Hotwires is an impressive group of guys! Highly recommended. The harnesses and fuse box made it back about 5 or 6 weeks earlier than expected. This messes with the scheduling of getting it done a little since I was on the books closer to the end of February when the wiring would be back. The shop is now shooting for first of February now to get it knocked out. Hope to have it installed and tuned by mid February.
6.1 LJR Build
- Thread starter Gassiper
- Start date
I agree that I also am impressed with Hotwire. I know that it's pretty pricey and some might be able to do it themselves, but I wouldn't even begin to attempt it myself.
So I too highly recommend Chris and the Hotwire crew..
I used Chris as well when I did my swap. I seriously considered doing it myself - it's kinda what I do. But one specific thing pushed me toward having Hotwire do it. I could certainly figure out what would need to be done by following the electrical schematics to merge the Hemi and the Jeep harness - but I would have no way to test it short of installing it and seeing if it worked. And if it did not work I would have no idea what was wrong. Hot Wire (as I understand it) has a mechanism to test their work and insure it is functioning - to me that was worth the cost.
I do have tremendous respect for those that do this themselves - and a few here have done so.
I do have tremendous respect for those that do this themselves - and a few here have done so.
All parts are in. Bumped a little on the schedule but set to get put together 2/13. Should hopefully take just a week if everything goes perfectly. I’ll get it down to Injected Engineering in Atlanta to get the tune cleaned up and be ready to go.
Here we go!!! So got bumped a day on getting pulled in for assembly. But they got started on it this morning. Motor mounts are in and quite a bit of wiring done. Doesn’t look like a lot but plenty has been done. Realized we were missing a bracket for the steering column but it won’t slow progress and it should be in within a couple of days. Modifications on some accessories that need to be made are getting done now and chances are the motor and transmission will go in for the first time tomorrow so we can see where everything is and if any adjustments need to be made. I told one of the guys that I honestly can’t believe it’s finally happening because this is something I’ve been thinking about for the last 15 years. Hopefully within a week it will be finished and running and on its way to Injected Engineering to get tuned.
Looks good...
I'm sure they already know, but if not, the AC accumulator can will definitely have to be removed before the HEMI will sit in place.
Easier to remove now without the motor in the way.
I'm sure they already know, but if not, the AC accumulator can will definitely have to be removed before the HEMI will sit in place.
Easier to remove now without the motor in the way.
Motor is in! Cleaned up the engine bay before dropping it in. At this point it won’t need to come out again unless something were to come up along the way. Bell housing is mounted up on the AX15. After the first test fit, the gearshift arm is a little bit forward of where the hole is in the center console. They’ll have to make a small bracket to adjust for it, but it won’t be an issue. None of us remembered to find a fly by wire gas pedal so I’ll have to find one at a junkyard, but it shouldn’t be an issue. A little more wiring was done also. Once all the main parts are installed, things will appear to come to a halt since you won’t be able to see much getting done visually but they’ll be making all the AC lines and piping for everything. Dang near brought me to tears seeing the motor mounted up when I walked in!
Sweet...
Do they make their own AC lines.??
That's one of the hardest things I'm running in to is finding some place to build/crimp the AC lines. NAPA used to do them but not anymore, said to many different types and sizes now to make it worth their while..
They do. Pretty tedious process from what it sounds like.
One other thing mentioned today was the oil filter location. The upper control arm has about 6 inches of travel but there’s only about 2 inches of travel before the control arm demolishes the filter. Hopefully a 45 degree arm will fix it but if not we’ll have to do a relocation kit. No big deal. A long arm kit would also be a fix…but that ain’t happening for a while.
I rechecked mine and I'm sitting at 3" up travel to bumpstop and 2" from control arm to bottom of filter. With the distance from bumpstop over to filter it won't have the full 3" of up travel, I'm figuring closer to the 2" range, but definitely not any extra clearance. Don't know that the 45° offset will give much extra clearance. Remote mount might be the best option for maximum clearance. I don't plan on doing much heavy offroading, so I'll just keep it in mind if I do any.
Pictures here show bumpstop distance 3" and control arm to filter distance 2".
NO! You have 5” of Uptravel … measure metal to metal. The rubber FULLY compresses …
Yes, that is true on full hard uptravel. I just don't plan on doing anything that extreme with mine.
A remote kit is something on my to add later list, unless they get bigger curbs at the Mall before then. For now just want to get some miles on it and do the shake down gremlin search.
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