Build Thread 84 CJ7 coming full circle

[Scooter402]

I bought my 84 CJ7 in 2004 pretty much in this condition. The only difference from when I bought it to this picture is the engine. It had an AMC 360, a T-176 , and Dana 300 . As pictured, there is a SBC 383 stroker under the hood. Sorry for the blasphemy, y'all, but I built the 383 afterthe 360 bit the dust. It was cheaper for the 383 than rebuilding the 360.

Here's a shot of the engine.


I'll have to fill more in later. This is taking forever to try to do on an ipad, and I've got years worth of work and pictures to cover.

If anyone participated/read the thread, this is the one I had a poll going on whether to keep it a mud racer or bring it back to something useful, since it has been sitting for the past four years.

More to come!

 

[mtnwhlr]

So you are bring it back to something more useful I take it.

 

[Scooter402]

So you are bring it back to something more useful I take it.

That's exactly my plan. its been sitting unused and undriven for way too long. It'll take me a while to get there, but its going back to being an all around rig.

 

[Scooter402]

All the parts I removed from my jeep were literally given away. I really could kick myself right about now...

Out with the old...


And in with the new...


New to me, that is. These were 3/4 ton axles from a Chevy. It was an 8 lug 10 bolt front, and a 14 bolt FF rear, both with 4.10 gears. I outboarded the front springs for the front, and rewelded the perches on the rear.

 

[Scooter402]

Finally got Photobucket working on the computer... Anyway, back to the story!

Here's that 14 bolt I was talking about yesterday. In the previous picture, it still had the Model 20 rear in it.




Starting to go back together. I had stripped it all the way down to the frame because my intention at the time was a full resto-mod. But since I was using the auto shop on base where I was stationed, paying for shop space every day was getting a little expensive, so I just needed to get it back together.





Finally, it's mostly back together, and backed out of the shop under it's own power!

This is on 40x17 ground hawgs. It was just a little taller than I thought it was going to be. There I was 5'9" just for reference. Since then, my tastes have changed. Now I think it was WAY too tall.

 

[Scooter402]

I enjoyed it for a while, cruising it around base and around town a few times a week.







If I ever had work to do, the tires made great places to sit to get to the engine compartment.



Next came some body work. I didn't take too many pictures of all that, but I cut out the rockers where they get the typical rust behind the A pillars and replaced them with new sheet metal. I also had to repair both rear corners.

I also found some body work done by the PO. Here's some bondo...I wasn't happy when I found that.


And the other side done.


While I was doing body work, I found a local track for mud racing. My first time in, I was hooked. For the class they dropped me into because of the mods I had made, I had to race against people I had no chance of winning. So at that point, for whatever seemed like a good idea at the time, I decided to make my Jeep a race-only vehicle. So on came a little more body work, to make it look a little more like a race vehicle.

Like I said, seemed like a good idea at the time...




At least the paint job came out decent. I sprayed it in a friend's back yard, since the auto shop paint booth on base had been turned into a storage locker. It's gun metal grey metallic. I unfortunately never took the time to clear coat, buff, or wax it. Now being 7 years later, it's a good deal sun faded.

 

[Scooter402]

So, then started coming some more mods for making it a faster, more consistent race vehicle. Here, I installed a reverse manual valve body in the TH350 Transmission that replaced my T-176 .

Pan removed. Here you can see the fluid is still very clean, even though I had been beating the snot out of it at the races.


Here's the stock valve body, about to be removed.


There are some mods that have to be made to the Transmission when replacing the stock valve body with a reverse manual valve body. All the check balls are to be discarded, the governor is removed, and two passages have to be tapped and plugged in the Transmission case. Here is a plugged accumulator port.


Here, you can also see my 4000 rpm stall converter.


The TCI valve body installed.


Other parts not shown are that the vacuum modulator is removed and plugged. TCI also supplies a new separator plate to be installed with their valve body.

 

[Scooter402]

Here's a few action pics of the glory days. I forgot to mention that when I started racing, I switched from the Ground Hawgs to some 38x12.50 Swamper SX tires for a while, then traded those for my Boggers I have now.

 

[Scooter402]

Then came the need to lighten the Jeep. Out came the 3/4 ton axles, in went the 1/2 ton 44 front and 12 bolt rear.





Also sporting the chevy rally wheels like a champ...

 

[Scooter402]

At this point, the 383 I had was old and tired. I started hunting around for a new engine, and ended up coming home with this little gem:



Don't mind the pile of junk heads next to the block...guy thought he was "sweetening" the deal by tossing them in. I tossed them straight into the scrap bin.

Here's me happily finding it was a standard bore 400. The PO thought it was at least .010 over.



Then I started collecting parts. I was on the fence about how I was going to build this engine. I didn't know if I wanted to leave it 400 c.i., or build a 406, or maybe build a 421 or 434 stroker. I found a heck of a deal on some used pistons, so that decided what I was going to do for me.

Here are the forged JE slugs I've got in my engine now. These are usually $600 new for a set. I got them for less than $50 shipped...probably because the race team that had posted them on eBay only put dimensions of the pistons in the description and title, not any particular application. Well, lucky me! They required me to have my cyilnders bored only .005, bringing the displacement up to 402. These also have a 1.12 compression height requiring the use of a 6" connecting rod. Score another one for me! Now I don't have to run the short 5.565 rod that SBC 400s have stock.





A whole pile of new stuff!



Block and oil pan painted



Bronze bushed forged 6" rods, for floating piston wrist pins.



Pistons installed onto connecting rods.



Sizing rings and installing pistons.



Crank installed.



Ring break-in procedure -- I found it quite interesting.



I knocked in new cam bearings before installing pistons and the crank.



Solid flat tappet cam I had in the 402. It's ~ .520 lift intake and exhaust, and somewhere around 250 degrees duration @ .050 lift.



Solid lifters.



New high volume oil pump.



Shiny new timing cover.



Bottom end is now sealed up tight.




Mocking up my new heads.



Another of the new heads. They have 220cc intake runners, 64cc combustion chambers, 2.02 intake and 1.60 exhaust valves, bronze valve guides.



A shot down the intake runners



Ferrea valves I installed in the heads



Heads torqued down and valves adjusted. The rockers are full roller, aluminum 1.5 ratio.



Here you can see standard Gen 1 SBC intake gaskets do not fit properly.




Turns out that 95-96 year model vortec intake gaskets fit perfectly.



I polished my aluminum valve covers.





And the intake installed. Hi-rise, single plane. 3,000-8,000 power band.





And looking down the intake manifold runners straight to the head intake runners.





And installed, capped off with a 850 HP double pumper

 

[Scooter402]

Well, time to take the pooch for a walk and get ready for work. I'll post up some more of this build as time allows. What do we think -- too many pics, too much/too little detail?

 

[mtnwhlr]

Well, time to take the pooch for a walk and get ready for work. I'll post up some more of this build as time allows. What do we think -- too many pics, too much/too little detail?

I'm loving it keep it comming :lpopcorn:

 

[Scooter402]

Next came the headers. When I started racing, I got a set of headers on eBay that I thought were uprights...the guy had them listed cheap, I asked if they were uprights and he told me yes. Well, they weren't. They were a set of circle track headers that had very short 1 3/4" dia. primaries into a 3 1/2" colllector. I ended up running them for a while, but I welded on a turn-out so they would quit filling with water when it rained.



I decided it was time to build a set of headers tuned for this engine. I looked online at several calculators, which take where in the rpm band your peak torque is, what primary size you are using, and what collector size you are using, and gives you lengths of each. With my collector and primary size, the calculator came up with about 31" on primary length and (IIRC) 18" on collector length.

I started building the headers by cutting off the current collectors.


Here's the cut off collector end.


At this point, I bolted the cut-off headers back onto the engine so I could build out the rest of the headers. I got a box of 1 3/4" mandrel bends off of eBay.


With a general picture in mind of what I wanted, I started cutting tubing, and mocking them up together, then kept taking the headers back of to tack things in place. I used a sharpie to mark reference lines.









With all 4 45 degree elbows tacked in place, I mocked this side up one more time to check fitment.



From there, I mocked up a 90 degree elbow to kick back toward the rear. From there, I removed the headers to tack all 4 tubes in place.





All tacked together, less the collector.


All 4 tubes fit together quite well.



From there, I have to weld all 4 tubes up solid. There's two ways this could be done. I could have either separated all 4 tubes away from the header flanges, or I could split the flanges apart and hope they go back together squarely. I went for option "B" this time.



For the two center tubes, I took my sawzall and cut most the way through the flange, then pulled it apart by the tubes, so I'd have enough room to weld all the way around them.







After all 4 tubes were welded up solid, I brought back in one of those junk heads to use as a jig to hold the header flanges together.





Flanges welded back together.





Now came time to check fitment of the final product. Well, before I put the collector on, anyway.





Then fitting up the collector.



Just don't forget -- when you're building your own headers, you must put a little square piece of sheet metal between the 4 tubes at the collector so you don't have exhaust leaks between the tubes. It should go in the empty space in the middle of all 4 tubes shown here:


Here's some video of each set of headers with the same engine/cam setup. In both videos, please don't mind all the junk around all over the place...Y'all know how projects go!

Before, with the short headers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIOK4vmuBOc

After, with the custom headers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ar-4qwnTE

One of the main things I was happy about was the fact that the longer headers got rid of the pop after the rev.



EDIT: anyone know why I can't put a youtube vid in the post? I can only put the link there...

 

[Scooter402]

After building the headers, I decided I needed to put in a crank case evacuation system. Not really difficult to do, just need to put breathers in each valve cover, run a hose down to a A.I.R. pump check valve that's threaded onto a tube welded into the header collector. It does need to be angled at 45 degrees, and the slash cut on the evac tube does need to be in line with the exhaust stream to pull vacuum on the crank case properly.

Hole punched in the collector.



Welding in the evac tube.



Valve cover breathers.



Check valves on the evac tubes.





Oh, and of course, the painted headers.

 

[thiswontbetooexpensive]

Dang, very impressive indeed! You sir, are the Charlie Daniels of the header system!


This won't be too expensive Dear! That's what I keep saying. Over and over again.

 

[Scooter402]

Hahaha thanks! I think that is a greater compliment than this work deserves, but again, it is much appreciated.

Well, we've all heard me talk noise about this alleged solid roller cam that's in my engine. Here's the pics.

It all started off with collecting parts. Since I am relatively cheap, I found a set of decent used solid roller lifters on eBay. Do you have any idea how expensive these are new? Yikes!



Before I pulled the old bump stick out, I wanted to check piston-to-valve clearance to estimate how close I would be with the new solid roller. I never checked it on this engine when I put it together. Turns out, I had over .200" clearance. I checked it at least 4 times, just to make sure I wasn't doing it wrong...Made me kinda wonder...Lol


Here's a shot of the new spring retainers next to the old, held up with my checking springs. I didn't have the valve springs at this point. Check out the height of the new retainers vs. the old!



Finally, I got my new valve springs...once again, another SPENDY item. Here's a new one next to an old one. BIG!





As I was getting more near sliding in the new cam, I started checking everything. Here's a shot of the thousanths of an inch for rocker arm to spring retainer clearance.


And, this is where the magic happens...er, uh...starts to. Hah... Here's the old cam coming out of the block.



Here's the new solid roller next to the old solid cam. Look how much bigger those lobes are on the solid roller....I started getting excited here.



And finally, the new solid roller sliding home.



Here's the roller lifters dropped in.



Here's a new spring installed next to the old one....Let me tell you how stiff these springs were! They've got an installed height seat pressure at 220# (which is higher than some stock cams have at max lift) and over the nose pressure at about 560#... I got a workout putting these in!



As I was nearing getting all the springs installed, and measured for pushrods, I was getting too excited to think about taking pictures...Sorry. I do have a video of the engine idling with this cam installed, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr1gBUu4c3s

 

[Scooter402]

I've only got one more picture left, which brings us up to current status. I do have some more of the work to put in the radius arms and coilovers, but only one managed to make it from my cell phone to Photobucket. I'll eventually get the rest of them up, but just to give you an idea. The front end has been moved forward 6-7", and I lowered it about 7" or so from where it was. Now it is sitting at approximately 3-3 1/2" of lift height in the front. The rear still needs to be dropped down to match. Don't mind the pile of leaf springs on the front, they're gone now. That, and the steering is temporarily hooked back up instead of hanging to the ground as pictured.











What's next? Well, I've got endless ideas. Mostly, I want to bring this beast back to something useable. It was great while I was living in North Carolina, and there were places to go mud racing just minutes away. There is literally nowhere near here to race, being in PA. I'd have to haul it for hours just to get somewhere that races only a few times a year. In NC, it was every weekend.
The planned changes would include un-doing pretty much everything I have done to the front suspension. I mean, Yeah, the coilovers and radius arms would be kind of a cool "bling" factor if I was driving it around on the street. They would be next to useless on the trail, being only 9" travel. I'd get more wheel travel out of leaf springs. So they just might go away, at least for now. I may be swapping that huge solid roller cam back out. I'll have to ditch the fuel cell I have and find another fuel tank. (if anyone knows where I can get one for inexpensive, I'm all ears!) Of course, I need to get all the lighting and wiring back. Oh yeah, and exhaust. That may help. I also plan on narrowing the axles. I think this would be much less expensive than trying to acquire a new set, re-gear them, then install them. I'm also going to get rid of the Gonzo hood scoop.

Hope y'all are enjoying this at least half as much as I am. I hope updates aren't going to be too few and far between, but y'all stick around!

 

[mtnwhlr]

 

[Scooter402]

No progress as of yet, but I will start working on this again soon. Just looking for opinions right now. I've got a whole pile of ideas in my head, pretty much have mental notes on everything I want to do to make this thing "legal" again. I plan on making a set of fender flares, as I'm too cheap to buy them. It will still be quite some time before I make them, I'm still just trying to narrow down what style I want to make.

The ones I have in mind would be either a "flat fender" style flare, or a pocket type similar to a Bushwhacker. So what do we think? Flat flares, or pocket style?

Flat

Pocket

 

[Petescj]

I dont care for those flat ones at all. Id take the pocket style over and over and...