This one was fun
this was the request. I want a v8 in my daily driven jeep for as cheap as possible. The owner told me he was looking at AA's adapter to go from a chevy v8 to jeep 5 speed and the total for everything to adapt the motor was in the neighborhood of 1500.00 for the adapters.
I asked the owner if he thought that was cheap. His reply was heck no, but no one else will talk to me unless im going to spend a few thousand dollars with them. The owner doesnt have the fab skills required to do the swap, but had enough knowledge that if someone did the hard parts, he could do the finish wiring and fuel and such.
I took on this challenge and went to see how inexpensively i could do this project.
here is a list of parts that were used
92 chevy s10 5 speed w/ transfercase
350 chevy motor out of a 95 chevy truck
stock driveshafts
custom motor mounts
custom tranny mount w/ stock crossmember (unmolested)
dual exhaust
aluminum radiator
electric fan
stock style hydraulic clutch
i fabbed the motor mounts to set the motor in nice and high. the height was used to give more clearance under the rig. motor and trans were set in so that the stock driveshafts and angles would be used. this allows for the owner to do upgrades to the suspension without worrying about getting stuff modified to fit. he can use any jeep replacement suspension lift kits and so forth.
he wanted to maintain a 5 speed tranny and have a stock appearance. he also like some bling chrome on his ride. he is very much into cleaning it alot.
i took his budget and tried to get him as much possiblr for his money. he came to me with a conversion radiator price and i beat that with one of the aluminum race radiators i always order. he had his figures out (including labor) and i got my figures out and i was able to save him 2,000 dollars on this project.
he is super happy with the results. no more 4 cyl and struggling on the hwy. no you just rest your foot on the accelerator pedal and cruise at 75 mph. we figured his fuel mileage and originally he got 10-12 mpg and now "IF" he stays out of the 4 barrel, he gets 19-20 mpg. these were figured from emptying the tank fully and adding 3 gallons of fuel and running it till it completely ran out of fuel.
here are some pics of the finished job.
