392 Conversion for 2020 Jeep Gladiator? | 4WDTalk - Overlanding and offroad Forum
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392 Conversion for 2020 Jeep Gladiator?

Frank Vos

Frank Vos

Well-known member
I've been looking at ways to get more power in my gutless Gladiator. It just dawned on me that the 392 might be an option. Now I've I'm lucky I'll find one in a junkyard, worse case I buy a crate motor.

But my question is will this bolt up to stock engine mounts of my V6 motor? Transmission? How much of what I have will need to be replaced?

Thank you in advance!

Frank
 
My question is how are you with late model engine software and diagnostics? How are your fabrication skills?

As for the bolt up, I'm sure there are posts where people have done this.

Over the years I have done or helped in quite a number of swaps. The logistics around a swap can either be simple or not. If the vehicle was ever optioned with the motor then it will normally drop in. Professional swaps should cost 10k-20k in labor alone. An LS motor into my Cruiser is 10k labor and it almost drops right in with very little fabrication.

If the motor in another vehicle bolts to that trans, that part is now "slightly" easier. Your actually much better off buying a complete vehicle and swapping the entire drive line. "IF" the two parts don't mesh, can you get an adapter? These normally end up being issues in themselves. The adapters are very expensive and are more of a "patch" then a proper fix.
Your frame and body were designed for a certain size motor. Your V8 will be longer and possibly wider, the bell housing will probably be bigger, possibly forcing you to move the motor forward or "notching" the firewall. Then there's exhaust routing. Do you need to cut the frame for that too.? Of course you can install a body lift to clear but that has a bunch of drawbacks in itself.
You also need to figure out if the lower accessories are going to hit the frame or steering box. A common band aid fix here is again body lift. This way you can raise the engine higher and still clear the hood. Now we need to figure out the cooling system. The new motor is longer. Do we have enough room because the bigger motor needs more cooling?

At that, I have only touched the tip of the iceberg in what's involved.

Most of the engine swaps I've encountered have been done wrong. They look cool but they end up problematic when all the poor engineering starts to show. All of the swaps I've been personally involved in have been done correctly. They were very expensive and labor intensive with quite a bit of fabricating involved.

When its all done, no matter who did it, you now own a Frankenstein.

People once in a while bring me these things to diagnose because NO ONE will touch them. Most of the issues I see are poor workmanship. The ones that were done "professionally" have good workmanship but have electronic issues. The problem here is, even electronics can wear out.

You bring your vehicle to a shop. Where is he going to get info on your swap? Who wrote the software, who build the harness and why is there a vibration coming from the back of the engine (adapter plate not fitting exact)
Sure they can fumble around and hope for the best but how much are you going to pay them if they spend 20 hours on it and didn't fix it because its an issue with the software? Me, I would go in with a non refundable estimate of at least 1k with no guarantee of anything. Realistically I would avoid it altogether.

Sorry if this sounds negative. This is something I have delt with my whole life. As I said, I just touched on what is involved. If you really want to go this route, you need to see in person at least a couple of them already done and have at least a couple of years of use. Most importantly you need the skill to diagnose everything including software.
 
+1 what he said.

Honestly for something like this and considering the complicated computer systems in these trucks, I would source out a mechanic near you that specializes in Jeeps and has experience with motor swaps like this. As soon as you do anything under the hood like this, your warranty is gone. So you want to make sure you minimize risk.
 
Pro Drywall said:
+1 what he said.

Honestly for something like this and considering the complicated computer systems in these trucks, I would source out a mechanic near you that specializes in Jeeps and has experience with motor swaps like this. As soon as you do anything under the hood like this, your warranty is gone. So you want to make sure you minimize risk.
Click to expand...

This exactly. When it was a small block and a carb, you just had to make it fit. In non moded vehicles, aftermarket parts will hand you your ass sometimes. Add in a swap and gawd it can get complicated.
If the wire loom isn't made correctly, you stand a chance of interference bleeding from one wire to the next. Now you have a computer flipping out for no aparant reason.
 
Oh man, I should have clarified gang. I won’t be doing the work myself. I’ll have a shop do the work. I was trying to get a better understanding of what potential headaches I might be looking at moving foward.
 
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