swapping engines. Well, it was kind of like the wild west. There was no rules and no laws if you could fit it under the hood. Well, heck, you didn't even have to fit it under the hood. If you could get it to run, you could drive it on the street. Well, times have changed and now the government spends just as much time under your hood as you do behind the wheel. And there's rules when it comes to swapping an engine in

and that's what we're gonna do today. A 50 state legal V8 hemi

swap.

Now the 4 L straight six engine found in modern Jeeps is actually a pretty good motor most of the time. If there was nothing wrong with it, you just leave it alone and run it as is. But if you're after that big V8 Power, a popular swap used to be, grab a small block Chevy 350 because they

cheap to build and they're plentiful to find. But if you're like us and you're building a truck that you want to drive on the highway, as well as wheel on the trails, it means we're gonna have to pass emissions. Now, what does that mean? Well, it honestly depends on what state you live in. But there are honestly four basic guidelines to follow.

The engine has to be offered in the same vehicle model or class by the same manufacturer. The engine must be the same year or newer than the vehicle that's going in

all emissions devices must be in place and working and finally the vehicle must pass standard emissions testing.

Now, for our TJ, we chose one of the most popular V8 swaps out there for the modern Jeep and that is the 5.7 L

hemi. Now this, we bought online for less than $2000 with motor and the tranny was pulled from a wreck truck and has less than 24,000 miles on it.

And best of all it is a 50 state legal swap for our TJ. And here's why

it was offered in the Grand Cherokee model Jeep

making it an acceptable swap for suvs like our TJ.

It's a 2005 model and our Jeep is an 03. So obviously it's newer

and we bought it with all the emissions devices on the engine.

Once we're finished, we'll take it down to the local emissions testing station and make sure it'll pass.

Now, obviously, this hemi

is not gonna bolt right in place in our Jeep. So we called up the guys at Terra

Lex and had them send us one of their universal

hemi install kits for the TJ. It comes with new motor mounts, transmission adapter as well as their belly up skid plate to hold the transmission and transfer case. And once this is installed, let's have to weld in some brackets, we'll be good to go.

Why are you?

We're going to remove all of the factory harness off of the engine. We're going to replace it with an aftermarket one later.

Then the whole assembly can be slid in between the frame rails of the Jeep

skin plate will protect both the transmission and transfer case and the universal motor mounts just get tacked to the frame.

Now, we did some research on this swap and we knew before we even put this motor in here that we're gonna have to change our exhaust manifold on the passenger side.

Now, our hemi

came out of a truck and the exhaust exits straight off the back of this manifold. Unfortunately, on the Jeep, that's gonna put it right into the bulkhead, be almost impossible to get a Y pipe on there. Now, the Grand Cherokee version of the

hemi, the exhaust manifold twists and dumps down, make it a lot easier to build a Y pipe just by changing this manifold. Now, obviously, if we had a hemi

out of a Grand Cherokee, we wouldn't have to do this. But the simple fix make it all worth it.

The 4 L in our TJ is set up like a lot of other cars out there with a throttle cable attached to a pedal mounted on the firewall. Now, the

Hammy, it is a drive by wire, which means all that's attached to the throttle pedal is an electrical connector.

So we picked up a throttle pedal assembly also from a Grand Cherokee with a

hemi that will mount on a terra flex bracket up on the firewall.

So their

hemi finally mounted in place for good, we can go ahead and reinstall this front shock hoop support tube

and you can really get an idea that although the

hemi is a large engine, there is tons of room under the hood of the TJ, we got lots of room for exhaust on both sides, no steering issues. And if we even wanted to keep the mechanical fan on the front, lots of room between it and the radiator

coming up beyond the spotlight and big sponsorships. These guys race for weekend glory. That's next. When Xtreme 4x4 continues

an extreme four by fours event of the week. We're off to gearhead heaven at the Indianapolis four wheel Jamboree.

For those that love motorsports. There is no place like a four wheel jamboree.

Just all sorts of cool stuff. Jamborees are definitely where it's at. It's the largest convention be

heads and around this country. You got all kinds of monster trucks,

mud dr cars, top trucks showing shine. It's a blast running. Jamborees for 26 years. What better place to host the season finale than the motor sports? It's capital of the world

is, you know, the, the major of all motorsport places.

You know, everybody comes here to try to win. You can expect anywhere from 50 to 100,000 Spectators. It is a very exciting and it doesn't get any more exciting than the Mickey Thompson T truck series. Pretty extreme deal for a four wheel drive truck.

It's a combination of drag racing, motocross, circle track

and a whole lot of fun

running side by side on an s shaped track. It's intense. It's fast. There's no room for error out there. One mistake sends them packing

that elimination bracket.

You gotta keep, keep going through the rounds. If you don't, if you don't win that round, you're out, you gotta be able to walk that course

and know what you need to do to make things go your way. Winning four of six race

is this season,

it's been going Sonny Dorman's way and I don't want to get cocky and anything like that. But I, I it's nice to be on top, backed by a handful of small sponsors without a major sponsor. It's very difficult.

But, uh, we, we're giving it our best shot. Sonny's been locked in a season long points battle with Jeff

it

and his big money AMS oil back machine. I've been actually very surprised at

how well he's been doing out there without having the major sponsorship like they have. It's a battle that it comes down to trying to be a better driver instead of having better equipment around the pits, the Iowa native is laid back and soft spoken

on the track. He's made a joke of the competition

as far as the way I like to run it is uh try to get it as wide open as possible. Everybody else uh tends to back off on jumps and,

and II, I just, I don't like to let up.

My motto has always been is uh if you feel that you're in trouble,

I hit the gas.

My style is putting the pedal down and that's what I like to do underneath the hood. We have a 302. It's actually 347 cubic inches right now and it's about 450 horsepower. The combination from what we have as far as the weight of the vehicle to the horsepower that it has. I think it's a great combination. If you have too much horsepower out there, you tend to just blow the tires off and you're going nowhere.

You need to put the traction to the ground

or, uh, the time's just clicking away.

Sonny's proved he has the hardware and in his decade long career, the time to win the title has never been closer. I can't even describe it. It's unbelievable. I'll tell you what, II,

I mean, just even talking about it, I get chills and tingles about, uh, being, uh,

the, the winner of the championship

by the luck of the draw, the title would be decided early in the bracket. We actually pair up the second round. We're gonna pair up if we see it and then, uh,

that'll make the decision right there. Whoever wins that race is gonna take the championship home. Both drivers easily won their first race, setting up a second round title showdown

today that, uh,

we're, we're on the line for the championship and, uh, that's where we want to be. I think we, we, we will all get them up in the second round across the land, independent and low budget racers. Look to Sony to pull off the upset. I'd like to see him win that points championship. He ran a good year. He, he definitely deserves to win the championship just as much as, uh, as they do in less than 20 seconds. The race was over and gone were Sonny Norman's championship dream.

The championship has, has been, uh, right there and,

uh,

I'm disappointed it's been a good season. I mean, I, I,

the only thing I could ask for better is first, I guess we'll definitely be back.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 where we are right in the middle of our 50 state legal V8 hemi

swap in our 2003 Jeep TJ. Now, so far, we've put our donor motor in between the frame rails. And since this was pulled from a 2005 wreck truck,

we know that we are on the right foot having this truck licensed to drive on the street. Now, all we have to do now is deal with the wiring harness to make this engine run. And since we are after emissions compliance on this vehicle, we need something a little more in depth than just a universal harness kit.

So we put a call into the go to Guy for street legal

hemi swabs and their wiring harnesses. And that's Tony Squire at Hotwire Auto.

They're responsible for the majority of engine swab

hemi. You see out there running around on the streets and believe it or not, they have even put a

hemi in a brand new 2008 JK and had it pass California emissions. That's no small feat. Now, the first step for us was we had to send them our factory fuse block as well as the firewall harness off of our Jeep.

They then added in all of their connectors and harnesses to work together with the original equipment harness instead of a secondary system working on top of it.

Then they went ahead and built us an entirely new engine harness specifically for our

hemi to make it all run.

Now, this truly is a plug and play set up for R TJ.

The factory harness is reinstalled into the passenger compartment and onto the firewall.

Then the old engine harness is stripped

and the new one is Roed around the engine and connected.

Then the factory EC is removed from the firewall to be replaced.

Now, this computer right here is a very important piece of this puzzle. You see if we pulled this wreck motor and gotten the ECU out of the original truck, we probably could make this motor run. But when we went to get the emissions test done on it,

it would fail. Now, the reason for that is simple when they check your emissions on a modern vehicle, they're doing more than just sniffing the tailpipe. So they hook up to the assembly line diagnostic link connector at funny little connector underneath the dash and they check everything. First, they check for vehicle trouble codes coming from the engine. Then they go through and do a random check of all the sensors in the vehicle and then measure the output of all the 02 sensors and this truck here has four of them. Now, when they do that, what they're looking for is to make sure everything is working well. And if it is, you still won't pass because inside the computer is the vehicle's vehicle identification

stored in the memory. Now, if you don't have that number in the computer matching the VIN number up on the windshield, the vehicle is coded as what's called a non compliant vehicle and therefore you will fail in most states. So what hotwire did is they built this computer specific for our Jeep burned our Jeep's Vin number in it and loaded it with the software to run the

hemi. So that way we know

we'll be good to go when it comes to emissions,

but we aren't finished yet. We still have one last thing. Now, if you remember when we removed the fuel tank in this Jeep, we set aside this evaporative canister that looks kind of like an octopus and a couple of tanks. Now, this is required to have this Jeep run, but more important

mounted on the side of it is something called an electronic leak detection valve. Now, these are calibrated to the engine that is in the vehicle. And since this one is set up for the 4 L, if we hook this up to the 57

heavy, the vehicle is going to throw a trouble code and the vehicle won't pass emissions.

Our new leak detector is from a 2005 model dodge with a

hemi and it replaces the original one from the six cylinder.

Then the Eva

canister can be reinstalled into the back of the Je

we're back on extreme and we're putting a complete custom exhaust onto our 57

hemi that we stuffed into our Jeep TJ. Now, this is not an easy task. It's going to take time and patience and a lot of trips back and forth from the saw to the truck

to make all the pieces fit on our Jeep. We're gonna be carrying the driver side exhaust to the front of the engine underneath the oil pan and then back to the finish Y pipe,

then we will move it to finish welded outside of the truck.

And we knew that the exhaust was going to be fairly complex on our Jeep. First of all, because nobody makes a kit that will basically bolt right up to a 57 hemi

swapped into a TJ. So it's going to be a universal fit. And two, our Jeep from the factory had three catalytic converters. So we want to match that for emissions. So we had magna flow, send us two of their small spun converters that will work into our new Y pipe and

one direct replacement converter for a 57 hemi

in a Grand Cherokee that will install downstream of the Y pipe.

Now to build all of our exhaust. We had magna flow hook us up with a complete two and a quarter inch full stainless universal hot rod kit, as well as one of their fully welded, fully polished flow through performance mufflers. And then we'll finish it all off with a double wall stainless tip.

A catalytic converter cleans the exhaust gas as it passes through it by using a catalyst.

A catalyst reacts with the hydrocarbons and catches and holds the unburned fuel particles to clean the exhaust before it goes out the tailpipe.

Now with our Y pipe in place, we'll bolt it up to the manifolds

and then build back from there

making a complete tail pipe using all the pieces from our hot rod kit.

And the last thing we're gonna do today has nothing to do with emissions on our

hemi, but it has everything to do with making this Jeep perform really well off road. It's a complete hydraulic steering assist kit that we got from a gr performance. It's gonna convert our Jeep's newer style steering box over to this older type that's been drilled and tapped to divert fluid down to the rock ramp that will mount on the front axle and this will help us turn our 40 inch tires when they're bound up in the rocks and it all starts with a new pump,

the high flow pump bolts into the stock location right on our

hemi.

Then the steering box will bolt up to the frame rail with a pre 92 lower shaft swapped in that we got from Davey's Jeeps

and finally, the ram is mounted on the axle and then welded to the steering crossover bar.

Now, all that's left to do is to run the steering lines from the box back to the pump and reservoir as well as a couple off the tap ports down to the ram on the axle. Now, one thing that we did notice when we took the factory pump off the motor is the reservoir is broken at the bottom as well as the power steering pump on this back edge.

And it probably happened during shipping. That's just the risk you take when you buy an engine over the internet like we did. Now, lucky for us, ours came from an actual wrecking yard. So we gave them a call and they're going to replace these two pieces for us free of charge. So that should give you guys an idea of all the work it takes to do a 50 state emissions legal swap into a modern vehicle.

Now, before you jump into a project like this head first, you might want to give the Department of Transportation in your state a call and find out what exactly is required legally for you to do to drive the vehicle on the road. It's gonna be different everywhere you live. But before we go away today, I know there's one thing that you guys have been dying to hear all day and I have two and that's to hear that hemi

come to life.

Now, we still have a couple of issues to deal with.

Number one, we have to learn our throttle pedal to the engine

as well as I gotta plug up the 02 sensor holes. That's what that exhaust leak is coming from.

But it sure is nice to know that when you do all that work, you can turn a key and have an engine fire right up.

That's no big deal. It's broken already. Anyway. See you next time.