This is an excellent post. My 2010 LR4 LUX is in wonderful shape, sans fried motor due to the coolant system imploding last summer. Plastic coolant parts make no sense to me... I have debated a new to me motor swap, but at $10-15K plus - and around $20K for rebuilds - seems insane. Just yesterday spoke with a shop that has done a few rebuilds of these motors - he's very optimistic about it working - and of course not being as expensive as a swap. This thread gives me a lot of hope! For those that are doing the work, we would love to continue to see the posts and the pics of the projects - and your summaries of how things went! Thanks
Lessons Learned Rebuilding 5.0 V8 2012 LR4 Engine
- Thread starter Red Top Engine
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- engine rebuild lessons
serge1060
Active Member
Anybody has luck on engine swap so far? My engine is acting out and been throwing check engine codes which I hope could be electrical in nature. I am hearing occasional knocking sound (tin can) probably from the timing chain guide. I'm attaching the pics for the codes read by my GAP tool. By the way, the check engine light comes up each time I start the car. When I drive the car after clearing the codes, it will not reappear after more than 50 miles of driving until I restart my LR4 again. Please see attached files. Any help is much appreciated.
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avslash
Full Access Member
I wish. I'm not sure if the numbers of these trucks support the economics of development, but the ultimate saviour of the LR4 would be the development of an engine swap that both integrates with the electronics as needed and uses a much simpler and easier to service mill.
And there's the rub. The obvious answer for anything is to throw an LSX in there -- cheap, big torque, relatively decent fuel economy for what it is, parts are available at any autozone, etc. Problem is getting anything to talk to the terrain control and gauges.
TrinidadLR4
Full Access Member
I think a 5.0 Ford Coyote mill out of a recent F150 would be perfect. Since they use a 6R80 trans in the fords(which is a rebadged ZF6HP anyway), if you can get the electronics to talk, it should be relatively straightforward(on paper, at least).
Just curious... are the AJ133 V8 flaws that bad, they are worse than all the drawbacks (and cost!) of a complete engine/marque swap? Other than the timing chain issues which should be a 1-time repair expense, what is the incentive to lose the stock powerplant? (OK, ok, more power would be nice, but 375hp/375tq is at least adequate.)
TrinidadLR4
Full Access Member
After having my engine replaced due to seizure, I will argue that the aj133 is, overall, not designed to be a truck engine and is too finicky and failure-prone for hard use. For evidence, will point to DI pumps/injectors, plastic crap cooling system, small oil passages. I am not convinced it is entirely suitable to be used in a real truck.
Seizure? What mileage?
TrinidadLR4
Full Access Member
114k. Used engine has 84k on it. Still no clear answer as to why it seized, but it was jammed solid. Either catastrophic coolant loss(with no warning, exp tank was bone dry) or something else. Running great now but confidence rattled.
