1996 Jeep Cherokee A.K.A Project RX-79G_Ez-8

It is finally getting done!!!! The build thread that is

So, here it goes.

So it all started when I was looking for a winter beater after the Subbie got totaled. Of course, since I work at an off-road Jeep shop, I was looking at Jeeps and this is what I found a mere 5 minutes from my house for a steal!


Bone stock and a beater with a heater. Nothing wrong with that right?

Oh so flexy.....ok maybe not.


So as you can imagine, driving a stock Jeep like this was not going to happen forever. So fast forward a few months.


Our (Iron Rock Offroad) 6.5" Long Arm Kit



Finished install with borrowed 35x12.50-15 BFG Mud Terrain KM2s.
All in time for NAXJA Winterfest 2013!


Here she is all clean (relatively) waiting to hit the trails at the Badlands in Attica, Indiana.





My boss decided he was just done driving rubber side up


Everyone was ok and the Jeep got tipped right side up and proceeded to wheel the rest of the weekend without any hick-ups.

Needles to say, it was a tough weekend for our rigs :'(




Yeah she was a muddy girl when I got done with her!

 

thats it...

 

So far man! I've got the rest of the pictures I need here at work. Gonna work on getting the rest up in the next day or two.

 

So, After It's maiden wheeling trip in Indiana, she saw some mild street duty tooling around town and getting me to work and back.

Thanks to Montana for taking this sweet pic!


Unfortunately there wasn't too much time to do more to it before she was off on her next adventure and one that was way too much fun, MOAB!!!!!!

One of the perks of working for IRO was a nice trip out to the 2013 Easter Jeep Safari in Utah. Definitely intimidating for a second wheeling trip ever for me.

Sorry but there is way too much to try and remember so try and stay focused through this photo dump







Look at that dork!


And of course, someone thought it would be a good idea for me to take a stereotypical Asian tourist photo!










This is what is know as White Knuckle, and for good reason. Pretty much a 6 foot straight drop. Not long after we all made it down this obstacle a JK flipped end over end and down the other ledge below this. Luckily the driver was alright with a few scratches. That rig drove out of the trail on it's own!



That pretty much sums up the Moab trip. Beat up the Jeep pretty good on this trip.

Broken:
- Gas tank strap (finished the trails with a ratchet strap holding the tank up.)
- Rear upper shock mount
- Bent rear uniframe up about 30°.
- Tweaked roofline making it really hard to open doors

Now on to what everyone really wants to read about

 

If you ask people about me, they will most likely tell you I'm a little crazy. Not really sure why but that has been a pretty common occurrence. I like to think of myself as someone who gets bored easily and needs something to do to keep me from doing stupid stuff.

So begins the finest part of the adventure so far...BOOOST!!!!!

To start with, Since the factory gas tank took a wicked beating and decided it wanted to leak and catch on fire, that was first on my list of repairs. So a quick click around Summit Racing and I picked up a 15 gal. Aluminum fuel cell that fits pretty good in the back.

So first out with the old.....

....and in with the new.


After reading a bunch of threads of people converting over to fuel cells, I picked up an Airtex E2000 fuel pump from Autozone and wired it into the factory fuel pump harness.


Here you can see the fuel pump and the AEM fuel pressure regulator mounted up on the frame.


With the groundwork pretty such done, it's on to the main attraction.



And yes, if you couldn't tell already, I went on a little shopping spree on Ebay.

I netted:

- .50 Trim T3/T4 turbo
- 38mm External Wastegate with 8PSI spring
- Greddy Type RS knock off BOV
- oil line kit
- misc. couplers and piping

And yes before the flaming starts if it hasn't already, these parts have been working pretty well for the last 4000 miles.

 

Of course, with shiny parts just sitting on my desk I had to test fit them right???






The best part at this point was that everything fit under the hood!

That all changed once I really started diving into this project.

Got to work fabricating my uppipe.
- I took the factory crossover pipe and cut it right in the middle where it crosses over
behind the oil pan and rotated it so it ran towards the front of the truck rather than
back to where the cat would have been.
- Then I ran a 90° to bring it up and around the pass. side motor mount.
- The rest is just some random pie cuts I did to get the turbo more or less where I
wanted it.

Sorry I don't have a picture with the wastegate flange welded on. I did include a picture so you can kind of see where I placed it.

All welding was done with a 110V flux-core MIG in my garage so the welds might not look the best but they work.






And here is where the turbo ended up sitting.



Since I felt lazy and didn't want to work out an actual downpipe and keep with the stealth theme, I just went as obnoxious as I felt I could and not get pulled over by every cop in the state






And yes that is the exhaust running out of the hood and the smaller hole is for the wastegate dump

 

As for oil to the turbo, I used the cross included in the Ebay oil feed kit and put that inline with the factory oil pressure sensor on the pass. side of the motor behind the distributor. A T-fitting would be better but that was an extra trip to the hardware store.
As for the return the kit included a -10 AN line and some fittings. I ended up heading down to the local speed shop and picked up a mild steel -10 AN bung.

That got welded on the pass. side of the oil pan with about an inch between the top of the fitting and the oil pan mounting flange.


Not really much to see there but something that I know people are going to ask about

While I was at it I added a Prosport water temp gauge since my XJ is the base model and only came with 2 gauges in the cluster (Speedo and Fuel Level), which allowed me to actually know what the temps were instead of a light telling me I was screwed.



That got mounted in the dash with a pretty slick panel I got from Prime 4x4. Had room for the gauge and 3 switches. Only have the red fuel toggle wired up right now but will use the other 2 for e-fans and probably an aux light of some sort.

So without further ado, here is some of the good stuff!

And since I never really specified, she is set to wastegate boost pressure so, 8 PSI of SCREAMING 4.0L FURY!

Initial startup and spool:
[video]http://youtu.be/uV-4UVUeO6A[/video]

First real test drive:
[video]http://youtu.be/Fms3awTYoBY[/video]

 

Whee! Fun because fun.

 

So an update. For anyone that hasn't heard through Facebook etc...the motor popped on me after coming home Thursday morning at 2AM. 2-3 foot flames out the exhaust and then she died. All this happened as I was slowing down to take the corner into my neighborhood so no shenanigans or hoonage. Cranked her over a few times and heard no sounds of broken internals moving around. My guess at the moment is either timing skipped, distributor spun, or burnt valves/pistons. I will probably start tearing into it in the next week or so. Updates will follow and there is no way I am done with her yet

 

I told Erik you are going to hate leaving our place now

BUT I'm glad all well, relatively well, and your are optimistic for the future. You can always call us up if you need a hand!

 

Hahaha. I'm just never going to your place ever again! Just kidding. You guys are too much fun. Not to be sappy but I love you guys. Awesome people and happy to call you guys friends

Erik just needs a running vehicle of his own so I can call him whenever I need a hand

 

UPDATE TIME!!!!!!!

Yeah it runs.

That's it.

Just don't ask why.

 

Not why.....how?

 

Distributor rotor came out in 3 pieces....

 

You put damn unicorn poop in it didn't you........

 

Told you it was the dizzy.

 

Yes, you suck JK Spaz!

 

So a little update.

Been hoarding parts for this beast again when I really should be saving up for the 7 but this is just so much easier and it's right here

- Almost have everything to relocate the battery to the trunk area. Waiting on my battery box from Ballistic Fab. Then going to snag the Red top Optima from the 7 for now.
- I also have Inner frame mounts and lower link mounts coming from Ballistic Fab as well to really get started on the rear 4-Link setup.
- I've taken all the measurements I think I will need to back-half this thing since the rear uniframe is just getting worse and it's starting to scare me.
- Also picked up a bending brake so hopefully I can make some better patch panels and eventually get rid of the awesome plywood floor

So hopefully after the 1st of the year I will be able to start on those things and make some good progress. The goal is to get it a little more reliable as far as being safe on the trails.

I'll be uploading pics of the parts as I remember

 

Yeah, Winter+Hood Exhaust+No Washer Bottle = Not being able to see out the passenger side....EVER!!!!


The Goodies so far...


...and yes they are kept in this box

 

Hey bud i am an new owner of a 97 jeep zj tsi and am doing the usual lifting upgrades and all that but now im interested in adding a turbo on the truck.. so far you are the only real person i have found who has done this and posted about it for us to look at.. i had a couple questions to ask if you dont mind me asking, first how were you able to feed the manifold to the turbo and also how did you route it back to the exhaust? also do you think you cold post pics of this?? sorry for taking up your time i just cant find much help on this subject. thanks bud!!