Leave it to extrashaky to spice up the thread with knowledge and tactfulness.

thank you sir, good post!

i have an 01 as well and do my best living the with situation. I am a service tech and run a company van for work, so my XJ is little more than a toy or weekend vehicle. I put about 1200 miles on the XJ every year and change the oil every 6 months. I also always send my oil to blackstone labs.

i just changed my valve cover gasket, didn't see anything too apparent while I was in there. I closely examined the head for about 5 minutes with an LED flashlight.

i have also done my preventive maintenance and rebuilt my entire cooling system for about 200 bucks and about 5-6 hours of labor.

 

You are correct, however, you said that you assumed. Never said what year as you obviously had a reason for asking how to identify the head. Therefore he could have went with any HO head, including TUPY. I mentioned the TUPY part, as I imagine you now know what it is, because all external tell tell signs will be irrelevant on identifying it as a prone or good 0331. Whether it has bosses for the coil pack or the factory CAFE exhaust.

Actually it is true. Read the comment again.
If the guy is even remotely competent he would have probably noticed the massive exhaust leak if he 100% used the factory exhaust with any non-0331 head.
True, it could be bolted up as is, but Im going with not that incompetent.

 

Yeah, i'm one of them.

My 2000 original engine made it to approx. 300K with no cracked 331 head and was still running strong.
I reluctantly swapped it out because of an un-explained paranoidal 'time bomb' engine tick which got louder by the month.

I think the likelyhood for a cracked 331 head is if the engine has severely over heated.
My original engine never over heated and had several coolant flushes over those 300k miles.
Might also want to send an oil sample to one of those oil analysis places for ease of mind. At least you'll know what your dealing with one way or another.

I'd suggest to monitor the coolant reservior jug like a hawk for coolant loss, check oil for coolant contamination and immediately fix any coolant leaks no matter how small.
For example, a small radiator coolant leak if ignored can eventually blow open on the freeway.

I for one won't use one of those coolant leak sealers to goop up a leak somewhere in the coolant system but instead identify and fix the root cause of the leak.
Yep, after 327k miles, on my 3rd radiator now and counting! lol

 

Also not true. You only get the exhaust leak if you use the incorrect manifold gasket.

There have been story after story posted where that simply didn't happen. In my own case, I have owned my XJ since I drove it off the lot with 6 miles on the clock in June, 2000, so I know for a fact that it was never overheated. It cracked anyway.

It kind of irks me when people who haven't had one crack say, "Oh, it won't crack if you take care of it and don't overheat it." I followed the maintenance schedule to the letter. It still cracked. Because sometimes 0331 heads do that for no reason other than that the foundry ****ed up.

 

One things for sure:
Peeps that have suffered through a cracked 0331 head ordeal emerge from the other side forever changed and bittered. First world problems lol

 

if/when mine goes ill do a reman complete since i have slap not getting better!
body is 95% lookin good xcept hood needs paint when wx is warmer.
reman 1400. 100000 mi warr. i have apx 1600 in it total now.
its worth a new motor.

 

From where?

 

extrashaky wrote:
Notice i said likelyhood and not a direct 100% cause and effect! JEEZ!!
Sorry you're irked!!
There's no doubt the 331 head was either a bad design or the foundry blew it or both.
Thats the 100% root cause of all 331 cracked heads.

 

YAY! I'm a victim!

I need the government to send me money to replace my head and also send money for some upgrades. Ya know for XJ affirmative action. Its only fair, since us 00-01 are technically behind the eightball.

 

Are there are Chrysler statistics available on the failure rate of 331 heads?

Apparently Chrysler either swept it all under the rug back in the day or the majority of failures occurred out of the warranty period then it was 'tough luck'.
From the launch of those heads in late '99 when my 2k was built, Chrysler kept using them up to and including the 2001 models.
Chrysler had to know by the end of 2000 those heads had a higher than normal failure rate.

 

they probably had an inkling by 2001. From my research, a lot of heads fail between 120,000-140,000 miles. This would mean, with an average of 15,000 miles per year, that a good deal of the 0331 heads cracked later in the 00s. Like 2007 and 2008. Chrysler had wash it hands by then.

basically Chrysler knew, that's why they changed foundrys. But the widespread chaos didn't occur for several years later.

 

http://accurateengines.com/remanufac...r-jeep-engine/

i can drive there in 3-4 hours from indiana.

 

Titan Engines have a good reputation too. $1400 http://www.titanengines.com/engine-p...emanufactured/

 

Looking at reviews for both of those companies make me doubtful. Maybe I'm just to paranoid though. Not bashing them directly just seems the same with all the companies that build low cost motors. May have to go with Golen when I need a new one.

 

Jasper Engines or Advance Auto..

http://www.jasperengines.com/stock-replacement-engines

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/s...actured+engine