T-Bus

Well I'm only days away from finally reviving my 99 xj after finding a pond a little over a year ago... needless to say it was a bad day! Luckily I wouldn't let my baby die that easy, after a lot of consideration and a lot of budgeting I came to a conclusion: bye bye 4.0, hello 5.3! Knowing LS engines fairly well and having one in my 04 Silverado dd, it was a pretty easy decision, but it honestly took a lot for me to finally accept I just wasn't going to build a stroker with the reliability and power of an LS engine for a price I could ever handle. So the search began, and although my plans have changed several times over the last year I finally have a set up! 5.3l and 4l60e from a rolled 2000 suburban, $200! Gota love knowing the right people. Well in the process of drowning my jeep we managed to rip my hitch clean out of the frame...yes it was that stuck! So instead of letting her sink to a watery grave we dug down to the rear axle and pulled it out by the axle, resulting in my wore out 8.25 bending. So I knew an axle swap was on my hands as well. At first I was going to run a modified np231 like frank z had done, but I ran into one major problem. Finding a pair of ford axles for under $1200 is about impossible around here, so I made another though decision and decided Chevy axles were my only option, found a pair for $100 with 4.10 gears that I go pick up next weekend. Now I had the problem of not being able to run any of the transfer cases that I've seen ran in this swap. I decided to go with a np208 case, light aluminum over a heavy cast 205. Plus a direct bolt up to my 4l60e! Although I will probably go to a built 205 in the future the 208 keeps my build cost down. Found a case for $50 and another for $100 and I'll pick up one or the other Thursday. Just a matter of if the guy still has the cheaper one lol. Also I went with the Novak motor mounts, and will see if I end up with their headers or not but I think I can possibly build my own or modify a set of camaro manifolds my buddy gave me. Which brings me to my next change in the engine, I'm running a camaro intake and holley LS swap brackets so that I can clear the hood without modification. Intake $125, billet fuel rails $120, brackets about $70. Also I decided to redo the top end of my 5.3 so another $100 for gaskets. I start my days off on Thursday and my Novak motor mounts should be here by then as well! so Thursday I'll be pulling my engine trans transfer and the swap will commence!

Also I will upload photos 2moro my phone is being dumb right now