Despite by best efforts to restore my poor girl to top performance, I think the neglect of the PO is taking its toll. For example, Im burning about a qt of oil every 700 miles (hopefully some Bars Leaks or something to restore the cylinders will help), and its making noise (again, I think the loud growl and slight rattle I hear during excelleration is a cracked AND loose exhaust header.)

Anyway, I love my XJ, and have put TOO much love and money into that thing to just see her rust in a JY, so I decided that if this motor dies (202K as of now) Im gonna toss another one in. Here is my question:

Which should I do? Grab a Junk Yard or Craigslist/Ebay 4.0 for $400-500 or get a Reman from Titan Engines for $1300?

 

In my own opinion, if i had the money of course, go for the titan motor. I rebuilt mine and i ended up regretting it because i did a few things wrong. With a junkyard or ebay motor, you dont have that fancy warranty that a new motor has. Also, you never know what youre going to get with a junkyard motor until its inside the xj. Just save some money and make a sound investment

 

I would find a cheapo craiglist Cherokee that has a bad tranny or something for like 500 bucks. That way you can hear it run before you buy it and still have a parts cherokee on top of that. About the same price you were saying for a JY motor anyways... And you can never have enough spare parts...

 

Not a bad idea, you can find Grand Cherokees with bad transmissions all day long for cheap, just pull the engine and any other goodies and junk the rest. The engine is the same, just the brackets are different, and a few other minor things.

 

So I have 2 people saying look for a Cherokee with a bad tranny and buy it for parts and 1 saying to go with the Titan Engine. Since Im on a college budget, Im liking the parts XJ thing... but if my 4.0 holds out for another year then Im going with the Reman.

 

i think if your gonna put in a motor you might as well put the motor you want in it!

 

I would just feel safer with a warranty.. and usually if it's all professionally installed with a 7 year/ 70,000 mile warranty, then it must be good.