Gone is the simplicity and room under the hood from the TJ’s. Now space is at a premium. Gone is the 4.0L I-6 engine replaced by a 3.8L V6. The fan is now an electric fan to reduce the engine noise. I do not know how well it will hold up to a water crossing but we will find out eventually. There is plenty of room in front of the engine. So swapping in bigger engines should be just as easy. I do not see a V8 being a factory option, they still need to meet front crash requirements. Though a diesel would be nice, rumor is 2010, but I will not mention what AEV might be working on. One thing you will notice is that the oil filter is now on the front of the engine. Convenient to get to, though with it being as close to the drive belt, I almost expected a sticker with pinched fingers and the warning do not remove oil filter while engine is running. |
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Lots of plastic in the engine compartment, every accessory is mounted to it. This is going to make it harder to install things. A snorkel kit will be an interesting endeavor with the air box all the way in the front and the intake on the side. This looks a little restricting for airflow; I would like to see how much of an improvement the aftermarket air intakes would show. The air filter looks like a house if you stand it up. It is light and is not pleated with any metal mesh backing. It does not feel like a paper filter, almost some type of cloth fiber. It might not need that backing if it gets wet. The filter housing does have some really big drain holes in the bottom that have check valves on them to prevent sucking in air, just draining out. They did manage to stuff the power steering reserivouir inbetween the grill and the air box. |
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There is not much room around the battery, which sits in a plastic tray. It may be difficult to install dual batteries in this area. I do suspect that there is enough room to install the Jeepers and Creepers dual battery setup since it uses a smaller battery. I would still like dual optima’s, I think there is enough room, but the plastic tray does not lend itself to modification very easy. The new battery cable ends have a lug on them so that you can easily bolt in extra cables. This is a nice addition from Jeep. |
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For those of you who just love what Jeep calls an under hood light, well it is still there. I wonder how long it will take me to break this one. There is also an opening under the cowel to the engine side. You can see the wiper motor now. The hood does seal this off, and since there is a nice big opening on the top for water to come in anyways, I don't believe that this will be an issue. |
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| All the fuses have now moved under the hood in one location. Lots of room to be able to tap into the fuse box and utilize the power right from there for small items. I will investigate this later when I start working on projects and need to pull power. It should be interesting to see if you can get access the bottom side. |
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Some additional pics under the hood, you can see how they stuffed everything under the hood, not much room anymore for things. You will just need to get creative when installing accessories. |
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