Full Size Jeep Network

I have been building my XJ for years, with good success and decided I wanted to change gears a little. I have been collecting parts for my GW build for a while and here's what I have thus far.

1988 Jeep GW with 360, 727, NP229, and Dana 44s
2006 Ford F350 with dana 60, 5r110, np271, sterling 10.5 (with discs front and rear)
1996 Dodge 2500 Cummins 6BT

What I was following was the 6bt GW build that fourwheeler magazine featured a while back that Mercenary Offroad built.

I would like to run anywhere from 37-40" tires, and I'm hoping that this combo will give me better efficiency than my 4.7L stroked XJ. I want to run a triangulate four link up front with coilovers and lose the trackbar, and keep the leafs out back. I like the way mercenary kept the body low and were still able to be capable offroad.

End goal is to have a beast of a daily driver that gets 20+ mpg, that I can road trip in. I want to basically do a resto-mod on the interior with a few updates, and add a couple of roll bars since the diesel drive train will significantly increase the weight.

You aren't going to get 20mpg with tires that big. With a 6BT you are looking at 17-18. Guys with 4BTs and 33" tires or so can get 22-25mpg.

I did not see that magazine build, but I assume they trimmed a lot of sheet metal to fit tires that large.

But it should be an awesome build. But do keep the amount of lift as low as you can. A 6BT is a heavy engine to have too far up in the air. Another member here rolled his 6BT Cherokee on his first outing.

Should be an awesome build!


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Most of the builds I have followed guys are running 35"+ tires with typically 3-4 speed autos, hoping with the 5r110 (5spd auto) I can ekkk a little more out of it. The dodge trans the 6bt was originally paired with sounded like it would only maintain reliability with major mods, the 5r110 will handle the power, but tuning will be interesting. Destroked.com typically puts the 6bt into powerstrokes, so with parts from them and a little knowledge from you guys we can make this work!

http://www.fourwheeler.com/project-vehi ... -wagoneer/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZCMvhcb-s

http://www.destroked.com

That's a cool waggy. I think I would go down one size on the tires for extra travel, but it's cool.

How are you going to control the transmission with the older engine? I suppose you could get a standalone controller for it and manually shift it.


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What mpg are you getting with the 4.7? Thinking of building one

Destroked and Autoworld both sale a PCS controller and a wiring harness, they say all you need is the crankshaft pos sensor and a throttle pos sensor. From what I have read they will tune it to your application, but you can also do adjustments with your PC once you get everything up and running.

The 4.7L, I love it and hate it all in the same. I get about 14.5 mpg with a stage 2 chip/module, before that it bogged all the time. It has torque for days, if you had it geared properly it could be pretty nasty. I have to be careful in the rain, it likes to get a little sideways. I am still running the AW4 trans, with 3.55s, and 31" tires. I originally wanted to build a turbo'ed stroker for the waggy, but I decided the 6BT would teach me about diesels. Ask away, I could tell you dos and don'ts for days on that.

http://www.505performance.com/
http://www.cliffordperformance.net/Merc ... _Code=J258
http://www.hescosc.com/

All of these are helpful in regards to building the stroker (personally I only discovered 505 after mine was built, the other two were beneficial.)

Pics of most of what I have so far!

Ride home


Home and "cleaned"


New Thumper


New Axles


Next step is to start tearing the GW down!

nice I hope to start mine up this spring

My favorite color for GWs, looks pretty clean. Should be an awesome build.

I'm thinking we are both at the same stage in our builds... i posted up almost the same exact pix on my 6bt thread! i appreciate all the questions you are asking as i am thinking the same there also. i know you are going in sort of a different direction than me with your build but they both should be interesting to say the least! good luck with your build. ill be paying close attention!

Since it has been snowing here on and off for the past week or so, I haven't had much of a desire to play in a cold shop. I started calculating the weights of the things that I am removing and adding back what I am replacing said parts with. Without wheels and tires, which I know will still be a significant amount of weight I think I have approximately an 800# bias toward the front end. any suggestions on what to do to help with this? I want to go with a rear mounted fuel tank, maybe the 2dr blazer (19 gal) or an xj (20 gal) tank, and mount my 2 batteries under the cargo area, but this will only help out with a couple hundred #s. Bombs away!