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I've had this Jeep for quite a while and it always had a slight bottom end noise. Everyone said that it was "typical 4.0" noise but it continued to annoy me. After selling my last LS swap I figured it was time for an upgrade.
Sahara, 4.0 I6, AX15 manual trans, Rubicon wheels, 1" body lift, Coil spring spacers
Bone stock 4.0 140k miles
Unknown mileage LQ4 from a buddy that got it from a guy.....
Cut off part of the factory motor mounts and wire wheeled the frame.
Holley mounts went in pretty easy with some grinding.
Welded, primed & painted
I wanted an old Chrysler color for the engine but licensed ones were pretty expensive and the Duplicolor seemed too blue so I settled on Detroit Alpine Green.
Truck accessories and 2010 Camaro pump with Dirty Dingo idler relocation.
The late model Camaro water pump moves the upper radiator hose to the driver's side. This allowed me to use a much cheaper SBC swap radiator and gave me room for the air intake on passenger side.
I ordered my Tremec TR4050 from Silver Sport Transmission. It came with a kit that was partially complete for the TJ. The transmission was fairly new at that point & I don't think many people had done the swap with the LS. The kit was geared towards a 4.0 application and they swapped the bellhousing/clutch including a few items that they thought would be required for the V8. They had very little tech support as they said they didn't know of one that was complete. Shifter location was the biggest challenge. I will cover that later.
I had to tear down the transfer case to install a Slip Yoke Eliminator in preparation for a real lift kit at some point.
I've had my LS6/4L60E swapped 98 Wrangler for over 15 years. It's been a great swap. I didn't bother with shield around the air cleaner. I put the ECM under the brake booster. There is a nice shelf under the booster. My LS6 is stock with the exception of the BBK intake. Stock rebuilt 4L60E. I scored a 241R TC locally. Maybe a wide chain kit for your 231? Double check the travel on your clutch slave cylinder. My first TJ swap I used a AX15 trans and clutch slave. The stock AX15 slave had too much travel for the LS clutch and would over center the clutch. I added a Explorer 8.8 posi rear axle but kept the stock front 35.
I ran block hugger headers. 2.5" into a 2-1 merge. Then 3" all the way to the back down the left side. Max size Dyno Max turbo muffler.
Good luck with you swap.
to quiet it down.
In place of the carbon canister I made a shelf to hold the PCM in a S10 style bracket. The ABS has been deleted and the space will be used for the engine fuse block.
I made another small shelf integrated into the factory fuse block for the power module and power lug for future winch installation.
You can see the factory truck heater hose holder modified with a billet clamp
Instead of using the thing Silver sport sent with the kit I made a pedestal for a factory style GM poly mount.
The transmission needed to be high in the frame because the low hanging belly skid will be replaced with a high clearance version.
2010 Camaro exhaust manifolds were used to avoid header leaks and keep under hood temps down. Coated with high temp paint that needed to be baked in the oven. Fitment was great!
The heat shield on driver's side manifold had to be trimmed a little on the bottom for mount clearance.
Plenty of clearance on steering. I also raised the steering shaft support that was not done when the previous owner did the body lift.
A little creative bending and the factory Jeep power steering lines hooked directly to the reman P/S pump
Shifter placement was the biggest struggle on this project. With the LS being so much shorter the shifter was under the dash with shifter provided. Silversport didn't have any input.
This is the very nice 2-piece shifter that came with the transmission. No chance of it working.
Factory shifter cover
Notch cut in front of factory hole. You can see heat marks from bending shifter. Not going to work.
While watching Extreme 4x4 with Ian he mentions Silversport offers a setback shifter for Jeep JK tr4050 swaps! This was never mentioned as an option and certainly wasn't in the "kit". Something like $500 later I was back on track.
Filled in the factory shifter cover
Thought it was solved using half of the supplied shifter until I realized this was neutral and 2nd gear was down towards the cupholder
Exhaust was next. I knew there was going to be some creative routing so I chose stainless so that it would outlast the Jeep. Also a good chance to work on my TIG welding.
2.5" merged into 3"
Magnaflow ended up being too loud. I added a resonator later
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Jeep TJ LQ4 TR4050 
