Hi everyone,
I have a special case with my 07 JK, I fried the motor about 6 months ago & it's been a lawn ordainment since.
I've been trying to figure out whether or not to rebuild or save up to do a 4BT swap & then while talking to my brother he told me to just do an LS swap,
not wanting to throw cash at an unknown motor I realized that I had a running 5.2l Magnum sitting under the hood of my 94 Dakota.

Now my question is has anyone on here done this conversion/ upgrade before & if so what & where did you source your parts i.e. adapters, programmer, etc.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advanced

 

LS will be the easiest one to swap in, and it's the best option. Enough JK owners have done LS swaps to where we now have plug-n-play wiring harness adapters, and pre-made motor mounts.

4BT is old technology man. It's loud, heavy, won't support all your JK electronics, and will cost you more than the LS (surprisingly).

You can also get more power out of an LS.

Don't bother with the 5.2. It'll be a huge waste of time and money.

 

Agree with Bora Bora. I have a 6 ltr Gen 4 LS in my 08 and love it. Plenty of power too

 

Check out RPM Extreme, they have a lot of info on specific engines/parts/etc on their website. Motech in Las Vegas is the another well-known name in LS swaps for the JK, but their website seems to be missing all of the info it used to have. May have to call or message them.

Were you planning to install yourself? Haven't looked at swaps in years, but last I saw, just the install kits were around 5k. Full installs performed by these companies are in the 20k range.

 

For what you are going to spend on a V8 motor swap you could buy another jeep. If you don't want to spend much on it your best bet is another 3.8. IF looking at maybe a diesel the Cummins 2.8 crate would be an option but you are still looking at around $15k on it, more if you change the transmission.

 

I would look, seriously, at a Reman Engine .. multiple companies selling online with free shipping and warranty under $3K. IF its more power you want then add a supercharger/procharger for $5k more and your still below 10K.

 

LS is old technology and more difficult to install than an LT. Choosing an LT will allow the use of the 8 speed auto, uses the stock Chev accessories and mounts and has more power and fuel economy. Any LS or LT install will cost about $11-13,000USD by the time the tears have dried. The Motech kit allows an LT 5.3 or 6.2 to go straight in with no cutting or welding.
My advice - Get the rebuild 3.8 if you are not willing to budget the amount I stated. When I did the conversion I sold my 3.8 dirt cheap and turned out it had been factory rebuilt so new owner got a deal for $700CDN. It started at minus 25C with no block heat, never rattled, ticked or clunked and used no oil. So they are out there. Talk to Robbie at Motech as they do the conversions many times a week so there must be some ok used 3.8's out there.

 

I've decided that as long as the heads are good and rebuildable I'm going with picking up a new short block with a few added goodies for a little more oomf and longevity, nothing to fancy, i.e. rods, springs, rockers, forged pistons, ish like that.
I've got my older brother who's been turning a wrench a fair bit longer than I have been on board.

Again, thanks for all the advice, keep the rubber side down and the shiney side up

 

For what it’s worth (and I could be wrong so it may be worthless), I think forged internals are a waste of money unless you’re pumping power that requires stronger internals... like supercharger or turbo.

 

No, you are correct on that, but I am not nice to my vehicles internals by any stretch, so building a motor that can handle the abuse that I put them through is worth every penny, but if I do decide one day to add any boost be that turbo, super charger, or pro charger they'll already be in there