Unfortunately - or fortunately perhaps - we have delayed our new home purchase and the move to Flagstaff. The housing market is simply too crazy right now - the number of houses available is pitiful and the houses we have been looking at are selling for $75-85,000 over ask price. At the beginning of Feb, for the first two weeks of the month there was just a single house for sale in the $450-650k price range (and it was baby puke green and straight out of the 90's inside!).
For those houses that do pop up, here's a good example of the crazy that buyers are dealing with. This house originally listed at $540K, came off the market within hour and then came back on at $575k list. It closed in less than 30 days at $75,000 over list with an all-cash offer. We actually went to view this home (it happened to snow that weekend and we wanted to go play around and get out of the house anyways). It was in nice shape with a good sized lot and a pull-thru 3 car garage, but had IKEA sourced cabinets, plastic showers, old fixtures upstairs and a number of areas where the previous owner cheaped-out on.
Rather than blow a bunch of money and go immediately in the red, we have decided to stay in the Phoenix Valley until the move makes sense (if ever at this point!). The silver lining to all this is that I am no longer in scramble mode to get the Jeep back on the road by May. So with that, I have looked over my budget spend vs planned and am doing quite well (less than 50% of budget!!).
Selling off the old 4.0L, trans and related parts has netted me some good $$ to offset some of the remaining purchases. All that remains for the engine swap is an exhaust system (budget $800), ECM reflash w/SKIM delete ($200), throttle body & intake setup ($500), A/C lines ($400), and some misc expenses like fluids, wires, loom, etc (budget $300). These budgeted amounts are likely worst-case as well. This means I have a good bit of budget left to tackle some of the other work I was waiting on until after the move. I am thinking that while the tub is off, it makes sense to get this all done at one time and be able to hit the trails hard just after summer ends.
Post Hemi build plans going forward is as follows:
1) I want to stretch the axle back as far as possible without requiring a comp cut. Moving the axle under the frame requires frame notching and a much shorter spring (OEM length is most commonly recommended to match with a 4" front spring) and from what I'm told, these often struggle to keep up with a 12" travel shock. My plan is to cut the frame just in front of body mount #4 (similar to what
Solman did here), sleeve and extend 4.5-5" rearward to get the rear stretch I'm looking for while maintaining the axle-to-frame relationship. The rear of the frame that would then extend past the rear of the body would be trimmed off and an HD crossmember would replace the thin factory crossmember. Doing it this way would allow me to keep my recently relocated spring buckets and keep the 3.5" RK triple-rate springs (which I'm really happy with).
2) Once the frame is moved, I would replace the already-beat-up factory body mounts in the center of the frame with the
GenRight HD mounts. These mounts accomodate a 1" BL that I already have in place, but would just simply require factory-height body mounts in the center locations and a few hours of cutting and welding.
3) Once the rear of the frame and body mount modifications are done, I will tackle the control arms and geometry. I am (or was) leaning towards the Savvy Mid Arm kit, but was told there are issues with the front mounts and a V8 swap. I need to investigate this more; my alternative would be some Currie/Savvy double-adjustable short arms with the Jeep West geometry correction brackets.
4) After the above, I would finish the rear off with an outboard using the commonly recommended Poly Towers. If I can make the Savvy Mid Arm work, I will try to take advantage of the movement and setup for a 14" travel shock (likely a tuned Fox). If not, I will run a 12" version. I will pair that back end with a modified front tower and match that with a 12" Fox shock (noting that I will set the front travel bias before the rear based on plenty of builders advice on the topic).
5) For fuel, I need to talk to Motobilt. They are now offering a stretch-tank for the TJ's that utilize the 05-06 pump module (which is what I need for my Hemi anyways!). They say they are emissions complaint for all year TJs but I need to see how they manage the NVLD connector. If I can't get the MB tank to work (it's a 15-gal tank), I'll have to go with one of the GenRight offerings.
That will pretty much chew up the remainder of my budget for this project, though I will still want to do a cage and some upgraded seats before pushing it hard (hopefully we have some early holiday sales this year
). It should be about a solid a performer on 35"s and TJ-width axles as I could imagine for the trails here in AZ and the southwest.
Any thoughts? Am I missing something?? Once this goes back together, it's staying together - COVID should be hopefully behind us and the events and trails I've been wanting to hit up will be open; it's time to start crossing some of the those off my list before my work-travel schedule gets back to normal.