I have a 05 LJ. With alot done and this build of yours is worth following for me. As I love driving my LJ and hope to do some kind of swap to drive to Colorado, Utah and wheel. I'm totally interested. Already have a AW4 tranny on my 4.0 231 transfer case with 4:88 on 35s and Ox lockers F&B disc brakes from factory F&B. But a diesel would be sweet. My 06 jeep liberty crd is my daily as well. I do the work on it. But not worth, as you say to put in a wrangler.
Agreed, the Liberty diesel is a great vehicle but I wouldn't want to try swapping the engine with all the wiring though we have a member doing it right now in Canada and it looks amazing, more work than I was willing to tackle.
Whats the reliability like with a swapped Tdi? Do folks usually buy a used motor with 150k and do a full rebuild?
Another thing I have been wondering about wheeling with a diesel is the smell. We go SLOW on the trail and one stinky rig makes everyone suffer. Are these swapped diesels puking fumes pretty bad?
I can't speak for a TDI, I've only ever messed with the Kubota engines, but like all things it's the other components and tuning that dictate most of that. Just like a gas engine, if you run it too rich, it will smell like gasoline from the exhaust.
On my Kubota swap, I'm running both a diesel catalytic converter and a muffler. The diesel cat really helps with both emissions and smell as well. The other reason I'm running it is because I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the police here can be picky about the state laws when it comes to exhaust system, as long as I have one on there, I'm good.
The second part of that is tuning, both with the boost and the fuel. I can easily crank up the fuel so I'm rolling coal but two things. First it's a waste of fuel and second it just makes everything run hotter as well. Diesel is a burn lean fuel compared to gasoline which is a burn rich fuel. Now like all things there is a point where you can go too lean on the diesel mixture, however going too rich doesn't really do you any favors in the longterm, yes you might get more power, I can't attest to that though, I've never put mine on a dyno to see what happens either way.
My other goal was to make my TJ as quiet and subtle as possible, yes I have a body lift and different wheels and tires, but a good majority of Jeep owners do that anyway. What I want is to be able to take off from a stop, get onto boost and not have to worry about rolling coal pissing off the other cars and trucks on the road. Virginia has also started to crack down on trucks that roll coal though to the best of my knowledge there isn't a law against, I believe you end up getting a ticket for something related to it. Again Commonwealth of Virginia is an interesting state to live in. No radar detectors allowed here in Virginia just as a case in point.
-Grant
