Questions on the Magnum V8 swap
- Thread starter fikeweston
- Start date
Do you want facts? Or my narrow minded ramblings? I don't want to derail this thread anymore as I am "tossing" around the idea of a magnum swap myself
Well @Squatch is the derail king but a little derailing now and then ain't a bad thing. So fire away. It's all fun & games.
You far from Wildman? Go help him get his Jeep finished and then see what you think. Then he'll help you with a swap.
I think he is in Ellensburgh or Cle Elum if I recall so roughly 4 hours...I would love to help and learn at the same time
Yep I'm in between Ellensburg & Cle Elum and if I remember correctly you're down in the Tri-Cities area?
I used to be but now I'm in washougal/camas area..think Vancouver
Duh... All I had to do was look at your Avtar. Yep about 4 hours away on a good day and even longer if the roads are shitty.
It seems like in almost all cases I've done with TJ swaps, RAM PCMs are the ones to use. I believe you'd need a 2002 5.9 PCM, and then tune it to accomodate the 5.2.
OP
Okay so just make sure I get the 2002 PCM. But what year motor doesn’t really matter?
No since as far as I know the blocks really didn't change over the years. BUT and there is always the but, if you are going to keep it emissions legal then you're best to get a 2002 engine. Honestly with any swap like this it's best to try and buy a whole rig so you can take any parts off you might need and then sell it after. And a lot of people sometimes make money by doing that.
OP
Gonna be hard to find a 5.2. Don’t even think you can maybe they still had them in the vans though? Might have to do the 5.9.
I'm not sure I'd have to go back and research that some. For some reason I thought they offered both the 5.2 & 5.9 thru 2002 and then a very limited number in 2003. I'll see what I can find and let you know.
OP
OP
Could I not get an older motor and just order a different PCM? This part has got me stumped lol.
Yes you can. As I said earlier as far as I know the blocks are pretty much the same but if you're trying to keep it emissions legal then you want to get one from the same year as your TJ. Technically by federal law it's illegal to swap an older engine into your rig.
You could use a say 98 or 99 year engine and if you want to keep it emission legal you could pull those parts off a 2002.
Wikipedia says:
Okay did a little more diggin and yep the stopped offering the 5.2 in the Ram truck in 2001. You could get it in a van until 2003.
So if you're set on a 5.2 2001 is the last year to get one.
OP
I dug into it and what @Flyin' Ryan Performance said is true. You can use the 5.9 PCM just gotta have it tuned. At this point it doesn’t matter to me, 5.9 or 5.2. Whatever is the best deal basically lol.
OP
So whatever comes up, I’m gonna grab and get every single part and aspect with it. Doing all this to start formulating a game plan on it.
Yes the tuning part works both ways. You could take a 5.2 PCM and tune it as a 5.9 or the other way around. But since you have a 2002 you can only use a PCM from a 2001 or 2002 as they are the only ones that are PCI. Just know if you don't make it emission legal again technically you can sell it. All that is federal emissions stuff so if they don't test locally it doesn't matter. But if for any reason they started to then you couldn't register it or drive it on the streets until you made it compliant.