Hey all,
Thought it was about time I did a write up on the progress of my JK Wrangler LS V8 build.
I bought my 2010 Jeep JKU manual sport for a bargain late 2015 because the 3.8 with 240k K’s was a bit sad. It had a lifter noise which the previous owner self diagnosed as a bearing noise and then decided to flog it off because he got a quote from a jeep dealership for $11,000 to replace the engine. So I picked it up and thought for the money if something goes wrong and the owner was right, ill but a secondhand engine in it and be done with it.
After doing all the usual mods like suspension lift, bigger wheels, bumpers etc the 3.8 while still going strong , left me wanting more. I looked at charging it briefly but it seems to be stupid money for half the power of a v8 while using more fuel. So I made the obvious choice to go the V8 swap.
I put countless hours of research into which way I wanted to go about it. The Hemi 8 seemed good at first because it would be great to keep it all Mopar but I decided against it due to the price of the engine, overheating issues and being fairly uncommon here.
The next choice was a Chev LS engine. Cheap to buy, cheap as chips to modify and maintain, readily available and I’m sure if I was broken down in the butt F woop woop I am more likely to get a Holden commodore part over any Chrysler.
So with that decision made I put some research into who I would get the LS conversion kit from.
Because the Jeep uses can bus systems the choice is limited to gen 4 LS’s but there is more than a few workshops over in the states that make kits using them. I first looked into MOTECH in Nevada as there is allot of write up’s and positive things being said about them online. They opt to use the wrangler engine accessories only which is not the way I wanted to go so I ruled them out. Next was bruiser conversions. At the time they only offered in house conversions and not kits so I wasn’t going to send me wrangler over to Florida, I think they do kits now. Then there is Jeep Speed Shop, after speaking to someone there and reading about them online I wasn’t overly confident with them so I ruled them out.
I finally decided to go with an LS conversion from RPM Extreme in Alabama. Having spoken to the owner Jon there a few times on the phone and via email, I was certain that their product was right for me as they do conversions for all of the Gen 4 LS engine’s and have the option to use the Chev engine accessories . They are also well priced, required less parts to be modified and were confident they can do a RHD conversion.
So I pulled the trigger on the conversion with RPM Extreme about mid August and paid the man, 5 weeks later the kit was complete and ready to ship. One requirement of their kit like most others is to send some parts from the jeep to be modified so mid September I removed my Jeep ECU, fuse box, LS ECU and the 6L80E transmission control module and sent them to them.
Now that the brains of the wrangler were being sent back home to reprogramed, I removed the boat anchor 3.8. I decided to leave the body on due to the slight uncertainty I had about the placement of the engine with reference to the firewall etc. I have done similar projects before with out the luxury of removing the body so I want phased.
The doner car, a 2010 VE SS Auto
I decided to use sea freight to ship the completed kit back to me and this is where I went wrong. A friend of mine gave me a stupid cheap deal on shipping back the 30 odd kilo kit and all the other bits like engine mounts and sensors that I needed to buy. I took 4 months to get here but it was worth the wait.
The kit looks to be good quality and if it works as well as it looks, ill be a happy boy.
Transfer case input shaft mod
Fitting truck mounts
Commodore alternator in low mount and a/c all good
Gearbox mod
Then the issue, The VE 6l80E seems to have a unique output shaft to that of the Camaro or chevy suburban. I have contacted Novak and its likely the will machine the transfer case's new input shaft out to clear the o-ring groove. They have been fantastic to deal with and very helpful
How the original fits
Decided to start playing with other things now that I am going to have a hold up with the input shaft.
Commodore loom vs rpm loom, everything is sweet except the a/c compressor plug
RHD loom but they didn't swap the labels haha
Roughly tied off to where everything will live
Chopping the old mounts
Plasma cutter, best tool ever
After a clean up with a grinder and flapper disk
After a few measurements as per the instructions, this is where they should live
A mate chuckin a few tacks on for me
Going in for test fit
It's not sitting exactly where I would like so I'll need to tweak a few things. It seems to be hard up against the firewall on the l/h side
With commodore cats
Clearance of rails and obvious issues
