Ok guys here's the deal. In the next year or so I'm going to do a 6.0L swap into my DD 2000 Jeep Cherokee. I plan on a 6.0L 4l60E/NP231, I don't do any real wheeling, no rock crawling just occasional off road in some mud (like 2x a year) and then I play in the snow/ice in the winter. I want to build an all out torque monster, 1000-5000rpm that's all I'm worried about, the only stipulations are 1. the engine will have to run 1.5" shorty headers. 2. It'll have to use a car intake for clearance (I know I'll lose torque). 3. run on 87 octane. 4. as budget as possible.

Any type of head work porting etc I have a neighbor who has a head porting service out of his garage and he does nice work, he's competed in the jegs engine master's challenge the last 3 years running and placed as high as 13th so I trust him to do any port work if needed.

So what would you guys do? cam, no cam, bump in compression, port work, head swap, etc.
Here's a tq curve from a stock 6.0L out of hotrod mag i found, A is stock as a rock, B is headers & Catback no tuning, C is same as B but tuned. how would you improve on this w/o losing those number down low. and I know since mine has to have a car intake they will be 10-15lbs lower
RPM-- A -- -- B -- -- C --
1600-353.6--360 --359.1
1700-354 --363.5--363.2
1800-355.7--367 --366.7
1900-358.3--370.3--369.7
2000-361.3--373.6--372.5
2100-363.8--376.7--375.2
2200-366.2--379.8--377.8
2300-368.3--382.8--380.4
2400-370.1--385.7--383.1
2500-371.6--388.7--385.9
2600-372.9--391.7--388.9
2700-374.2--394.7--392
2800-375.6--397.8--395.2
2900-377.2--400.8--398.6
3000-378.9--403.9--402
3100-380.9--406.9--405.5
3200-383.1--409.9--409.1
3300-385.5--412.6--412.7
3400-387.9--415.1--416.3
3500-390.2--417.3--419.9
3600-392.3--419.1--423.3
3700-394 --420.5--426.6
3800-395.3--421.4--429.8
3900-396.1--421.7--432.6
4000-396.3--XxXX--435.1
4100-xxxx--xxxx--437.2
4200-xxxx--xxxx--438.9
4300-xxxx--xxxx--439.9
4400-xxxx--xxxx--440.3

 

Building more power down low is really difficult without increasing cubes. However, a mild cam should pick up everywhere, and something with a narrower LCA should get you decent off idle/mid power if the cam is on the small side.
A little bit of port work without making the port much bigger will help.

Depending on how heavy your jeep is, and if you plan on towing with it, you could bump up your compression by getting your heads milled a bit. 10:1 should be ok for 87 is its not seeing high load low rpm like towing does.

Overall, small cam (~220 duration), cleaned up stock heads (try to keep as much material as possible), a mild bump in compression, and try and use the ls6 intake to give you some extra top.

 

Even a stock engine is gonna turn that jeep into a monster.

 

My plan was to try to use the LS6 intake, and per factory specs stock weight for a 4x4 xj is 3000-3300lbs and I don't plan on towing anything, maybe a lawn mowing trailer every so often but that's it.

yes, yes it is

 

In that hotrod article I picked out, the part 2 on that they swap on l92 heads l76 intake and a 90mm TB with a Crane Cam they made 463Ft/lbs by 4800.

"It turned out that the first step up from stock-Crane's PN 1449551 with 210/218-degree duration at 0.050-inch tappet lift-was a real torque monster, churning out more peak and average lb-ft than any other cam tested. Compared to the stock LQ9 cam, it gained 20 lb-ft at the peak to pound out 463 lb-ft, averaging 420 lb-ft overall. Its 462 hp represents a 37hp increase over the stock cam, and it also averaged the most power of any cam tested from 3,700 to 5,900 rpm. It idled at 21 inches of vacuum and outperformed the LQ9 cam at every rpm point."

So stick with stock heads or maybe upgrade if I find a smokin deal, ls6 intake, headers, tune, catback, the cam used here and I think that's a winner. It won't put out quite the numbers they did but it should be pretty stout!

 

Are you gonna get a LQ4 or LQ9?
If you find a LQ4 you can get the 243 head pretty cheap and they will bump your compression a bit.

 

I've heard good things about that Crane cam. I have extremely similar goals with my DD Avalanche. I'm also looking for torque from idle to max of 5k. I ended up going with a similar cam (210/218 @.050 .551 lift on 116 LSA.)
I thought about using the 317's, but I'm wanting a compression increase. I'll likely end up using a set of ported 853's I have.

I should have my remaining components by Monday, and be able to have the motor together by the end of next week.

 

6.0 motor 465rwhp 446 rwtq l92 heads ls3 intake and a custom cam. You will be using shorty headers and 87 octane so your cam choice might be different but this is a good combo to look at.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/dynamomet...p-446rwtq.html

 

Nice!! If you remember keep me updated if/when you dyno... sounds like a promising combo for sure! (Especially for our goals our)

That combo is SICK! pushing out RWHP #'s that match the Engine dyno numbers I've posted... very impressive. Maybe a little too much for my needs but hey I've always thought too much is JUST right!

 

I use LS3/L92 for low end TQ all the time. People freak when they don't make huge peak power numbers over their stock LS2 heads, but the average power/tq is KILLER and it tends to do it with a much smaller cam

 

no room for a ls truck intake?look at compcam 54-455-11,torque cam.