Explorer I
- 3,680
- First Name
- Brian
- Last Name
- McGahuey
- Member #
23711
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- GMRS WRMV941
2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Build
- Thread starter tjZ06
- Start date
Advocate I
I guess I'm a little behind on updates here. Front bumper fitment is going well, it needed a lot of fitment work to get it tight, but that is to be expected with a DIY kit and why I went with a DIY vs. fully-fabbed:
Advocate I
We're also getting some more of the odds and ends fit up, like getting the stock airbox in, making lines for the Hemi PS pump to work w/ my steering setup, mounting a PS reservoir that clears the airbox and hood, figuring out the AC lines (need to get one 1 cut/welded), etc:
Also got the harness and '05 RAM computer in and communicating:
-TJ
Also got the harness and '05 RAM computer in and communicating:
-TJ
Advocate I
Okay, some more (slow) movement...
First, trans cooler. We (my buddy that's doing most of the actual build/fab) and I decided to divorce the trans cooling from the radiator entirely, and move it out of the front cooling stack. The cooling stack is already pretty packed and has a lot of thermal load between the engine radiator, AC condenser, giant PS cooler (mine being a later V8 had the hydraulic cooling fan, even though I eliminated that I maintained the giant cooler since I have hydraulic-assist steering on it) and now an oil cooler (going where my aux trans cooler used to be... in fact I think I'm just going to use the same cooler/fan itself).
Here is where we decided to land the cooler, utilizing the additional "subframe" that is part of the Trail Forged long arm/full belly skid and is welded into the unibody making a huge frame stiffener for the entire center of the vehicle (the front/rear are of course also stiffened on my WJ):
Went with a nice, big Deraile unit:
Mounts coming together:
And it's tight under there, but I think we have sufficient room between the fans and the floorpans for airflow, and it's not too-too close to the exhaust:
Next, figuring out the lights on the bumper. Where I originally thought I'd land them they won't clear the winch without huge stand-off "boxes" to space them out. I want a little box to square them up so they aim directly forward, but it would have had to be giant in the first spot. So, it's looking like they'll land pretty close to the shackle mounts. For recovery that's NBD because soft shackles will sneak in easy. What I need to do is figure out what drawbar assembly I'm going to use for flat towing and see what space is needed for that.
Here's how it would have had to be in the first location (no bueno):
And here's what it's looking like we'll do:
-TJ
First, trans cooler. We (my buddy that's doing most of the actual build/fab) and I decided to divorce the trans cooling from the radiator entirely, and move it out of the front cooling stack. The cooling stack is already pretty packed and has a lot of thermal load between the engine radiator, AC condenser, giant PS cooler (mine being a later V8 had the hydraulic cooling fan, even though I eliminated that I maintained the giant cooler since I have hydraulic-assist steering on it) and now an oil cooler (going where my aux trans cooler used to be... in fact I think I'm just going to use the same cooler/fan itself).
Here is where we decided to land the cooler, utilizing the additional "subframe" that is part of the Trail Forged long arm/full belly skid and is welded into the unibody making a huge frame stiffener for the entire center of the vehicle (the front/rear are of course also stiffened on my WJ):
Went with a nice, big Deraile unit:
Mounts coming together:
And it's tight under there, but I think we have sufficient room between the fans and the floorpans for airflow, and it's not too-too close to the exhaust:
Next, figuring out the lights on the bumper. Where I originally thought I'd land them they won't clear the winch without huge stand-off "boxes" to space them out. I want a little box to square them up so they aim directly forward, but it would have had to be giant in the first spot. So, it's looking like they'll land pretty close to the shackle mounts. For recovery that's NBD because soft shackles will sneak in easy. What I need to do is figure out what drawbar assembly I'm going to use for flat towing and see what space is needed for that.
Here's how it would have had to be in the first location (no bueno):
And here's what it's looking like we'll do:
-TJ
Advocate I
Progress little by little:
I'm not worried about the tight turns that will be necessary to make this work. Ordered more bends, and with the size of the tubing I don't think it will be a massive restriction - and honestly as I've said all along I should probably be taking power *out* of it anyway.
-TJ
I'm not worried about the tight turns that will be necessary to make this work. Ordered more bends, and with the size of the tubing I don't think it will be a massive restriction - and honestly as I've said all along I should probably be taking power *out* of it anyway.
-TJ
Advocate I
To be honest, I don't think this is actually going to add any restriction, at least as compared to the intake box itself. Once this thing gets on a dyno I do intend to test a few different ways...
- Complete assembly with a basic parts store paper filter
- Complete assembly with some whiz-bang filter (IDK if I'll do oiled cotton/gauze, because I'm not a big fan of them in off-road applications where a pre-filter isn't available/doesn't make sense)
- Upper lid popped/propped up off the lower air box with filter secured to lid (to determine if the lower airbox itself is restrictive)
- Upper lid w/o filter (basically just a science experiment since I'd never consider running without a filter, but need the data-point to compare against)
- Just the intake tube assembly, no lid
- Just the open TB
-TJ
Advocate I
I thought maybe a little recap and status check was in order, so... things that have been done:
So, what isn't done?
- The whole drivetrain is back in, fresh fluids in, etc.
- Shifters and interior back in/together
- Big trans cooler setup fab'ed and installed (fully divorced trans cooling from rad)
- All power steering stuff figured out (had to move a lot of the hydro assist lines around)
- AC lines all figured out/fab'ed
- Intake to stock air box all done (just needs paint)
- New Teraflex Big Brakes on
- New wheels/tires mounted
- DIY kit bumper all welded up and smoothed and sent off for blasting so we can paint it today
- Fuel system all done with Bosch 044 in the stock basket and new Hellcat injectors
- EVAP deleted and all the wiring/lines on top of the fuel tank greatly cleaned up
- Fuel fill line changed/un-kinked for hopefully better fill ups (kinked line was a result of tank-tuck)
- Pod lights in bumper mounted (well, they're back out since the bumper is off but it's all setup and wired)
- Relay block built for all the various stuff we added or changed that needed power, or was redone more cleanly than previous
- Custom engine harness from Hotwire to marry WJ chassis/body stuff and run a '05 RAM computer in and basic function tested
- Base tune from Modern Muscle (where I sourced the cam) loaded in based on engine build specs
- ATS CoPilot all wired in for trans control (including giving it dedicated power, that's what one of the new relays is for)
- Full custom stainless exhaust front to back, including headers built (running high flow cats, mufflers and an X-pipe)
- Unibody notching, custom motor mounts, etc. all done
- New headlights and taillights in (LED)
So, what isn't done?
- Cowl pod light mounts/wiring (obv not a blocker to starting the thing)
- Final trans fluid level set (waiting on new dipstick, no idea where the original one went, lol)
- Paint front bumper and get it back on with lights, winch, etc.
- Setup both pairs of pod lights for control via the Trail Dash (wiring is done, just need to do the TD setup)
- Fresh battery
- Pray... a lot
Advocate I
Little update:
THE 426CUI GEN III HEMI STARTED!!!!!
...kinda. We've been having a hell of a time getting HP Tuners to play nice with the overall setup (2005 Ram computer, custom Hotwire harness, early Gen III Hemi, 545RFE). It's still complaining about an unsupported VIN, even though it shows the VIN is fully licensed (and obviously sees the VIN). We're getting a cable hopefully today to be able to bench-tune the ECU, but for now we only have the basically stock 6.1 SRT8 tune (with things like SKIM, EVAP etc. deleted) in it that Hotwire set us up with. The motor is obviously much larger, has a decent little cam in it, and the big kicker for just trying to get it to start/idle is that it has Trackhawk injectors. We got it to fire, but pretty much instantly turned it off so we didn't wash down the cylinders on a fresh build.
Also, here's what actually was keeping us from starting it for a few days:
This relay provides power to the injectors and coils. As you can see the uppermost... IDK what the right name is, PIN receptacle, female side of a PIN, whatever had backed out (the plastic retention clip in the fuse block is broken... eventually I'll replace it, but once we reached underneath and held it in place while replacing the relay it holds nice and tight... I'm sure if/when I ever have to replace the relay I'll forget all about this and the Jeep won't start and I'll light it on fire and push it off a cliff).
Front coming together, but I ordered the wrong headlights... I'll probably do some kind of screen/mesh behind the grill but the stock "bars" weren't supported well enough to use:
it's hard to explain, but because of what's missing from the grill shell that's how much hit had to be cut up. I like the look without it better for now, but longer term I'd still like some protection from debris for the cooling stack.
Also doing some small button-up stuff like running all my breathers up into the engine bay:
-TJ
THE 426CUI GEN III HEMI STARTED!!!!!
...kinda. We've been having a hell of a time getting HP Tuners to play nice with the overall setup (2005 Ram computer, custom Hotwire harness, early Gen III Hemi, 545RFE). It's still complaining about an unsupported VIN, even though it shows the VIN is fully licensed (and obviously sees the VIN). We're getting a cable hopefully today to be able to bench-tune the ECU, but for now we only have the basically stock 6.1 SRT8 tune (with things like SKIM, EVAP etc. deleted) in it that Hotwire set us up with. The motor is obviously much larger, has a decent little cam in it, and the big kicker for just trying to get it to start/idle is that it has Trackhawk injectors. We got it to fire, but pretty much instantly turned it off so we didn't wash down the cylinders on a fresh build.
Also, here's what actually was keeping us from starting it for a few days:
This relay provides power to the injectors and coils. As you can see the uppermost... IDK what the right name is, PIN receptacle, female side of a PIN, whatever had backed out (the plastic retention clip in the fuse block is broken... eventually I'll replace it, but once we reached underneath and held it in place while replacing the relay it holds nice and tight... I'm sure if/when I ever have to replace the relay I'll forget all about this and the Jeep won't start and I'll light it on fire and push it off a cliff).
Front coming together, but I ordered the wrong headlights... I'll probably do some kind of screen/mesh behind the grill but the stock "bars" weren't supported well enough to use:
it's hard to explain, but because of what's missing from the grill shell that's how much hit had to be cut up. I like the look without it better for now, but longer term I'd still like some protection from debris for the cooling stack.
Also doing some small button-up stuff like running all my breathers up into the engine bay:
-TJ
Explorer I
- 3,680
- First Name
- Brian
- Last Name
- McGahuey
- Member #
23711
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- GMRS WRMV941
Advocate I
Explorer I
- 3,680
- First Name
- Brian
- Last Name
- McGahuey
- Member #
23711
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- GMRS WRMV941
I had a similar issue happen with the relay box for my lighting in the Xterra. I had one switch that wasn't working no matter what I did. It wasn't until I actually pulled the box out to rewire the whole thing, that I noticed the problem. One of the terminald from the switch to the relay had dropped out of the holder. I ended up replacing the relay box and redoing the entire setup later.
Advocate I
Advocate I
Got a little closer over the last few days with some tuning. Running into starter issues with heat soak. We've wrapped the header and are going to a gear-reduction unit to hopefully remedy that situation. Starter issue caused us to miss our tune appointment this Tues, unfortunately that pushed us way back 'til the 16th. At least that gives us a little more time to street tune, bed the new brakes, put heat cycles and miles on the refreshed trans, etc. etc. etc.
-TJ
-TJ
Advocate I
Well, I'm long overdue for an update here. I really wanted my next post to be a picture of me out in the WJ camping, but with a lot of other things going on in life it just hasn't gotten there yet. I will say, things are much closer, yet the update is more or less the same: more tuning/refining. The tune is finally just about dialed-in and we're chasing down a lot of the little gremlins and loose ends.
That said, this engine is a MONSTER. I definitely went way beyond "necessary" or even advisable with the engine build, the hot rodder in me prevailed over better judgement. That said, it starts/idles and drives around incredibly smooth and easy when not heavy in the throttle. So it won't be a detriment to the intended purpose of the rig and will definitely provide some thrills.
And of course I'm already thinking about the next stage. For those not keeping pack, or scrolling back pages and pages I would call my goal here a "Rocklander." Not a hardcore rock crawler by any means (it's only on 35"s) but I want to be able to comfortably run and camp along the Rubicon and trails of that nature. To that end my next plan is to ditch the back seat all together and do a sleeping/storage build-out.
One of the goals of the build-out will be keeping it as light as possible (this is already a very heavy rig for being a WJ). I want to keep the platform as short as possible (to make it not too coffin-like when sleeping inside) while still getting usable storage. It will (hopefully) be a pretty typical setup with drawers extending out the back, and flip-up storage in what would have been the rear seat/rear footwell area. I plan to do an aux Lithium battery and management under the passenger side, which will be my primary sleeping side when solo. I want to leave my "bed" made at all times on solo trips so I don't want to put things I'll likely need under that side of the platform. I will probably squeeze a small sub box in there too, because I'm an idiot and still have to have good tunes (the rest of the stereo is already upgraded, posted earlier in this thread, but it lacks a sub).
If space allows, I'd like to work a small water tank into the storage in the former back seat area as well, but it will probably land on the driver's side to a) keep the water away from all the electronics b) make it easier to access/use. Additionally I would like to fit all my tools, recovery gear, and other hard-parts in that space.
Now, one catch with sleeping in a WJ is they are small, and the hatch area isn't long enough for me at 6' even with the rear seats out and going to the back of the center console. So, my plan is a section that will hinge and flip-forward with both front passenger seats moved to all the way up. The extension will have/need some fold out "legs" to support the front of it. I think it will be two-piece, so when it's just me I only have to lift my sleeping pad and flip the passenger side portion out, without moving whatever is stored on the drivers side of the platform.
I'll run a few full-length sections of L-track on the platform to make tying down gear easy. Nothing drives me crazier than all my gear bouncing all over as the rig flops down a technical trail. The main thing being secured will be a fridge at the back on the passenger side. For the fridge I might use a slide-out, drop-down type slide rather than just securing it to the L-track, but that is TBD once I figure out how much space I actually have to work with.
All together, the goal would be that all my gear/clothes/cooking kit would be in the drawers, the bed section will stay made, and random odds and ends can easily be strapped/bungeed down on the forward section of the drivers side. Nothing would need to go on the roof rack or outside the rig other than extra fuel and perhaps a bear box to stuff trash into at night.
.
.
.
But first, it needs to be a driver and I need to camp with it!
-TJ
That said, this engine is a MONSTER. I definitely went way beyond "necessary" or even advisable with the engine build, the hot rodder in me prevailed over better judgement. That said, it starts/idles and drives around incredibly smooth and easy when not heavy in the throttle. So it won't be a detriment to the intended purpose of the rig and will definitely provide some thrills.
And of course I'm already thinking about the next stage. For those not keeping pack, or scrolling back pages and pages I would call my goal here a "Rocklander." Not a hardcore rock crawler by any means (it's only on 35"s) but I want to be able to comfortably run and camp along the Rubicon and trails of that nature. To that end my next plan is to ditch the back seat all together and do a sleeping/storage build-out.
One of the goals of the build-out will be keeping it as light as possible (this is already a very heavy rig for being a WJ). I want to keep the platform as short as possible (to make it not too coffin-like when sleeping inside) while still getting usable storage. It will (hopefully) be a pretty typical setup with drawers extending out the back, and flip-up storage in what would have been the rear seat/rear footwell area. I plan to do an aux Lithium battery and management under the passenger side, which will be my primary sleeping side when solo. I want to leave my "bed" made at all times on solo trips so I don't want to put things I'll likely need under that side of the platform. I will probably squeeze a small sub box in there too, because I'm an idiot and still have to have good tunes (the rest of the stereo is already upgraded, posted earlier in this thread, but it lacks a sub).
If space allows, I'd like to work a small water tank into the storage in the former back seat area as well, but it will probably land on the driver's side to a) keep the water away from all the electronics b) make it easier to access/use. Additionally I would like to fit all my tools, recovery gear, and other hard-parts in that space.
Now, one catch with sleeping in a WJ is they are small, and the hatch area isn't long enough for me at 6' even with the rear seats out and going to the back of the center console. So, my plan is a section that will hinge and flip-forward with both front passenger seats moved to all the way up. The extension will have/need some fold out "legs" to support the front of it. I think it will be two-piece, so when it's just me I only have to lift my sleeping pad and flip the passenger side portion out, without moving whatever is stored on the drivers side of the platform.
I'll run a few full-length sections of L-track on the platform to make tying down gear easy. Nothing drives me crazier than all my gear bouncing all over as the rig flops down a technical trail. The main thing being secured will be a fridge at the back on the passenger side. For the fridge I might use a slide-out, drop-down type slide rather than just securing it to the L-track, but that is TBD once I figure out how much space I actually have to work with.
All together, the goal would be that all my gear/clothes/cooking kit would be in the drawers, the bed section will stay made, and random odds and ends can easily be strapped/bungeed down on the forward section of the drivers side. Nothing would need to go on the roof rack or outside the rig other than extra fuel and perhaps a bear box to stuff trash into at night.
.
.
.
But first, it needs to be a driver and I need to camp with it!
-TJ
Advocate I
So, what has become of this thing? In short, nothing good. It's a constant cycle of one step forward, two steps back.
I don't even know where to begin, and there have been so many issues I probably wouldn't even remember them all. But we battled with overheating (always shut it down before it got hot-hot, but it was baffling as it previously would idle as long as you wanted in any temp never getting hot at all). Overheating meant we couldn't run it long enough to log/tune. Also, all the HVAC stopped working at all. With the new harness the Trail Dash wouldn't work, which was fine as I wanted to move the lockers to actual hard-switches anyway and the TD was basically just there to operate those, some lights and give me some additional gauges. The lockers/lights will go to an SPod or the like, and I'll just do gauges through an OBD-II-based app on the CarPlay HU.
We figured out the cooling, it was a failed (brand new) t-stat. My conjecture is it just sat around too long with infrequent heat cycles. But, who knows. It seems new parts failing quickly, or being bad right out of the box is becoming endemic in the industry. We went ahead and found an aftermarket radiator with a bit more capacity that also has no trans cooler provision (recall, I already have a big external cooler w/ two fans on it, and had already divorced trans cooling out of the radiator) and redid the fan control with an actual temp sensor in the water pump (vs. the stick-on sensor on the hot side of the radiator) and used new fan controllers, plural with a controller and relay per fan vs. having them on the same controller/relay as before.
As for HVAC, we thought we cracked the case when we pulled the ENTIRE dash out and found a few things unplugged, one blend door motor totally missing etc (after putting an entire brand new control panel in with no change). We decided to replace/reseal EVERYTHING "while we were in there." Heater core, evaporator, every piece of foam, lines/hoses/fittings, etc. etc. etc. It went back together and everything worked... until it didn't. Now nothing HVAC works again. Now windows, dome light and some other things don't work too. Our only guess at this point is a failed BCM. We've ordered a refurbished unit (you can't get new-new) so we'll see.
Somewhere in there we finally notched the unibody and actually fixed the fuel filling problem.
Assuming the BCM fixes the HVAC and other electrical gremlins we still have a long road ahead. We can finally get back to tuning and chasing down a few other stupid things.
While it might sound like we're closer than ever, I feel like it's still a pipe-dream. I'm petty dejected, and wonder when I have to stop throwing good money behind bad with this thing.
-TJ
I don't even know where to begin, and there have been so many issues I probably wouldn't even remember them all. But we battled with overheating (always shut it down before it got hot-hot, but it was baffling as it previously would idle as long as you wanted in any temp never getting hot at all). Overheating meant we couldn't run it long enough to log/tune. Also, all the HVAC stopped working at all. With the new harness the Trail Dash wouldn't work, which was fine as I wanted to move the lockers to actual hard-switches anyway and the TD was basically just there to operate those, some lights and give me some additional gauges. The lockers/lights will go to an SPod or the like, and I'll just do gauges through an OBD-II-based app on the CarPlay HU.
We figured out the cooling, it was a failed (brand new) t-stat. My conjecture is it just sat around too long with infrequent heat cycles. But, who knows. It seems new parts failing quickly, or being bad right out of the box is becoming endemic in the industry. We went ahead and found an aftermarket radiator with a bit more capacity that also has no trans cooler provision (recall, I already have a big external cooler w/ two fans on it, and had already divorced trans cooling out of the radiator) and redid the fan control with an actual temp sensor in the water pump (vs. the stick-on sensor on the hot side of the radiator) and used new fan controllers, plural with a controller and relay per fan vs. having them on the same controller/relay as before.
As for HVAC, we thought we cracked the case when we pulled the ENTIRE dash out and found a few things unplugged, one blend door motor totally missing etc (after putting an entire brand new control panel in with no change). We decided to replace/reseal EVERYTHING "while we were in there." Heater core, evaporator, every piece of foam, lines/hoses/fittings, etc. etc. etc. It went back together and everything worked... until it didn't. Now nothing HVAC works again. Now windows, dome light and some other things don't work too. Our only guess at this point is a failed BCM. We've ordered a refurbished unit (you can't get new-new) so we'll see.
Somewhere in there we finally notched the unibody and actually fixed the fuel filling problem.
Assuming the BCM fixes the HVAC and other electrical gremlins we still have a long road ahead. We can finally get back to tuning and chasing down a few other stupid things.
While it might sound like we're closer than ever, I feel like it's still a pipe-dream. I'm petty dejected, and wonder when I have to stop throwing good money behind bad with this thing.
-TJ
Dougnuts
Rank II
Enthusiast III
Explorer I
- 3,680
- First Name
- Brian
- Last Name
- McGahuey
- Member #
23711
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- GMRS WRMV941
I'm sorry man. That frustrating. At the rate you're going though, you'll have a practically new vehicle when you're done though!
Advocate I
Well, believe it or not I drove the WJ home last week. The tune still needs a little work, and in 105+ ambient temps it would run 210-220 in traffic which is totally safe (and what almost all modern Hemis run stock anyway) but I got a little pinging once it was 210+. A few other odds and ends, but I might be using this thing this fall...
-TJ
-TJ
