After selling a spare motor to a friend we attempted a 4.5L stoker with a 4.2 crank and 4.oL rods and pistons. It ran pretty well and was a noticeable increase without messing with fuel regulator and MAP sensor during break in. unfortunately a few lifters collapsed from possible damage during an accident when the motor fell while building. Broke college kids put it together anyways because the parts were in front of us and he ran it for about 4 months.

I've talked to some engine builders that put together stroked jeeps, some clients have trouble getting it running right or they are unreliable. Others run great. So its really a toss up in my book. If I had the time and parts, I would do a stroker but i would heavily weight a V8 swap against it

 

Its a matter of you get what you pay for. I have a friend who builds race engines and he built a couple of 4.7s in his spare time a few years back, one is at 100 000 MILES now and is wheeled regularly, the others are still running strong but with less mileage.

 

thank you these are the kind of responses i was looking for, so the majority have had 50/50 experience so would you guys agree, it would be more sensible to just rebuild my current motor with maybe brand new internals but fCtory parts???

 

As I'm finding out, nothing is cheap if you're going to do it right. I was on the path of doing a stroker, but I am limited to one real machine shop in my area and he's never done a stroker for street driving. And his track builds haven't been jeep strokers, just chevys. So with a lack of professional experience locally I went the route of rebuilding a stock block.

From the block I was able to salvage the crank and rods and pretty much everything in the head, but everything else is new. I am almost a grand in parts alone, about $800 in machine and head work, and I still have many other things to purchases, such as fluids, spark plugs, cap/rotor, wires, sensors, belts, etc, etc,...

If I had been building a stroker I would have to add $400 more worth of pistions, $250 worth of valve springs and rockers, and who know's how much for machine work to the head. People say it's only a little bit more to build a stroker, I never thought they ment a third more. Oh, and dont' forget, you'll probably have to run high octane fuel and your gas mileage won't be as good as stock.

When building a motor there are many corners people can cut to save cost. So when someone tells you you can build a motor for less than $1500 dollars you can bet there are a lot of corners being cut. And would you want to limit your reliability and possibly waste money by doing that? NO. After the fact I am still thinking I should have just bought a crate motor and threw it in. Sure would have been nice to be driving my jeep for the past three months instead of waiting for things to get done.

Search Spike TV for the Trucks! episode where they built a stroker. It looks easy as first, but when I saw him grinding away at the combustion chamber to get the "right" quench value I knew this wasn't the route for me. I would have alway been second guessing myself as to wether I did it right "enough". They skim over a lot of things but it's still a good indicator of what you'd be into for a stroker (although their pricing is way low)

 

Hesco stroker motor. if you dont like the price of those then dont bother thinking about strokers. any less will be unreliable more than likely.

I think the consensus is you get what you pay for, so cheap out and it'll be unreliable.

 

wow greatresponse thanks! I did watch that episode of trucks and i watch 4x4 and thts where my idea came from lol well so since you actually went the whole rebuild route... You would HIGHLY sugggest just gettint a crate? ( Seems to me how you put from your expensive response haha) That was really what I was looking for in an answer thanks and let me know if youwould suggest a crate vs what you did, Thanks!

 

Yeah guys. You helped me too. I'm thinkin cratee motor too. I just can't do the down time a rebuild would require. so thanks again guys for helpin us out.

 

The three main reasons to consider a crate motor is the lower cost, shorter downtime, and you'll probably get some kind of warranty.

My machine shop pointed out though (after telling him I was considering a crate motor because his price was so expensive) that mass engine builders, such as Jasper, don't use as high a quality parts as what I would be getting in my kit. I began to wonder if I bought a crate motor, would I get one built on a Friday when all the workers were in a hurry to start the weekend or on a Monday when they were hung over from drinking all weekend? Would those cheap China parts hold up as well as my Seal Power and Melling parts? In the end, since time frame wasn't an issue, I felt that having the satisfaction of building my own motor was worth the extra cost. hopefullly with the support of forums such as this I won't run into too many problems and a majority of it should be assembled tomorrow.

 

Well I would never buy a performance motore from jasper. They are known for stock rebuilds not performance. I would prolly go with a titan stroker or some equivalent.

 

^^ Same here, Thanks

 

I believe Mopar Preformance also sells a 4.0l stroker. I don't have a link to it but IIRC it was almost $5K.

 

Thanks but after alot of exp. stories here I think its better to just either go with a crate or rebuild with factory parts

 

Stroking a 4.0L to 4.5 or 4.6 is not as complicated as it may seem; if you have a rebuild planned anyway. Granted the parts (pistons, machine work, a new 258 crank, and maybe a different camshaft) will be a little more than a normal kit. Pretty much all "master" rebuild kits will allow you to order .20, .30, .40, and .60 pistons at no extra charge. Going over .40 you will need custom forged pistons and the like, plus .60 the cylinder is getting pretty close to being too thin.
Check out the Grandmaster of all Jeep Stroker's, Dino, webpage: http://www.angelfire.com/my/fan/faqs.html
and see if it's something you want. Really the only thing that is tough about stroking a 4.0L is all the research you do to ensure that you're that you have the right "reciepe" for your wants/needs/skills. Also, Jp Magazine has a great article on increasing your hp/torque 40% without overboring, a 258 crank, and other aftermarket parts. One caveat though, a basic rebuild with other assorted performance part such as header, high-flow exhaust, cold air intake, and 62mm TB (and maybe a chip like Edge TrialJammer) will yeild great results also, but probably nothing over ~190-200hp though.