Another YJ unlimited build

[YJLOPES]

I've been driving this thing a bunch and have around 800 miles on it. We went to Buena Vista and ran Chinamans and Iron Chest as everything is working pretty good. It's a lot like a TJ now since it has a clunk in the rear suspension that I haven't found yet.

I have a 4.6L stroker that I wanted to get more air to. I don't like K&N filters and I don't like pulling hot air from under the hood, so I came up with a different idea.

This is at the downstream half of a 99-03 (I think) ford windstar air box. This pic is after I cut out an inch or 2.



After that I stuffed the small end back in the big end and made this.



I fastened it together with 3 self drilling screws and sealed the seam with RTV.

This is the filter that goes in there. According to Wix, the original YJ filter flows 220 CFM and this one flows 300 CFM.



Here is the sucking end of the air box. I trimmed off a bit to enlarge the opening. I plan to make it around 3.5" but I didn't have the goodies to do so in my shop, so that will wait for brown santa. For now it is up to just shy of 3". I used the orange duct (Scat hose) from my airplane supplied and ran it through the grill through the rectangular hole below the headlight so I could pull air from ahead of the radiator.



I bought a couple of elbows from somewhere online (2.75"-3" and 3" to 4") and a 90 degree piece of mandrel bent exhaust pipe. I trimmed the 90 down a bit and welded a couple pieces of tubing on to the elbow for the evap system and the PCV and here it is.





I hooked up my scanner and prior to the swap I saw intake temps around 185-190 with ambient temp of 84 at the end of a stretch of road that I use for road tests. After this mod, temps were 165-170 with an ambient temp of 90. It helped some but I learned how much IAT is influenced by engine load on the mighty straight 6. I think the next mod on this engine may be a heat shield between the header and the intake manifold.

 

[YJLOPES]

I bought some 37's for it and went to Moab

 

[YJLOPES]

I found a rattle can red that matched perfectly, so I started making it look less like a clown jeep.

 

[YJLOPES]

I bought a set of Genright aluminum corner blanks and installed them. I was pretty pleased that I reused all of the holes from the old Genright YJ corners that were previously installed.

I almost put a TJ filler on it. I decided that I wanted to stay committed to the YJ squareness, so I used the YJ filler instead.

 

[YJLOPES]

The Filler relocation was so I could install a metal cloak TJ tire carrier.

 

[fl0w3n]

Oh rad I remember reading your thread, must have found it from a link on p4x4 back when. Glad to see it over here. Really liked what you did with it.

 

[Rockwood]

I've been driving this thing a bunch and have around 800 miles on it. We went to Buena Vista and ran Chinamans and Iron Chest as everything is working pretty good. It's a lot like a TJ now since it has a clunk in the rear suspension that I haven't found yet.

I have a 4.6L stroker that I wanted to get more air to. I don't like K&N filters and I don't like pulling hot air from under the hood, so I came up with a different idea.

This is at the downstream half of a 99-03 (I think) ford windstar air box. This pic is after I cut out an inch or 2.



After that I stuffed the small end back in the big end and made this.



I fastened it together with 3 self drilling screws and sealed the seam with RTV.

This is the filter that goes in there. According to Wix, the original YJ filter flows 220 CFM and this one flows 300 CFM.



Here is the sucking end of the air box. I trimmed off a bit to enlarge the opening. I plan to make it around 3.5" but I didn't have the goodies to do so in my shop, so that will wait for brown santa. For now it is up to just shy of 3". I used the orange duct (Scat hose) from my airplane supplied and ran it through the grill through the rectangular hole below the headlight so I could pull air from ahead of the radiator.



I bought a couple of elbows from somewhere online (2.75"-3" and 3" to 4") and a 90 degree piece of mandrel bent exhaust pipe. I trimmed the 90 down a bit and welded a couple pieces of tubing on to the elbow for the evap system and the PCV and here it is.





I hooked up my scanner and prior to the swap I saw intake temps around 185-190 with ambient temp of 84 at the end of a stretch of road that I use for road tests. After this mod, temps were 165-170 with an ambient temp of 90. It helped some but I learned how much IAT is influenced by engine load on the mighty straight 6. I think the next mod on this engine may be a heat shield between the header and the intake manifold.

A lot of the 4.slo IATs are just the exhaust manifold cooking the sensor. Even if the manifold itself is actually 170*, no way the air entering the engine is anywhere close to that. Intake manifold won’t be able to transfer that much heat. Even if it was built like a radiator, maaaaaybe 110*F.

I relocated mine to the actual inlet to get a better idea on temps. Had to shield the wiring since it would stall the motor every time I keyed the mic on the radio.

 

[BustedCrank]

Awesome

 

[YJLOPES]

A lot of the 4.slo IATs are just the exhaust manifold cooking the sensor. Even if the manifold itself is actually 170*, no way the air entering the engine is anywhere close to that. Intake manifold won’t be able to transfer that much heat. Even if it was built like a radiator, maaaaaybe 110*F.

I relocated mine to the actual inlet to get a better idea on temps. Had to shield the wiring since it would stall the motor every time I keyed the mic on the radio.

You're probably right. I was more interested in seeing the delta, rather than the absolute value, which I did see an improvement.

I eventually got all the parts painted the same color.

 

[YJLOPES]

Got the soft top installed too, and went to Moab.

 

[YJLOPES]

Found these lights in my garage, so I mounted them. Still haven't wired them, not sure I like them.

 

[thrillbilly85]

This was a fun thread to read. Thanks man!

 

[Rangerrod]

It’s fun to read. You and I both did windshield frame modification almost exactly the same. Great job.

 

[YJLOPES]

This was a fun thread to read. Thanks man!

It’s fun to read. You and I both did windshield frame modification almost exactly the same. Great job.

Thanks guys, glad to hear it.

 

[YJLOPES]

This rig has been kind of an inspiration. Not sure where I found this pic, I really like the stance/proportions of this.

 

[YJLOPES]

Years ago I had bought and installed a Genright stretch kit. It came with a gas tank, corners, and rockers to move the rear axle back. I reused the tank on this iteration of the build. The corners didn't work, so I ended up buying Genright LJ blanks. I installed the rockers because I just wanted to have some protection on the 3 miles of rocker panel that I now had, but they looked like shit.

Shortly after I wrapped up the big work on this stretch, Genright came out with their TJ to LJ stretch kit. Not too long after that, Motobilt started their El Jefe YJ stretch build. It was frustrating to see all the stuff I had to build now showing up for sale, but it was cool to see more support for my dumb idea. I'd wanted boat sides for 20 years, and I always assumed I'd have to make them myself. Motobilt to the rescue! I ordered a set of their new boat side rockers on some promo deal and they sat around for 6 months until I had a chance to install them.

I started marking things out and cutting. My rockers were pretty rotten so I was cutting out a lot of cancer anyway. It's just rust repair.

 

[YJLOPES]

I thought I had more pics of this. I'm digging through photos from a year ago and missing all kinds of details of what I had to do to make these work. The kit from Motobilt is pretty nice. It comes with a pattern tool to mark out where to cut inside and good guidance where to cut outside. It also comes with a filler panel to weld in place inside so your floor isn't full of holes when you're done. I made it all fit pretty nice and sealed all of the edges with seam seal when I was done. Primed and painted underneath so hopefully it doesn't rot.

The rocker itself was around 8.5-9" short. I'm not sure how Motobilt's stretch is different than mine, but I needed more rocker. I suspect they have way bigger wheel openings than I do. You can see it is short on both ends in this pic.

I took the rocker to a local steel fab shop and they bent me 36" of 3/16" to match the profile. I used this to cut sections out of to splice on to the ends of the original piece. This is the only pic I could find of that, after it was welded together. I spent a few hours with some Bondo to make the splice look a little better.

Then I squirted some rattle can black on and put it all together. If you look close, you can spot the splices, but it's good enough for who it's for.

While I was doing that, I also installed a set of Poison spyder YJ cage stanchions that are tied in to the rocker. You can see the bolts in a few of the pics above. I modified the feet to fit the 45 that the floor now had.

 

[YJLOPES]

I only had one rocker done, but I took it to Moab for another couple days of run with my family. It rolled over 290K somewhere on the trip.

2 kids and a 60# lab fit okay back there now...for a few more years. I also got s Bestop rear seat for the kids, so they'd have a headrest to hopefully help their necks out when some dipshit rear ends me.

Not a lot of wheeling pics from this trip. I'm not sure why, we were by ourselves and knocked out a ton of trails and miles. Quite a few trails were still snowed in.

 

[YJLOPES]

I went back a couple of weeks later with some buddies for some more Moab.

 

[WaterH]

Very nicely done. Fun to read through. I’m courious about the rear lower control arms. Is there anything to keep them from wobbling? Seems like they would just go to one side and be hard on the rod ends.

Oh, and how is AV-gas $2.40 a gallon?

 

[YJLOPES]

I finally dove in to get the drivers side rocker done. I figured It would be quick and easy since I had figured out all of the problems on the pax side. I was wrong...

Found the body mount all jacked up.

There is a guy in town that parts out YJs. I called him and he said he'd let me cut out this section from a tub he had. It turns out it was the same tub I cut the section of bed rail out of when I did the stretch 3 years ago. I also cut out the RH side for future repairs.

I cleaned it up and decided a little beef up was in order.

I can't find any pics of it being welded back to the tub. It's an interesting piece that ties in to the firewall and the floor under the drivers feet. Oh well, it's back in place so I got back to the boat side install. In this pic you can see the repaired body mount at the bottom outboard end of the firewall.

Here are a few pics of the filler panel from Motobilt going in. I suspect itt all works pretty well on a straight tub. Mine was "massaged" in a lot of weird ways after 20 years of wheeling but I got it to fit okay after some work.

 

[YJLOPES]

too many pics...

I got this far, and then I had to scab it together because my kids wanted to be picked up from the last day of school in the jeep with no top.

I found a few more pics of the splices to stretch the rockers to the length I needed.

I seam sealed it all pretty well.

Painted the rocker and put it all back together.

 

[YJLOPES]

I made the LH side cage stanchion fit and put it all together so I could get back to having fun with it.

 

[YJLOPES]

When I went to Moab last March, both lockers quit working on me. I was assuming the worst. I had little to no interest in replacing them though, because I have some bigger and better axles in the works. Fortunately they were both easy fixes.

The rear is an Auburn ECTED that the solder connection just broke.

A bit of solder and heat shrink and back in business.

The front ARB line just got damaged. It was the first time I'd opened this front axle since i installed it 10 years ago, so I was pleased to see every thing else was happy.

 

[YJLOPES]

We did a bunch more of these adventures this year.

And then I washed it.

 

[YJLOPES]

I got tired of spray all over the windows, so I installed some TJ flares.

I made sure a beer would fit on the tire OR the flare.

I installed the rears pretty high to match the boat sides and for future plans to fit 40s.

I trimmed the bottom of the fronts to match the rockers as well.

I added front marker lights and did some more wheeling.

The front flares rub a bit...

That pretty well brings us to today. Current plans are a Diamond 9" rear housing I'm building and a fusion SD60 that I ordered last week. pics to come....

 

[YJLOPES]

Very nicely done. Fun to read through. I’m courious about the rear lower control arms. Is there anything to keep them from wobbling? Seems like they would just go to one side and be hard on the rod ends.

Oh, and how is AV-gas $2.40 a gallon?

The axle end of the LCA's uses a stock TJ LCA bushing. It has some give, but it is pretty rigid in keeping the arm aligned with the axle bracket so the arm twists with the axle as it articulates.

 

[WaterH]

too many pics...

Blasphemy

 

[JohnnyJ]

Looks good, nice proportions.

 

[Sandy Johnson]

I dig this jeep. Keep the pictures flowing!