Korsch_RS

We had some hard rain on and off the next day, made for some slick rocks and mud, and deep water holes Hit the hitch coming down this ledge We sent the Rubicon with the snorkel in to investigate this one mad flex yo! Lots of these cool cedar woods on the second day, kind of creepily dim and little to no undergrowth Day 3 was abbreviated as we had to drive back to Detroit, so we made a quick trip up to fossil ledges before heading south Spotted a deer on the way After that we headed south for the long drive home! Great weekend

I got the transfer case fixed and AntiRock installed just in time to head up to Drummond Island with a couple friends of mine. One was driving a Rubicon JK with a 2.5" lift and 35" Nitto Ridge Grapplers, the other JKU Sahara totally stock except for JCR skidplates. There was a fair bit of water (I need to figure out how to raise my intake a bit, I'm thinking cowl induction instead of a snorkel) and some good rocky trails. This was my first time on rocks of any kinds and it was more fun than I thought it would be. On to the pictures! Crossed the Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula Quick stop along Lake Huron on M-134 On the Ferry to Drummond Island First ledge, the truck had no problems. The 2dr JK struggled a bit, I think just due to the shorter wheelbase Sahara almost gut stuck in this mudhole, with a little back and forth he got himself out though Shale Beach Marblehead as the sun was setting Going down the steps As close to the cliff as you can drive We had to take some LED light photos from the top of the steps before we left Glen Cove Beautiful stars Putting our lights to good use on the way home in the dark

Dillithium, I'll send you a PM about the bumper I took the truck out to a local off-road park, Bundy Hill, and had some breakage. Before the breakage, good times were had: Pulled out a friends Colorado: Climbed a steep hill video link, it's on a friends facebook so I'm not sure if it'll be visible: https://www.facebook.com/cdaiscool/videos/10104900640139792/ Flexed out in a ditch Another facebook video link: https://www.facebook.com/cdaiscool/videos/10104900642200662/ followed a trail through the woods But then I tried to pull size mall-crawler off an obstacle they should have no problem with, and my T-case went pop and i lost drive to the front axle. I played around with friends a bit for the rest of the day, and had to use the go-pedal to get up some shallower climbs, but it was still fun and the truck drove home without an issue so all-in-all, still a pretty successful day. Spend the next day taking apart the t-case, and I found this: This is the AWD/4WD shift selector sleeve thingy, P/N 83503542. It slides into the center differential of my NP242 to either provide AWD or, if it slides in further, it locks the front and rear together for 4wd You can see some of the sheared teeth on the magnet and inside the differential So I ordered the parts to get this fixed, and while the truck was down I finally installed my Currie AntiRock front swaybar!

A couple weeks ago I went on an offroad rally event here in Michigan put on by a new company called 4 Wheel Rally. We met up in Pontiac MI, took some Hellcat rides around M1 Concourse, and headed north for some wheeling around Mesick MI, before staying at a nice hotel in Traverse City. The next day we headed south east towards West Branch MI for some more wheeling, before heading back to the Detroit area. They had a professional photographer ( Steve Choryan http://www.facebook.com/ChoryanPhotography/ ) and videographer (Kris Barclay http://www.facebook.com/AOPkbarly/ ) along taking tons of cool photos and videos. Recap video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2O34UnCryo They were always egging me on to floor it up the hillclimbs, and they took a video of the exhaust on one :) https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ_ku_8ghxt/ They just announced the summer rally will be June 8-11 and we'll be heading up to Drummond Island and the Eastern Upper Peninsula. If you're interested check out their website for more info and to register http://4wheelrally.com/

Thanks! Your truck looks great on the 40's! And haul cut up old cars and parts to the metal recycler! The TBSS intake manifold I have sits about 2-3" above the hood at the throttle. I think the regular truck intakes are a little bit shorter, they might stick out 1-2". If you get a car intake manifold from a camaro, GTO, or corvette it will fit underneath the stock hood (like what Comanche SS has on his truck). I may end up going this route down the road. Technically the TBSS intake manifold I have makes more torque on the low end, but that's at wide open throttle, and if I'm doing that I get above 3000rpm really quickly, and then the tall TBSS manifold really isn't any better than a car manifold. So I may swap to a low manifold in the future to get a cleaner hood line.

Thanks! I've almost got the build thread caught up to where the truck actually it now. I've been having too much fun with it lately to stop and write build thread posts :) Haha yeah, these trucks are great fun. I follow the build more up to date on your Instagram though, is there any other big plans going on with the truck in the future? I ask because, you've got a nice axle, a great engine, only things bigger than that are cage links and even bigger axles, are those planned? Or is this where you want the truck to stay? Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk I'm not really sure. I'm not really that interested in building a dedicated rockcrawler, I want more of a do-anything adventure truck that I can use to explore trails, get outside, go camping, etc... I'd like to go up to 34's or 35's, and maybe a dynatrac 44 in the front at some point if/when the d30 blows up. I've been thinking about an exo-cage and bed sliders like reson46 or H3RESQ/ryanatrocks@yahoo.com have on their trucks, but all of that is way in the future. The current combo of LS2, d30, F8.8, long arms, and 33's is lot of fun both on the street and on the trail, so I'm happy with leaving most of that as is for at least a little while before I really rip it apart again. The next medium sized project will actually be getting some storage systems built into the bed. I have a way of holding all my normal wheeling stuff in the bed right now, but it's not very secure from theft, not very space efficient, and not very flexible to different loadouts. So this spring/summer I will be building something that will hopefully solve those three issues.

Thanks! I've almost got the build thread caught up to where the truck actually is now. I've been having too much fun with it lately to stop and write build thread posts :)

The siped KM2’s did pretty well in deep snow, and ok on cold snowy/wet roads, but with the new power the truck was liable to get pretty sideways with small throttle movements. I found some 33” tall snow tires that looked like they had pretty aggressive tread, almost like an all-terrain but with softer rubber and more siping, so I decided to get a set. I found some 16” wheels from a 2009 Ford Ranger sport to mount them on. In hindsight these wheels were a poor choice. The Ford center bore diameter is ~1-2mm smaller than Jeep, so they need spacers to move the wheels out past the hub bore of the Dana 30. The wheels fit fine on the Ford 8.8 however. The spacers are also good because the wheels have more backspacing than the Cragar Soft-8’s my KM2’s are on, but all the spacers and thicker flange of the aluminum wheels meant I needed extended lug studs. I used ARP 1007703 on the front and Dorman 610-523 (I think) pressed into the 1” spacers I currently have on the rear axle. A Lisle 22800 wheel stud installation tool made installation easier. This went fairly smoothly, however just buying wheels more suited to the truck the first time around would’ve saved some headache. The tires are Yokohama Geolandar I/T G072 in 285/75 R16. They work out to 32.8” tall (same as 33” KM2’s) and 11.25” wide. I’ve taken them up the the northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula a few times now, and they’ve done pretty well. The snow hasn’t been deep enough lately to test the floatation properly, but the road traction is hugely improved over the KM2’s, and so far the off-road traction hasn’t seemed to suffer at all. The tread has been clearing well in the warmer wetter snow we have currently. If we get anymore fluffy powder and I get a chance to play in it I will update with my impressions.

I welded the C’s to the axle as close to the pumpkin as I could. One is directly welded to the tube, about an inch from where the tube goes into the pumpkin. The other I actually trimmed down and welded it direct to the pumpkin. I preheated the cast steel until I couldn’t touch it at all, and then double passed all my welds with the welder cranked to the max. I only have a 110v :( Because the MJ doesn’t have a tradition frame with cross members, I tied the chassis shackle mount into the back of the cab. I plated the back corner with 1/8” steel, and welded a bit of 2”x2”x0.188” square tube to lower the upper mount, which is welded to the bushing sleeve part. I used some of the leftover parts from my long arm kit to make the bar adjustable. Here’s the lower bar, 2” OD 0.25” wall steel with the bracket for the upper bar heim. And here’s the assembled traction bar. The upper is 1.5” OD 0.25” wall And looking back you can see the relatively central location of the bar on the axle, and how I welded one of the C’s to the differential casting I had to rejig the exhaust a bit to snake around the traction bar. I also added some v-band flanges to the cat because I’ve been having problems with those connections coming loose and the truck suddenly getting incredibly loud. The traction bar made a huge difference to the way the truck handles. I couldn’t ever floor it before because the rear would squat really badly, and you could feel it squirming all over the place. With the traction bar is squats a little, but not much, and just hooks up and goes. Going over bumps or cracks in the road on the power the truck is much more stable and composed too. I’m super happy with how it’s performing overall now.

After improving the front suspension so much, I had to do something about the stock leaves with AAL in the back. I ordered some Rusty’s Offroad 4.5” lift springs. Added some 3/4” spacers to the front to level it out a bit These new leaves flex and ride way better than the old ones. I went up to the middle of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula for some snow wheeling to test out all the changes :) Once aired down the KM2’s did well in the deep snow. At around 10psi they would ride up on the snow with gentle throttle, but if you got in the power they would just dig down really fast. I was playing around with some friends of mine, and they took some burst shots of me fooling around and I turned them into gifs. When I was looking at these, I confirmed something I had been suspecting with the V8 torque and flexy springs. My rear axle is wrapping pretty bad. Which means it’s time to install the RuffStuff Traction Bar kit I’ve had lying around for a while!

Front LCA's are about 31" long and sit almost perfectly flat. I can feel the anti-dive pretty significantly, the front stays higher under brakeing than it did before. I can also feel the passenger side (where it's just a LCA and not a y-link) want to dive more than the drivers side under hard braking, but it's not enough to feel unstable, just a little weird. I'm working on a front sway bar now that should help reduce that. The transmission guy tore my trans all apart and found the 3-4 clutches were burned up, and a groove in one of the bands, but couldn’t find anything that would have caused those problems unfortunately. He also sent my Torque Converter back to the shop that built it and hooked me up with a new one in case the problem was in there somewhere. I took some datalogs with a Tech2 I borrowed from work and it was showing a couple hundred rpm slip across the TC when it was supposed to be locked up, so there may have been an issue inside there somewhere. Once I got it back I put the truck back together with the new front suspension. I picked up HPTuners to better datalog the rebuilt trans, and do some tuning. I’ve never been a fan of the way most automatics shift, so I wanted to dial this one in the way I wanted. First drive with the transmission in and front Long Arms! And then I ripped a brake line off, luckily it was as I was backing into my driveway. It looks like the long brakelines rested against the LCA right about where the tire would get close when turning, so it looks like a tire lug snagged the line and ripped it right off the caliper end when I turned the wheels hard to back in. I ordered some new lines and whipped up a spring to hold them out of the way of the tire, but allow them to stretch out when the suspension articulates. It’s hard to see but one end of the spring is under the coil retention bracket bolt, and the other end is ziptied to the middle of the brake line. They’re pretty soft springs, about 3-4” long normally and I can stretch them out to 8-10” by hand.

While the truck was down with the trans out, I decided to redo the suspension with some DIY Long arms. I originally wanted to do a 3-link, but there just wasn’t enough space to fit the upper link under the truck with the bigger engine, transmission, and exhaust pipes getting in the way, so I ended up settling on a single-Y radius arm setup. I swapped the UCA joint on the diff with a Currie Johnny Joint so I could get a larger ½” bolt now that I only had one UCA. I also plated the front half of the frame (rear will be done this summer) and added some air-bumps to smooth out the ride with my limited ride height and up-travel, and upped the lift a little bit with some MetalCloak Dual-Rate lift springs. I put some cheap white-body 12” travel shocks on it for now just to get it on the road, it will be getting something nicer later (Fox/Kings). No going back now! Beefy 1.25” Heims LCA’s mounts tacked on and LCA’s mocked up I went with SPC Performance 1.5” travel JounceShock air-bumps because they had some nice parts available to make the mounting and installation a lot easier. The steel cups shown here are threaded to accept the bump, so you just weld that on wherever you want it and thread the bump into it. I found a nice place to mount the bumpstops underneath the frame rail and they contact the axle on the flat part of the truss between the coil pad and the differential. I had to trim one little stiffening rib of the diff to make the whole pad flat. Passenger side was hitting the sloped part of the truss, so I ended up cutting that out and welding in a flat part for the bumpstop. All put together I also siped my BfGoodrich KM2 tires while the truck was apart to try and improve the wet weather/snow traction. This is just the pattern I came up with.

Post-LS Swap Once I got the engine in and running, I drove it around for a little while still on the old suspension (Rough country 3” XJ lift front, AAL and extended shackles back) and went to some local car meets, most people really likes seeing an LS in an old Jeep :) Unfortunately I was getting pretty tired of how rough the short arms and AAL lift was, it was pretty harsh going over any bump in the road. Unfortunately I started throwing a P0894 code “Transmission Slip Detected”. This was causing the transmission to go into a limp-home mode and max line pressure for all shifts. It would chirp the tires going into third gear at low throttle openings, and beyond being uncomfortable, this would sometimes make the truck slide rather alarmingly if there was any moisture on the ground. I ended up pulling the transmission back out to go back to the Trans guy to get torn apart again and the problem investigated.

Yeah Cooper Bussman and Littlefuse make some nice products. I really like how much cleaner your installation looks with the ECM hidden away, but I didn't want to pass so many wires through my firewall, and I was already filling up the 48 pins on my pass through. I like how your fusebox is farther forward then mine, I'm thinking about moving mine forward a bit more this summer, and try to free up some room to make a cold air box for the intake in the back corner.

Thanks Brent! It was fun to catch up and talk Comanches with you over the weekend Electrical: I decided to use the stock v8 engine harness as a base, but make my own complete new truck harness for everything forward of the seats. The only stock MJ wiring I’m using are the two connectors by the drivers foot that go through that power the b-pillar lights, fuel pump, and taililghts. This was actually way easier than I thought it would be. The key was to take things one circuit at a time. My basic process was this: Remove the stock harness from the engine/trans, label every connector as I take it off with masking tape and a sharpie Take all the loom and electrical tape off everything De-pin any connector from the LS harness that I wasn’t going to use on my truck (mainly the fuse box connectors) Go through the ECM/TCM connectors and remove pins for the emissions systems I was removing. Mount all the major components where I wanted them (ECM, TCM, Fuse boxes, etc…) Plug the harness into the mounted ECM Going one circuit at a time, lay out all the sensor, injector, and other engine wires across the engine bay how I want them to run, and loosely place the wires into those spots. Shorten or lengthen the wires as required (Only do one wire at a time!). Use zipties to loosely hold things in place, loose enough so I can put additional wires through those locations. This is just the things that are already done on the stock harness (injectors, MAF/MAP, coils, crank position sensor, etc…) and just need to be shortened/lengthened. After the engine circuits are finished, start laying out the circuits that need to interface with the truck itself As each circuit gets placed, write down the wire color and pin number of each connector as you go. I made a big spreadsheet with all my connectors and pinouts on it, and started with almost all of it blank. As I completed each circtuit, I filled in the pinouts for each connector that that circuit connected to. There are some pictures of all my wiring documentation below. Some pictures of the process. With the wires going everywhere, I think it looks a lot worse than it really was. The most important thing is just to be methodical; take it one wire at a time, label everything, and then double check your labels. Here’s some of the resources I used Alldatadiy.com great resource for just about every electrical component pinout and wiring diagram on the vehicle. Requires paid subscription, but it’s paid for itself too many times to count. I would not attempt an engine swap using the stock harness ever again without buying the diagrams here. Used this thread as a rough guide to how I modified my harness http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/general-4x4-discussion/881167-my-ls2-harness-diy-chop.html Waytekwire.com My source for most of my electrical parts, including fuseboxes and power relays (except Deutsch connectors/pins, most of those I got directly from LADD Industries). Interior Fuse Box https://www.waytekwire.com/item/45990/Littelfuse-868-163-HWB60-Base/ Engine Bay fuse box - one bus bar carries full time +12V, the other carries ignition switched 12V https://www.waytekwire.com/item/46354/Bussmann-15401-2-0-1-0A-RFRM-Panel-/ The extra relays on the right side are for the fans. When we’ve used these micro relays for some constant high load (20-30A) applications before at work, we’ve occasionally overheated them, so for the fans I picked up a Hella four-relay block and attached it to the fuse box bracket. It hold full-size relays for the fans. Both the fuseboxes use Metri-pack 280 terminals (WITH Tangs! Delphi 12077411) and seals/plugs (Delphi 15324983, 15324982, 15324980, and 12010300), and fit mini-ATM fuses and micro relays. The 280 stands for 2.8mm, which is the width of the pins on the fuses and relays that slide into the terminals in the fuse boxes. These also require a special crimper which I borrowed from my work, but you can find cheaper ones on amazon. I eventually bought one of the cheaper ones and it does the job, just not as well as the expensive real-deal one. Power Relay Modules - 2 of these are used to fuse and supply both constant 12V and ign switched 12V to the fuse boxes https://www.waytekwire.com/item/46095/Bussmann-37702-1AN0022-Power-Relay-Module-/ Anywhere I needed a connector but I wasn’t using a stock GM or Jeep one, I used weatherproof Deutsch connectors. Best place to get the real thing is direct from LADD Industries. McMaster also sells some Deutsch style connectors that are weatherproof, and will connect to the real deal (https://www.mcmaster.com/#deutsch-compatible-connectors/=154y9o6). These connectors do require a special crimping tool. I got lucky and borrowed one from my work. The biggest connector was the firewall pass through. I used a Deutsch DRB series connector with 48 pins. This connector required a new steel plate that I just epoxied to the bulkhead. You could easily skip this and use the stock pass through connector to avoid this hassle and expense, but mine wasn’t in very good condition, and I wanted something that would seal better. Parts List for the DRB connector and pins: 1x of DRB12-48PAE-L018 1x of WB-48PA 1x of DRBF-2A 1x of DRB16-48SAE-L018 1x of WB-48SA 30x of 0460-202-20141 15x of 0460-202-16141 15x of 0460-204-12141 30x of 0462-201-20141 15x of 0462-201-16141 15x of 0462-203-12141 This connector is slightly smaller than the stock unit. I made a plate out of ⅛ steel that had the correct hole cut out in it the for DRB connector, and used one of the DRB bolts through one of the stock bolt holes, and a separate screw through the other stock bolt hole. Because this wasn’t structural, I decided to try glueing it on, so I got some metal-to-metal epoxy and glued it on. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the process, but here’s the finished product I made some spreadsheets for each connector, and as I went I filled all the wiring information in for each pin. I ended with a big stack of wiring diagrams specific to my truck. The stack in the top left is the print-out of all the ECM connectors and and pins, and their functions. The top right is the pinout of the DRB bulkhead connector (I still need to add a picture of the connector to that one). The bottom left is the packet for the interior fuse box and all the connectors, and the bottom right is the packet for the engine bay fuse box and all the connectors. Here’s a closer look at one of the pages in the interior packet. I just took a picture of each connector and labeled the pins using powerpoint, and then just put the pictures into excel with some tables for pin number, wire color, and description. I tried to write notes about where wires go-to or come-from, and maybe a basic description of function. Before I started the actual I tried to fill in as many boxes as I could, and then as I built the wiring harness I wrote down the pins, colors, and wires as I added them, or I jotted down notes if I wanted to add some detail to what I had already entered before. The next step after the wiring harness is all made it to go back and update the electronic versions of all these documents with whats in the truck and re-print them out and keep them in the truck. That way if I run into any electrical gremlins down the road I have all the documentation available to help diagnose.

what about a listing in the DIY forum that has some basic info and then a link to your build thread? lots of great info just gets lost in the build threads because it's not all that searchable. :( "v8 swap" in the DIY forum would be so much easier to find (especially now that we have the index) Hmmm yeah I could do that. I'll post something over there after I've finished the electrical post :)

Thanks everyone! Pete I don't think I'll put together a DIY thread. All engine swaps are complex, and different problems require different solutions for different trucks and different people. I'll put as much information as I can in my build thread to try and help anyone else that wants to do this swap have as much information as possible to find the best solution for them. If anyone has a question about the LS swap or truck in general that isn't covered in my build thread, feel free to post or PM me with it and I'll answer as best I can! I've just put the plumbing post in my build thread, the electrical post is coming soon, and then updating the thread with what I've been doing with the truck since getting the engine in :)

Alright, now we’re getting into the harder parts of this swap, plumbing and electrical Plumbing: Fuel Walbro 255lph fuel pump installed in the tank. These are available almost anywhere, I got mine from Summitracing Then I used this kit which has the filter/regulator and AN fittings and hose http://www.tanksinc.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=453/category_id=61/mode=prod/prd453.htm These hoses just go straight onto the stock fuel tank barbs with a couple hose clamps. The return nipple was technically a little too small for the hose, but it’s low pressure and I put 2 hose clamps on it, and it’s hasn't leaked yet. I ran rubber fuel hose all the way up to the fuel rail, with a short section of heat shielding where it gets within a few inches of the exhaust. Power Steering Lots of people use the stock hard lines from the steering box and LS power steering pump, and crimp a new soft line in between them, but I didn’t have the PS pump side hardline so I made my own stainless braided flex line with -6 AN fittings. The PS system runs at a pretty high pressure so you need hose that’s capable of holding it. For the return side I just used a leftover -6 AN fitting and hose from the fuel system. You’ll also need adapters to connect AN fittings to the metric o-ring ports on the steering box and pump. The pump uses a M16 o-ring to -6 AN fitting, and the box uses 1x M16 and 1x M18 o-ring to -6AN fittings. Here’s what I used: This didn’t turn out to be a very clean installation, I’m not a huge fan of how the line has to loop, and the pump fittings get extremely close to the pulley. I will probably re-do this in the future if I can find a better way to connect the hose to the pump and clear the pulley. I did find this fitting later, I may try it out at some point to see if it cleans up these lines and improves clearance to the pulley (https://www.summitracing.com/parts/FLA-FR1634). Coolant I’m using a heavy duty CSM 3-row brass/copper stock replacement radiator. I already had this radiator from before, so I figured since it was already much bigger than stock I would try it with the LS. So far it’s actually been pretty good. Most driving around the engine sits between 195 and 210. I haven’t had it offroad much yet to really test it though, so if it give me any problems I’m just going to go straight for the gigantic Novak aluminum unit. Connecting the LS coolant ports to the stock radiator was a little difficult as the LS ports are both on the passenger side. For the lower hose I used a straight thermostat housing (ebay), 2 90deg hoses, some straight aluminum pipe, and some clamps. I had to oval one section of the aluminum pipe to clear the stock electric fan motor, but if you use a slimmer fan you probably won’t have to do this. On the upper hose, I used 2 90deg bends again, this time with a 90deg bent aluminum pipe (I got mine from Woolf aircraft products, a local place) to clear the intake tube. In the second picture you can see where I drilled and tapped the straight thermostat housing for the steam port. This isn't technically the right way to do it, the best way is to run this steam tube into the top of the radiator, however because I'm using a stock style radiator right now, it doesn't have a port for the steam tube. I saw some people on LS1tech doing it this way and it was working for them. For now, I don't think there are any issues, the truck runs well and hasn't overheated, so I think it's ok for now. For the heater hoses, I just used some 5/8" and 3/4" heater hose from the local auto parts store. I used a new heater valve with better port orientation to replace the stock one (Murray P/N 74781, I think it’s from an Astrovan?). The LS relies on the heater circuit flow for the thermostat to work correctly, so you need to run these hoses, or at least a loop hose across the ports on the water pump. This side of the engine bay has a lot of hoses going everywhere and needs some more cleaning up. I used Roadkill zip-tie wire/hose keepers to try and keep everything a bit more organized. The heater hoses, transmission cooler hoses, transmission vent hose, and vacuum ball hose are all running on this side of the engine bay, along with both the engine and transmission dipsticks, so it's a little crowded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fll_OPtYsJE Coolant overflow is handled by a bottle I picked up on amazon which I think was originally for a toyota truck. It’s mounted to the passenger side fender well, with a hole in the side of the truck for the vent to exit the engine bay. Transmission Cooler I used a B&M Transmission cooler and some -8 AN Fittings and hose from Summitracing. I originally made a bracket and mounted my cooler in front of the drivers side rear tire, but that didn’t work very well so I moved it in front of the radiator like normal. You will need NPSM (National Pipe Straight Male) adapters to connect the AN fittings to the transmission ports, and I needed NPT (National Pipe Tapered) adapters to connect the AN hose to the cooler. I used 2x 90deg AN hose ends on the transmission side, and 1x 90deg and 1x straight hose end on the cooler side. I like to use field serviceable hose end fittings instead of crimp on because then I can assemble hoses in the garage, and make changes later if needed. Here’s some more info from the LS forums about running -8 AN trans cooler line: http://ls1tech.com/forums/automatic-transmission/1397578-wanna-run-8-trans-cooler-line.html

Thanks guys! I've got some updating to do in my build thread to get it caught up with where the truck is now. I really like the VFR, the sounds of the V4 exhaust and gear driven cams are are just awesome! The only long term implications I can think of for the diff is that the clutch plates will probably wear out faster than normal. There shouldn't be any effect to the gears in the differential because you wouldn't normally put friction modifier in an open differential and those gears do just fine. Without the FM the truck would chirp the rear tire going around corners at first, after the clutches bed in a little bit it settled down to only if you get on the gas. I'm pretty happy with the extra traction offroad for $100 (for a new set of clutches) vs. $1000 for a selectable locker.

I actually made my own harness for everything. I'll have a post up all about the electrical side of things soon. I think Comanche SS used a painless harness, his build thread is here: http://comancheclub.com/topic/50978-comanche-ss-ls-swapped-la-locked-and-soon-to-be-linked/?do=findComment&comment=519297 Good luck! LS V8's are a lot of fun in these trucks :)

Exhaust: I’m using ceramic coated Novak swap headers for my truck. I went with ceramic coating because I was worried about cooling the engine, so I wanted to keep engine bay temps as low as possible. The exhaust starts as 2x 2.5” pipes, merges to a single 3.5” behind the trans crossmember, then goes down to 3” just before the rear axle before going through a high flow cat and muffler. I went down to 3” so I could use a cat and muffler I already had from a previous project, if I was buying new I would do 3.5” or 4”. I’ve actually been really happy with the way the truck sounds. It’s a little rowdy when you’re on the gas, but cruising down the freeway you really can’t hear the exhaust over the tire noise. If I was runnnig All-terrains you could probably hear it. I think the catalytic converter actually helps keep the volume down a lot, as the Magnaflow muffler is just a straight through design. The biggest problem I’ve had is clearance between the drivers side pipe and the driveshaft. With the high pinion dana 30 the driveshaft get very close to the bellhousing. I’ve ovaled the pipe with a hammer a lot, but it still hits a bit, so I think I’m going to have to do something a bit more drastic. I don’t want to just bumpstop it more as my uptravel is already compromised by trying to keep the truck low. If you’re running 6”+ of lift or a low pinion front axle this probably wouldn’t be a problem at all.

Your engine bay looks really nice and tidy! Did you mount the ECM in the cab? 242 is ok, I liked it better with the 4.0L. I haven't driven full-time 4wd mode in the snow yet, but in the rain if I get on the gas around corners, the rear end slides almost like it was in 2wd, not grip and go like the AWD in my WRX. I think it's a combination of the low weight/traction in the back, and also because the 242 doesn't have a LSD in the center, so if the rear starts spinning it just send all the power back there like an open diff in an axle. The 4.0L didn't really have the torque to break the rear loose in AWD mode. We'll have to see in the snow though, I think it will still be better than just 2wd, but I'll just have to be mindful of 400hp under my right foot instead of 180. Yup keeping the d30 for now, it has stock big joint shafts and a truetrac. A coworker of mine has a nicely built TJ with an LS6 and an 8.8/d30 that he takes to the sand dunes every weekend. I think he's only gone through 2 ring and pinions in the 10 years he's had that thing, and it gets beat on every weekend. Eventually I'd like the Dynatrac Pro-Rock 44 that I can bolt my current knuckles onto to keep the steering and brakes the same, just get the upgraded R&P. Side note, I've updated the first few swap posts with some added pictures

Yup it is, and yes it does. The kit includes the sensor that the factory GM harness plugs into. The sensor sits very close to the transmission side flange, it's actually frenched into the flange a little bit. You can just barely see it in the first picture above.

Drivetrain: NP 242 T-case is mounted to the 4L70 with Novak parts. I’m using the output shaft speed sensor integrated into the adapter for the ECM speed signal, and the stock Jeep electric sender I nabbed from the junkyard to drive my new electric speedometer. I had the output shaft and new tailhousing professionally installed, and the trans rebuilt with some better internals too at the same time. I had to modify my trans crossmember quite a bit to work with the new trans mounting location, including cutting a big notch out of it for the t-case, and making some room to route 2 exhaust pipes over it. If I was doing it again, I would just build one from scratch using some 1x6 or 2x6 steel box tubing. The transfer case sits 2” farther forward than stock. I didn’t have any problems with clearance to the floor with my NP242. For driveshafts, I just brought them to a local place and had the front shortened by 2”, the rear lengthened by 2”, and both rebalanced for about $300. I already had a Novak cable shifter on my AX-15, and according to their website this shifter will work with the 4L60 and NP 242, so I thought this would be an easy thing. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The t-case bracket tries to put the cable linkage inside the body of the transmission. I ended up modifying the stock transmission shift bracket to fit the t-case shifter. It’s a very tight fit trying to fit the cable between the larger transmission body and the driveshaft yoke. The size of the transmission pushes the cable outboard a little bit, so you can’t get a straight shot at the shift lever on the t-case. For shifting the transmission, I used a B&M pro stick that I modified following Billavista’s “ultimate offroad shifter” thread on pirate4x4 (http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/shifter/). I had to modify the B&M bracket to shift the cable to the otherside of the lever in order to make room for the t-case shifter cable.

From an electrical standpoint, I don't see this being any more difficult than a GM LS swap. If I were doing it I would get in touch with Wayne at 150tunes.com about reprogramming your ECM/TCM to work without the Trailblazers body control module and anti-theft systems. I think he uses hptuners when he does that stuff for LS swaps, and as far as I know it's compatible with almost all GM ECM's. He's in Spokane. Also, get yourself a subscription to alldatadiy.com to get all the electrical diagrams for the trailblazer the engine came out of. You'd have to fabricate custom motor mounts, and figure out the oil pan. My LS came out of a Trailblazer with a front sump with the differential mounted to the oil pan. I swapped for a rear sump pan from a Truck. Your best bet is probably to find a truck or something else the 4.2 came in that had a rear sump pan, and swap the pan and pickup over. The front sump won't clear the front axle with any reasonable suspension travel. You can adapt the 4L60 to a jeep transfer case relatively easily with Novak parts, or use the stock GM t-case (which is probably electric shift). To be honest though, you're looking at more work than an LS swap for less power, considering the electrical work is essentially the same, but for the LS you can buy engine mounts off the shelf. Even if you only swap in a 5.3 (50hp more than the 4.2) at first, if that engine ever goes all you need to swap in a larger 6.0 LQ4 or LS2 or whatever is the engine and a new tune. And boosting the LS hp way above 325 will be easy and cheap compared to the 4.2. But if you're happy with 275hp, with the 4.2 should be possible...