Sure it can be done. Lot of work though because you would basically be converting the entire underhood harness to be a 2000 along with the year equivalent sensors. The coil rail is a waste fire system. It has only 3 trigger wires out of the PCM and fires 2 cylinders at a time. You would also need the camshaft synchronizer but that plugs directly into the hole for the distributor so no change in that regard. Another challenge is the pre-00 heads do not have the threaded bosses to attach the coil rail. That can be overcome with some small sheet metal brackets off of the valve cover bolts. You could very likely just stab the boots on the plugs and they would never pop off.Can a 97 or 98 2.5L or 4.0L jeep distributor engine be converted to a coil rail system ?
I'm sure the wire harness would need modification.
Is this done or could it be done without major modification ??
Cool, thank you. Knew it would be involved but thanks for breaking it down to explain the process.Sure it can be done. Lot of work though because you would basically be converting the entire underhood harness to be a 2000 along with the year equivalent sensors. The coil rail is a waste fire system. It has only 3 trigger wires out of the PCM and fires 2 cylinders at a time. You would also need the camshaft synchronizer but that plugs directly into the hole for the distributor so no change in that regard. Another challenge is the pre-00 heads do not have the threaded bosses to attach the coil rail. That can be overcome with some small sheet metal brackets off of the valve cover bolts. You could very likely just stab the boots on the plugs and they would never pop off.
That seems like quite a bit of work without having tested anything to prove what's wrong. Run the crank around to TDC, pop off the distributor cap, and see how much crank movement you have before the distributor starts turning the other direction.@GASnBRASS I think so, 175k miles and I got a cyl #1 misfire along with a too rich condition last week. Runs terrible when cold, think it's a timing issue
So I'm replacing the timing chain and gears, prob should replace distributor as wellView attachment 124796
Hey thanks, @PatMc I knew there was a way to check for timing chain slack but just didn't know exactly.That seems like quite a bit of work without having tested anything to prove what's wrong. Run the crank around to TDC, pop off the distributor cap, and see how much crank movement you have before the distributor starts turning the other direction.
I figured it out. The timing chain shows consistently 7.5-8 degrees slack. I checked it several times.There will always be some slack, but shouldn't be much more than a degree or 3 of slack. How many degrees are you seeing?