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Nar being right hand drive, I used an oxy-torch to bend the gearshifter back my way as it felt quite awkward to shift through the gears, plus also gave adequate clearance between the shifters. I thought at the time that you guys would have a problem when the new atlas shifters were installed. Ideally they could be 100mm shorter as they get quite close to the dash that I jam my finger plus it may also clear the gear shifter then.
On a side note/update - everything seems to be going good, I take her out daily - while slowly increasing the distance. I had a radiator hose disconnect itself, lucky i spotted it quick enough and didn't lose too much fluid - easy fix. I get an engine code of 'P 0633' every blue moon or so, but clears itself next time I turn it on. It means Skim Key not programmed - doesn't affect the jeep at all but throws up the check engine light for some reason. Something that is fixed with programming.
I had jeep kraft put a spring lift on her to bring the height back to stock-ish. Got 3 inches out of it, lucky she was an inch under stock before hand and will hopefully sag another inch to equal out at inch over stock (hope that made sense). Because the engine gets pushed back an inch, I had to shorten the rear driveshaft, so now the rear driveshaft angle is quite steep with the lift and is causing a slight vibration. I try to keep unnecessary weight in the back to sag the back end to reduce this vibration. Hopefully this will die down.
I will try and get some videos up soon of how it drives. The steering is lighter - probably because of the upgraded steering pump. Brakes I thought would be better with the increased vacuum from the engine but there is no change. The clutch feels the same despite being a heavy duty version - though clutch material is still organic rather then ceramic like most heavy duty clutches.
She has a hell of a torque twist! I can lane change with just the accelerator - though thats more then likely my joints on their way out and can counteract it with the steering. I have to be careful with the gear shifts, nowhere near as forgiving as the old engine - let the clutch out too quick (even without accelerator) in 1st, 2nd or 3rd and she chirps the tyres and the torque twist comes in again - not good for my stock axles/diff/driveshaft.
Radiator fans work good, bit noisy and once they are on they stay on until the jeep turns off. Going to change the temp sensor. Currently its for old school engines and comes on at 85* and off at 73*. The engine only just gets warm at 85*, so I need one that will kick in somewhere in the 90's and off in the 80's.
Sound is good, at idle and anything under 1500 sounds like stock (maybe stock engine with no muffler), no drone at any rpm though anything over 2000 and she starts to sing - by 3000 to 4000rpm people know something ain't right with your jeep. Hopefully they only do the noise test at idle otherwise I'm probably going to fail.
Power delivery is insane, definitely need to treat it with respect or I could see this being the end of me, plus at the moment with my cracked ribs it hurts to accelerate too hard.
Transfer case is amazing! I'm just has excited to use this as the engine. I highly recommend this mod to all jeeps/4wds. I still need to get the 3rd shifter adjusted all sweet (rare occasions she pops out of gear when coasting). Tried the low/low setting (11.7:1) to reverse up the driveway and she idled it as if the was no load on the engine. Even with moderate braking she loved it! Not that I would use this setting too much but I liked the wide range of ratios to choose from - 1:1, 2.72:1, 4.3:1, & 11.70:1
So thats about it, bits left are change windscreen (being cracked for probably 2 years now), get front driveshaft modified and she should be ready to go through engineering. Though I'm going back to work so this will probably stretch over a few months. I'm hoping to have the engineering for the engine finished by may/june the latest. Then its in to have the cams cage built in june/july and then into jeep kraft for suspension and axles to hopefully have it finished before the september jeep 2013 shindig!
Hopefully not too many dramas along the way. I would've liked to have done the suspension and axles myself but I just don't have to correct gear/space or time to do it unfortunately.
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