DirtyComanche

That's cool.

How much oil is it consuming? You don't have any other leaks, back of the valve cover, rear main, timing cover, filter adapter, etc? Blowby into the air filter/airbox? That could just be that you need to go to the new style PCV setup...

Maybe on the WJ? I don't recall how they're set up. The ZJ still uses a manual tensioner, it's a lot nicer setup than in the XJ though.

I'm curious to see the gears/carrier out of the axles. I'm wondering if they have better bearings or a third pinion bearing to make them live, as they are smaller than the last generation. There may be more hypoid offset, based on how high that high pinion looks. Those inner Cs look beefy. The knuckles themselves, I would wait on that one. I would not be surprised if Crane and Reid are making replacements in short order. Better brackets is great, too bad they're boat anchors, like on the JK. Tube improvement is good, but not surprising, the weak tubes were costing Chrysler money as they had to warranty axles over it. CAD sucks, one more thing to go wrong. I'm sure there will be delete kits for it in a hurry. However it looks like it hangs down too, at least on the old CAD XJ axles you weren't really losing any clearance to using them.

IMHO, and we're into the whole can of worms that oil is, you would have been a lot less likely to see that issue with a full synthetic. The Valvoline is a decent product. Mobil1, Quaker State, and *gasp* even Pennzoil make some quality full synthetics.

Which one, the synthetic or the synthetic blend? What filters are you using? Change interval?

Use better oil.

Cool, please keep us updated.

If you have a plugged injector the O2 sensor will read lean and enrich the ones that work, effectively making the other cylinders rich (and that one will remain dead). You can try to clean it by throwing it in a container of solvent, Seafoam, kerosene, etc and cycling the injector with a battery (9V will work for this). If you have an ultrasonic cleaner that will work well too, or put it in a cup and leave it on something that shakes (generator, air compressor, washing machine) for a while. Don't blow yourself up or burn anything down.

Optimas went through a really rough time when they moved production to Mexico (I believe). Apparently the quality is back up there, but I'm not likely to ever buy another one after OptimaJim was so kind as to tell all of us with dead Optimas that it was because we didn't use an approved battery charger (he now denies ever having said such a thing and insists that it is other manufacturers of AGM/Gel batteries that have only a few approved chargers).

I don't have Autozone here, so I'll just speculate that they probably have multiple lines of batteries. As they are not making them themselves, their different lines of batteries can be made by entirely different manufacturers. Even different group sizes from the same line can be made by different manufacturers. So whatever ones you bought might suck, but others might not... So please be more specific which ones didn't work (not that it matters to me, it might to somebody that has an Autozone nearby). At work we didn't have great luck with NAPA import line batteries... No idea who made them, but they didn't last in the cold.

I'll watch this tomorrow... Posting so I remember. I think I'm going to keep my JK either way.

If somebody wants to do a LS swap how-to, I'd appreciate it.

Yeah, normally the down pipe has a dent in it there for clearance. If it's tighter to the oil pan or run a bit different it doesn't need the dent. Who knows if that was an aftermarket pipe or something an exhaust shop bent up, but it's not good if it's hitting. The only real problem with the Renix stuff is it probably kills some high end power and the exhaust manifold (header) always cracks. Did your truck get jumped? The oil pan doesn't look so happy either.

Maybe, maybe not. Acceleration and held throttle would likely be bad, but it's surprising what will or won't happen. Did you verify you didn't suck water through the engine? Looked at the air filter? Pulled the plugs? Last engine that I saw suck water was mysteriously low on power, then a couple days later it popped the top off a piston and blew the ring into the cylinder head...

I would @$$ume that the wire going to the cluster is for the charge indication idiot light, and you won't need it unless you have that type of cluster. With a keyed (ignition) wire and a battery connection that should be all it needs to charge. That said, not all alternators are the same. Is this a unit that is listed as being a direct replacement, or are you trying to retrofit something else?

If the signal out of it is garbage it will cause the ignition and injection timing to be wrong. Personally they've always either worked or not for me, that is either the trucks runs or it doesn't. When the signal from them is weak the crank time will increase, until eventually you'll get a no start (typically when it's hot the first couple times, it will normally restart once it cools). There's no reason not to clean the connector on it, but I doubt it is the issue. I'm guessing the TPS is producing erratic output through its range of travel. You can test the sweep on it with a multimeter if you have a decent one. There may well be something else that is wet and unhappy, but this happened last week... Unless you're parking it in a lake I doubt moisture is still the issue. Your original TPS may have dried out enough to work by now too. Especially if you put it somewhere hot.

My money would be on bad TPS out of the box. What brand is it?

You can take the fan motors apart and scotchbrite the bushings and put silicone grease or something like that on them instead of drilling anything. You just have to be careful when you put it back together to not mash the brushes. At least I've been able to do it on several of them. Often you can bring a dead fan motor back to life by cleaning up the commutator and brushes.

Careful. Lots won't. They hit the intake runners, not the flange, you can't just grind something to make them work. You can give up flow on your exhaust ports (the valves are smaller anyways) without losing power providing the intake ports flow better, as in the intake side is more critical. No, stroker guys don't use that head. If you're spending that much building an engine you're going to get the best head, it only makes sense at that point. It's a little different scenario when you have the head sitting around.

That's an opinion that seems to go against the grain.

Seems like a solid plan for a build.

Before you drill your hinges to 5/16" try getting a 7mm metric bolt (10.9 grade preferably, 8.8 would be fine) that's the right length, and drill the hinges to 17/64. The 7mm bolt will be a bit too large for the hole, but since your hand drilling them there might well be enough wobble that it will be close to going, so you can file the hole out a bit and get it. Or final drill it with a letter J drill and a steady hand, which is only about a thou and change larger than 7mm. I suppose you could use a 7mm drill, but nobody stocks metric stuff. You don't want to oversize them too much or the hinge itself will want to stretch. I put high tolerance 1/4" bolts in the last set I did, they're just a hair bigger than a normal 1/4" bolt, it was enough that it tightened them up for the time being.

That mount would have probably been okay if they hadn't drilled the holes so large and close to the edge (they were probably running a heim with a gigantic bolt) and if that brace piece had actually been run from the mount all the way across the UCA mount and down to the axle tube (and not made out of angle iron). And the welds should have been better. You also can't just move the mount up without doing something with the steering to compensate for that. You would need to either drop the pitman arm (not a good idea, the XJ arm already has a lot of drop), go to high steer (good idea if you can accomplish it properly), and/or raise the frame side track bar mount (good idea if you can accomplish it properly). Also the stock track bar is a POS and belongs in the garbage. I'd never buy a D30 that was on something that was wheeled. It is probably bent. Although I doubt they did much wheeling with that mount on there, it would have failed. How the mounts were made and geometry was changed due to that on my XJ... I had to move the track bar frame side mount up as high as I could because I couldn't get a pitman arm with any drop to work with the clearances I had... But the point is if you move one thing, you're going to have to move something else, which will likely turn into moving everything.

I'm fairly much with DesertRat1991 on this. But I'd do it a little different. I'd look at the condition your coil springs are in before buying spacers. If the truck has any lean, or one is broken or has and uneven set in it, or they're super rusty and the truck has lots of miles, I'd say you're better off buying some V8 ZJ style coils. Moog makes some variable ones for not much money ($50/pair or so): http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=201281&cc=1182057&jsn=2521 I don't actually know how much lift they will give you, its should be almost 2" or a bit less. They actually list them as being a "Heavy Duty" option for the XJ, and they have about a 3/4" more free height and 20lbs more rate than their regular XJ ones. Being variable rate they will be a little nicer ride. Their regular XJ coils for comparison (they're also variable rate): http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=201281&cc=1182057&jsn=2521 For shocks I would say just buy some Bilsteins and get it over with. I can dig you up the P/N for a rear that fits since Bilstein doesn't list it, if you want. Maybe 5% of lift kits come with shocks worth running, the rest are complete garbage. If you don't want to spend as much do the fronts at least, the rears will be less noticeable. For the control arms the stock replacement uppers are fine. Do the bushings in the axle too, I'll warn you they're a pain in the butt to change. I'd get WJ arms for the lowers and mod them so they fit, they have a vibration absorbing bushing in them that does improve the ride. Moog WJ arms: http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=3983961&cc=1381452&jsn=390 Something like $30/each. (I didn't feel like switching the pricing on the site, I have it in cnd so it's a bit of a guess on the conversion). Mevotech: http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=6115977&cc=1381452&jsn=398 $40/each, obviously a better product. You'll also want some caster shims and maybe new forks (they tend to break when you go to put the shims in). I think Hornbrod or Cruiser posted the p/n for these at some point, I don't know it and they may be dealer only. Adding a couple shims will make it drive better. Spend the rest of your budget on upgrading the steering to the V8 ZJ/later XJ stuff, a new steering stabilizer, swaybar bushings and end links, and replacing any worn ball joints or brake parts, or anything else that looks ugly when you get in there. IMHO the end result of doing this will be much better than throwing an entry level lift kit at it.