Hello everyone,my first time posting here. I have tried my best to do research and find the answer to my question but seems to be I am in a predicament. My problem is I have a 97 sport however when I bought it the engine came with was a distributor engine I also don't know what year nothing was hooked up correctly or at all, but I had bought my best friend's rolled 91 limited body was completely junk however change the oil do a little bit of maintenance and the engine's still ran. My problem now is my 97 is well a 97 and set up for coil ignition now personally I have no issue with distributor or distributor list however I do not have much experience with converting or figuring out whether I should modify my 91 block to work with the coil as everything is already in the vehicle or if I should revert everything back to distributor. I have both computers I have the entire wiring harness from the '97 and I have the complete dash and parts of the wiring harness from the 91. Any and all help or advice is welcome

 

Unless you want to swap in all the wiring and the Gauge Cluster, and therefore most likely the Dash as well, from the '91, your only option is use stuff for the 97.


Edit: Too early for thinking...

 

I thought coil rails didn't come out til 2000?????

 

That 97 should be a distributor engine. The coil rail should only be on a 2000-2001 . If the coil rail is actually bolted in place then you have an 0331 head which only goes on those 2 years. . In addition he exhaust system is completely different, so if your actually running a coil rail, then you have a patchwork bastardized engine and were all going to need lots of pictures

 



 




I agree definitely too early for thinking let me have some coffee and go take some photos The title and the door both say it's a 97 but it most certainly had the coil rail. As I understand the individual I bought it from said the motor blew up they took it to a shop The shop replaced it with some gear motor that has a distributor however nothing was hooked up, so I opted to use my motor that I already know and trust runs which is also a distributor model out of a 91. Let me go take some photos and learn how to put them in here.





 

The only problem between. 91 and 97 should be the connectors on almost all accessories. The early years maybe up to an 96 all the connectors have round pins...later models have flat blade connectors. The belt tensioning system is different between 91 and 97 but you can go either way since you have both sets of brackets we need good pictures of exhaust manifold above the main downpipe coupling and of your distributor/ cam sensor

 

Old engine


Okay so upon further inspection it appears that what I believed to be the coil rail is in fact not that at all and they are indeed flat blade connectors. The welding and fabrication on this project I am okay with but wiring is definitely new and not my forte. That being said at this point what would you recommend as far as the computer situation I need to verify but assuming the '91 computer connects should I use that or should I use the '97?

 

So is the red coming out or going in, or is the green going in

 

Green came out red is going in. I'm in the middle of the project so obviously the wiring is all over in a mess but I can do my best to provide photos or even video if I can figure out how that works if it works

 

Me, I'm lost - why are we changing the engine? But, accepting that is the name of the game, having discounted the coil rail issue, what now is the problem?

To the best of my knowledge, an engine doesn't have any electrical connections, so use the '91 lump & the '97 ancillaries, simples! We seem to have moved from one imaginary problem to a non-existent one - or am I missing something?

 

Well to answer your first question Long story long. My best friend owned the 91 and then unfortunately had a rollover back in 2019 I bought it off of him as I had a 87 S10 Blazer shell and I was hoping to build it into a buggy of sorts however between life money and my skill set it took too long so we happen to pawn a really good deal on the 97 but the green engine that was in the '97 to the best of our knowledge didn't work was not hooked up the painted it so badly there was paint inside the valve cover so we decided to just use the 91 that we already knew still worked so that's the reason for the swap.

As far as everything else as I mentioned I am entirely new to wiring welding and fabrication easy enough but I wanted to make sure that I had as much information as possible I know wiring seems to change certain things depending on the years and who made it etc etc and I also want the engine to hopefully start up and actually run without having to do extra. So I agree with you, at this point sounds like I should be able to technically run either computer hook up all of the accessories and connections and whatever is left deal with it at that point.
So I guess my real question now would be is there any information or threads on how to simplify / cleanup the wiring harness this is more of a rock crawler build and a lot of the wiring is frayed connectors destroyed I may have limited experience but I want it clean simple and I would like to get rid of a lot of things that I won't be using or needing such as cruise control rear windshield wiper things along those lines.

 

Use newer if you got a choice. Older is, well, older! I run a push button shift, no trans computer at all. Removed unnecessary accessory wiring. Simpler, cleaner. You do you, it's your jeep 🚙 😉

My pile. Made the 1 ton steering links, the grill, swaybar disco's, much more. Mudpuppy!

 

Must've missed the bit about the '97 lump being a non-runner.

" . . . wiring welding and fabrication . . . "? You're doing an engine swap - it's nuts'n'bolts.

Essentially, I'm with Ricthewrench but I'd suggest you get the "new" lump in, hooked up &, at v. least running (if not driving) & then think about what you don't want/can do without. The next step would be to remove them & their associated wiring.

I s'pose for a crawler all you need is ignition & charging circuits + p'raps temp. & oil pressure gauges. You could go the whole hog, retrofit a carb & junk the ECU & all the sensors & modules, ending up with a CJ2/3 that looks like an XJ -as the man said, it's your Jeep.
.

 

In a nutshell...if your jeep wiring has round pin connectors. you need to swap all components with round pins in... if your jeep has flat blade connectors then you need to install the components with flat blade stuff...the components themselves are interchangeable...just need to match your parts