Jeep LS swap for the LJ

DaveB said:

You should see what I've had to do to clear the LS exhaust in my CJ8 with 4 link long arms. Just got my front driveline back from the shop and will have to modify things a bit more.

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I was a little worried about the driver side pipe on the front drive line. I really want to drop my jeep from a 4" to a 3" lift but was worried I didn't have the up travel. I took it to the closest dirt pile and it looks like I'll have plenty of room. Currently have 4" of uptravel, I'll change the bumps to get 5" and see where that puts me. This is at full bump





I've done a few test drives now for about 20 minutes each time. I'm getting the following codes.



I'm not sure why I'm getting EVAP and the fuel composition codes since I thought Matt turned those off until I get the rest of the emissions stuff worked out. I need to call him back. We talked about the C1 vs C2 thing last week and one of his diagrams was labeled wrong. So he had written it on the receipt incorrectly. I am using the Transmission relay for the fan since it is 40 amp, but I had removed the ign power to the relay control when removing basically all the Trans wiring. Wired it back up and the fan now functions properly.

The current alternator was also starting to lose a bearing so I replaced it with a 140 amp version and a new serpentine belt.


I'll have to dig into the P0141 code and see if my wiring is correct or if I got a bad O2 sensor.

Back to the gauges. I have power to every gauge, all the indicators and needles pass self check. The only thing missing it the PCI Buss or something telling the PCM to start outputting signal to the cluster. I have spent hours trying to figure out what wire I am missing.
I've checked every pin on all 3 of the remaining PCM plugs and they all appear to have the signal they should but still no dice. I'm seriously contemplating pulling the stock cluster and going to an autometer bezel with Speedhut OBD driven gauges. It is spendy but it gets the entire thing done quickly and they should function well and look good too. Plus Speedhut is in Orem so it supports a local company.


The last issue I've got is a strange intermittent stumble. You press the throttle down (hard or moderately) and it kind of falls on it's face. I'm thinking the trans might not be all the way clicked into drive or the TCC wire that controls torque converter lockup is not working. I'll have to check the lockup while driving and see if that's the issue. If not, I'll play with the shift gates and if I can't get it all lined up, I'll go with an aftermarket shifter.

Why did you choose to run the rear O2s? I've never tried to keep all the evap stuff so all of those codes would normally be turned off. In my experience, the LS series engines run cleaner with that stuff turned off than the 4.0 does on its best day.

UNSTUCK said:

Why did you choose to run the rear O2s? I've never tried to keep all the evap stuff so all of those codes would normally be turned off. In my experience, the LS series engines run cleaner with that stuff turned off than the 4.0 does on its best day.

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When I originally did my swap, all that stuff was required to make it emissions compliant. I would assume that rings true here as well.

RockChucker said:

When I originally did my swap, all that stuff was required to make it emissions compliant. I would assume that rings true here as well.

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Agreed. Turning off various sensors or PID's wasn't an option for me as I wanted everything functioning as designed for emissions compliancy.

Mike

As Dave and Mike said, I'm trying to make it Emissions compliant since I'm in Utah county. When I called the Emissions Ref, they didn't sound very certain of what I need. I have until February to get everything ironed out. If they just plug into the OBD and don't see any codes, I'll just leave them tuned out. If they toggle things and look for rear O2's and evap purge cycles, I have all that stuff there and can re-tune to turn it all on.

I recently rebuilt the wife's 2008 Yukon l92 and turned all the rear O2 codes, MIL settings and everything associated to them off with hp tuners. My generic OBD II reader says everything is in the "ready" state and has completed all the drive cycles with no issues for 2 months now. I'm in the Logan area so I have to pass emissions as well. If it fails in August I'll let you know.

P0141 is bank 1 sensor 2 heater circuit. So last night I pulled that O2 sensor and checked the heater resistance, it was 4.5 ohms. Check the spare I had and it is 5.3 ohms, looks like the heater is good. Checked the harness side and the heater circuit has 12 volts. Just for good measure I swapped bank 1 sensor 2 to bank 2 sensor 1. Took if for a drive.
Bank 1 sensor 2 shows a constant voltage of 1.1 even with the different O2 in there. Not quite sure what to think of that.
It is running super rich also. Long term fuel trims are -13% ish. AFR commanded is 12:1 too.
Did some church parking lot pulls and about 1 in 5 it falls on it's face. The other 4 it chirps 37's when it shifts to 2nd
Need to do some more research and figure out why bank 1 never changes voltage.
It didn't pull any o2 codes but it was only 1 drive cycle so I'll see what happens with a few more cycles.

1969honda said:

I recently rebuilt the wife's 2008 Yukon l92 and turned all the rear O2 codes, MIL settings and everything associated to them off with hp tuners. My generic OBD II reader says everything is in the "ready" state and has completed all the drive cycles with no issues for 2 months now. I'm in the Logan area so I have to pass emissions as well. If it fails in August I'll let you know.

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As I understand it, part of the emissions test is resetting the emissions ready flags. If they immediately turn ready again, they know it is bypassed and will fail you.

RockChucker said:

As I understand it, part of the emissions test is resetting the emissions ready flags. If they immediately turn ready again, they know it is bypassed and will fail you.

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That is what I was anticipating. To be honest, when I called the UT county emissions, the guy didn't seem all that informed. He had a hard time telling me what I had to have. I'm hoping to take Mike's approach. If you can stump them with information they can't answer and also they can't tell what you did or what was OEM, they will likely be more lenient. Fingers crossed but I am prepared to comply with whatever is required.

RockChucker said:

As I understand it, part of the emissions test is resetting the emissions ready flags. If they immediately turn ready again, they know it is bypassed and will fail you.

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I don't see how they can do that. On the LJ I just purchased it arrived to me with a dead battery. This resets the readiness monitors to "not ready". It took me 2 weeks of illegal driving to get 2 of the 3 monitors ready again. You can test with 0 or 1 monitors not ready. The testers computer will not allow the test to begin if 2 or more monitors are not ready. Every vehicle has its own specific drive cycle that must be done to reset the monitors. So the tester can not make them "not ready" and then just wait x amount of time for them to become "ready" again. Nor can their computer make them "ready".

UNSTUCK said:

I don't see how they can do that. On the LJ I just purchased it arrived to me with a dead battery. This resets the readiness monitors to "not ready". It took me 2 weeks of illegal driving to get 2 of the 3 monitors ready again. You can test with 0 or 1 monitors not ready. The testers computer will not allow the test to begin if 2 or more monitors are not ready. Every vehicle has its own specific drive cycle that must be done to reset the monitors. So the tester can not make them "not ready" and then just wait x amount of time for them to become "ready" again. Nor can their computer make them "ready".

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The way it was told to me is that they run the test (assuming there are no more than 1 monitors not ready). When they have completed the test, they reset the ECM (clear codes?) and watch to see what happens. If everything immediately toggles to ready, they know that the emissions system is disabled and they will fail it. I completely agree that it is a pain in the butt to get all the monitors to pass. The shop I was working with when trying to get all the emissions monitors ready was helpful and told me the conditions the ECM was looking for to get the monitors to a ready state. It still took a couple days because the fuel tank pressure specifically does a leak down test that lasts for several hours after the vehicle has been turned off. Total pain. Eventually they would have passed through normal driving, but knowing the scenarios to get the monitors ready did speed up the process.

I'll be taking my jeep back over to the wizards at my local Jiffy Lube this weekend. This will be my third attempt so they know me now. I'll ask and see what they say. If they're smarter than they look, we may all be in trouble. I think we'll be just fine.

I just cleared/reset the wife's rig out of curiosity. It didn't automatically reset the evap or O2 sensors other than to say the equipment is there?

UNSTUCK said:

I'll be taking my jeep back over to the wizards at my local Jiffy Lube this weekend. This will be my third attempt so they know me now. I'll ask and see what they say. If they're smarter than they look, we may all be in trouble. I think we'll be just fine.

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My 17 year old has been working at the Jiffy Lube in AF for a few months. He is a good kid and pretty motivated, not what I'd call an automotive expert but he is my kid and has lived in my gear head presence all 17 of his years. He is getting trained to do Emissions testing there. Had to get corporate clearance because he isn't 18 but they really like him. After hearing his stories about the other employee's there, I think we are all safe

It’s awesome he is getting his hands dirty at a young age. Unfortunately jiffy lube, at least in my book, is basically a joke. Hopefully your boy can filter out the junk he will be taught.

At the same time, I love jiffy lube because you can often either play dumb and talk your way into a pass, or play super smart and and teach your way into a pass. If all else fails, flirt your way into a pass.

UNSTUCK said:

It’s awesome he is getting his hands dirty at a young age. Unfortunately jiffy lube, at least in my book, is basically a joke. Hopefully your boy can filter out the junk he will be taught.

At the same time, I love jiffy lube because you can often either play dumb and talk your way into a pass, or play super smart and and teach your way into a pass. If all else fails, flirt your way into a pass.

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Luckily, he comes home and talks to me about what he did that day. He asks me lots of questions about how I do things now, which is odd because I've tried to get him in the garage to get some experience for years with little success. I'm not paying him so I guess that makes a difference. Talking to him cements my resolve to never EVER take a car to jiffy lube for any actual service. LOL. They are a joke. Maybe he will learn some emissions details and can help me with this swap

Did some more testing yesterday. I took it out early and ran over Suncrest to get some data under load. I am using Torque pro to data log. The thing ran great and never stumbled once. However, I was driving it reasonably instead of full throttle from every stop like previous tests. It was also about 40 degrees and coolant temp never exceeded 200. I'm assuming this made my rich condition less of an issue.

Looking at the data log and watching pre cat O2's, it looks like bank 2(blue) is running rich and the response is much slower than on bank 1. After getting into the throttle, bank 1 drops back to 0.1 volts much faster than bank 2. I'm thinking I might have a slow/sticky injector on bank 2.


Still getting a constant 1.1 volts on the bank 1 post cat sensor, I dug into it again. Previously I tested the heater for resistance (4.5 ohms) which is good. Then with key on, I checked between power and ground on the harness and it was 12v. This time I checked power to the negative on the battery and had 12v. Then I checked ground to the positive on the battery. Only reading 9v. Checked the ground wire in the O2 harness to the negative on the battery and it has 1.7M ohms of resistance where all the other O2's have less than 100. So I have a bad ground on that harness. I'll get that sorted today and see if it helps my fuel trims.

I'm 90% sure I'm going aftermarket gauges. Did some more shopping for gauges and am even more convinced to go with Speedhut. They offer a speedo with turn signal and high beam indicators on the dial face. They also have TONS of configurations. Autometer and several others only have 140 or 160 mph speedo's in any style I'm interested in. Speedhut has a way better range of values and every gauge is customizable. They also have some cool features like compass and elevation built into the GPS Speedo.

Figured out the O2 issue.

In my defense. The purple wire looked brown before I wiped it off, and the brown wire is brown.
No more bank 1 sensor 2 code.
Still running way rich, which I was hoping would be at least somewhat resolved.

As a field service mechanic in AZ several years ago, I replaced an old mechanic that was color blind. I spent a lot of time cleaning up his wiring messes. It was "amazing" how much better our equipment worked after a few months.

Keep going. You're doing fine.

During the last week of driving I've had a lifter stick a few times, now it's sticking about 60% of the time. Anyone have a good method to determine which lifter is stuck aside from pulling a valve cover and watching? I can't really tell which bank it's on.
Ive also got a decent squealing going in. I thought it was the alternator which definitely had a rough bearing but it's still there. I replaced the idler and the tensioner pulleys also. It's got to be water pump or the power steering pump. Leaning towards power steering.
I also have a significant leak on the trans that I'm pretty sure is coming from the dipstiick tube. It runs down the bellhousing and had me in a slight panic that the torque converter seal was bad but inside the bellhousing is dry.
It will drip a 2" circle after driving it, but only after driving.
Oh the little things.