Re: AMC Jeep 2.5 FI in Spirit?

["Jim Blair" <carnuck@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

A: My Comanche hauled LOTS of stuff around! Yesterday my '73 J4000 with 
304/tired TH400/BorgWarner Quaratrac with badly stretched chain #3, 3.73 
gears and 33" tires hauled my '90 E350 van (GVW 14,000lbs and likely 
surpassed. Tow truck driver that finished the trip was scared the van's 
front suspension was going to collapse. The tires with 65lbs pressure looked 
like they were near flat!) cross town, but couldn't get up the hill due to 
lack of chain drive traction. I was pulling fine till it started skipping 
about 1/2 way up.
   I bought a Dodge NP208 so I can swap out the VERY tired TH400 (required 
manual shifting bewteen gears to take off and refused to stay in drive on 
longer than 5 mile freeway trips) for a lockup 727 and keep my RH drop front 
axle. The BW has 16% O/D kit in it, so I will gain some power on takeoff and 
with the lockup converter (I have a manual controller going into the fluid 
line so I can haul long hills w/o lockup till I want it) I will have decent 
fuel economy again. (I used to get almost 17 mpg when the TH400 worked well)


From: adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker)
To: mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: AMC Jeep 2.5  FI in Spirit?

" From: "Jim Blair" <carnuck@xxxxxxxxxxx>
"
" A: I would do it, but make sure you have a decently low gear ratio. With
" 4.10s it would run quite nicely. My '86 Comanche with nearly 300,000 miles
" on it still runs like a top (but has some blowby issues now) I ran 4.10s
" with 30" tires and it was still pretty zippy. We had 6,000lbs gross weight
" when we went to Ouray, CO (myself, 2 grown sons, 5 gallon bottle of water, 
3
" spare tires and the truck with the rest of the weight being spare parts I
" dragged out in case I broke anything 4 wheeling and swap meet stuff)
"
"
" From: Jesse <j2sax@xxxxxxxxx>
"
" So, another crazy combination has popped to mind since
" the gas bounced the $3's.
"
" I have an 80 AMX that is currently dormant.  I just
" stumbled across a wrecked 2WD Chero with 2.5 and 5 spd
" (AMC not iron puke).  OUtside of a Renault, I am hard
" pressed to think of a better potential all AMC mileage
" combo.  I know it won't be a rocket ship, however,
" there are all kinds of aftermarket perf setups for the
" 2.5 because of Jeeps.
"
" Any ideas?

well, if jim's bus can pull 6000 lbs with 30" tires your amx should do
just fine with 3.54s.  and as i recall that's what the 4-cyl
gremlins/spirits had...
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen


adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       and think what none thought