Hunt's Debadged RME TJ

Owners Name & City- Hunt, Carmel , NY

Make, Model & Year of Vehicle- Jeep, TJ 1997

Engine- 2003 5.3L LM7 from a truck, LS1 Oil Pan, ECU re-flashed for 325 HP and 375 Ft lbs of torque, Sanderson Headers with 2.5” collectors and 3” exhaust with Magnaflow muffler, Aluminum radiator with 2 speed Taurus electric fan,

Transmission- TH 350 (recently rebuilt and resealed!) with full manual valve body & engine brake, Summit Racing 12” 2000 RPM stall converter, Art Carr shifter, Spal transmission cool, Advanced Adaptors, deep extra capacity aluminum transmission pan,

T-Case- Advanced AdaptorsAtlas II with 4.3 to 1 ratio, 32 spline outputs front and rear, Roark Fab Atlas mount

Axles- Rear- Dana 60 with 40 spline Mark Williams 1.75” shafts, 5.13 gears, spool and disc brakes, Tera HD diff. cover, Width=62”, 1.5” spacers at both wheels, TeraFlex axle bridge truss,
Front- Tera CRD60, Dodge Kingpin Knuckles with chromo shafts, 5.13 gears, ARB locker, 35 spline outers(not chromo) and Warn Premium hubs, crane diff cover, Width=64”, Full hydraulic steering with single-ended ram, PCS pump and Appleton power steering cooler/reservoir/filter, 83” wide from the outside of the tire to the outside of the tire,


Suspension- TeraFlex longarm LCG for an Unlimited Wrangler, Rear coil buckets have been moved back 11”, wheel base is 104”, 3” of suspension lift, 1” body lift under the tub but not under the radiator shell, TeraFlex Dual Rate S/T swaybar, BTF coil mounting kit, Custom from 3 link with the upper link built using lower components, TeraFlex Belly-Up 1/4” t-case skid plate,

Wheels and Tires- 17”x9” Cragar Soft 8 steel black wheels, 5 total, 3” back spacing, 6 on 5.5 lug pattern, Staun internal beadlocks @ 30 psi, 40x13.5x17 Maxxis Creepy Crawlers DOT compound running 6 psi rear and 8 psi in the front,

Winch- Warn M8000

Body Modifications and Protection- BTF Crusher Corner Comp Cut rear quarter panels with LED rear brake lights, BTF Rocker Protection, Highline hood, Ben Hank’s Racing custom front fender raised for more tire clearance, Custom Ben Hank’s Racing roll cage tied to the frame in 6 places, BTF front bumper with d-rings, BTF winch plate,

Favorite Trails- Hell’s Revenge and Hell’s Gate Moab, UT

Other-Summit Machine aluminum fairlead (I need to get a synthetic rope or switch to a roller fairlead), Orbial battery, Corbeau Ultra SS seats tied to the roll cage, RCI seat harnesses, Custom 15 gallon fuel cell behind the rear seat built by Ben at Alliance Metal Works in SLC with a Napa P5000 pump, Bestop Super Top with soft doors, Bestop Bikini Top, AutoMeter white face Hotrod style gauges,

 

[RockChucker]

Hey, there's a hole in the floor. :greg: looking good. and I thought I was doing some gnarly surgery on my Jeep.

 

[Hunt]

I have been posting a lot on the book of faces but its been a long time since posting any updates here. Progress has started on the rebuild after KOH. Its slow but coming along.

I have decided to leave it TJ length. I really liked the way it wheeled at KOH and adding another 12" of wheel base to it would hurt its crawling ability. I decided not to trailing arm it. Its not a race care and coilovers will be plenty fast enough. The bypasses are being shelved for now. Most of the changes will be little things that I have wanted to do from literally years of wheeling it. Small changes like moving the damn shifters so I can reach them when fully belted in. The transmission cooler was in the perfect place when it had the truck intake on it. With the supercharger (damn thing) on it the trans cooler fan blew hot air right on the air filter and messed with the MAF. Just not an ideal situation.

Improving the fuel system so I have some real range (stupid superchargers sucks some go juice). The tank is a 32 gallon Fuel Safe with Holley's new Hyramate and Altech's fuel baffles. Everything will be done in -AN as well as have shut off. It is all race spec stuff so at some point if I decide to swap parts over I could.

An Improved Racing oil cool adapter will finish off the oil system.

I gutted the dash, removing all the plastic and metal bits. I was quite surprised how much the weight there was in the stock steering wheel and airbags. Climate controls, radio, GPS, Intercoms, etc will all go back in in an aluminum dash. Its amazing how much roomier it is without all the dash in it. My wife's main request was a real adjustable grab handle!

Artec high steer arms in the front. Alan from Axis Fabrication is making me a 7075 aluminum tie rod and a set of lower links for the front after bending the heck out the driver's side on Jack Hammer this past February. The rear frame rails are coming together with about 5" more up travel back there. I want to end up the a 8/8 split in the rear and will probably only get a 6/10 split in the front. I don't want the overall height to change.

I have a 250AMP Mechman alternator to run the HUGE NSR Offroad Red Winch. The winch is a story all in its own that I will get into later. Lets just say all I have invested in that is shipping from Oklahoma.

I have a big UMP air filter to figure out where to put. Just lots of little things that I have never liked are changing.

There is still a lot more to come.