Hey All,
Looking forward to gleaning info and advice on my '07 JK. I bought a bomb, knowing it had a blown engine, I was good with that, 3 engine cores later I think I have a good block and crank now (1st engine broke the crank, crank broke the block and front cover, 2nd engine had stuck #1 & #6 rod bearings, last engine was not stored properly, water on top of pistons destroyed the block). So am moving forward. From what I have seen of the bottom end of the 3.8L, has oil issues, or should I say a weak oil pump. The cracked rods are not impressive as the bearing tabs have no lock. as both tabs are on the same side of the rod and are cut both in the cap and the rod. IMO, bad idea. I am going back to the mini van rods, with traditional bearing locks opposite one another with the rod bolt being the cap location indicator. Still at a bit of a quandary about the oil pump though, as nothing I have seen on line looks like a good answer. Anyone know a good fix for the oil pump before I go back together with this grenade?
I will post pictures as I go back together...

 

junk it and put an LS in it. Or maybe the cummins 2.8

 

Thought hard about an LS swap, I bought it to pull behind the motorhome, so wanting to keep it light weight... Not even sure I will keep it after get it up and running.

 

Hey... your just up the road from me in Molt! Not sure what to tell you about the engine... I know Motech in Nevada has a lot of 3.8s laying around... most with high miles. AEV had some stacked in places years ago, but low mile 3.8's are mostly gone now. As far as the Ls engine goes... they say it is about 50lbs more than the JK 3.8... so not that significant of a weight change... just lots of money and you need to be pretty good with wrenches, but the Motech kits are probably the best. I have a 3.8 with 160,000 on it... still runs good, but the day is coming...