According to wiki, the last few years of the TJ had a 2.4 dohc 4 cylinder, and they said it was the same as the cloud car engine (stratus, breeze and the like). Not fully beleiving this, I checked some parts interchanges, and, sure enough, same water pump, headgasket and rear main seal part numbers between the wrangler and the stratus, with the dohc 4. So, why not an srt/4 neon powered wrangler? Those engines produce over 200 hp and well over 200 torques, and I hear they can make over 300/300 pretty easy. That would be a sweet truck for smashing through zombies, and I would think even better than a Subaru...
What do y'all think?
Joey
You are correct, the poor TJ was sold with the same engine as the Neon. The bits should bolt up but the manifolds will be all wrong. Problem is turbo power isn't what you want offroad. You need low end grunt. Spinning things faster offroad is a great way to break stuff. There are guys out there that bash 4-cyl Jeeps at screaming RPMs but their stuff doesn't live long.
Strizzo
SuperDork
4/27/10 8:58 a.m.
little turbo on the 4, plus low tcase gears and you have all the tq you need and it actually has the power to spin 35's on the highway.
you really dont need more than 200-225hp to start breaking things in low range on a jeep.
better idea - cummins 4bt and the 6 speed from the 05-06 tj
I'm not really thinking low range off road, more "mall crawler meets zombie apocolypse". More high speed with ground clearence, and 4wd for the occasions when you need it.
Joey
slefain wrote:
You are correct, the poor TJ was sold with the same engine as the Neon. The bits should bolt up but the manifolds will be all wrong. Problem is turbo power isn't what you want offroad. You need low end grunt. Spinning things faster offroad is a great way to break stuff. There are guys out there that bash 4-cyl Jeeps at screaming RPMs but their stuff doesn't live long.
I bet the torque peak on my 1.6 Honda 4 cylinder turbo is at a lower RPM than on my Jeep 4.0.
EDIT - I was right. Found a dyno chart of a 4.0 TJ on 33's. Makes 163 ft-lbs at 3100RPM. My civic does 185 ft-lbs at 2900 RPM. 
Pimpish, I ahve a 2.4L 420a engine sitting in my driveway right now you can use to start your project with. I will trade you for a blue Miata and a set of Koseis. You will get a non running silver envelope to store it in for no charge.
Miata maybe but you can't havey kosei's.
Joey
Strizzo
SuperDork
4/27/10 10:31 a.m.
In reply to joey48442:
in that case, fast, yes, turn, no.
you might do better with an STi and outback sport struts/springs.
SRT swap, slam it to the ground on some super-wide slicks & autox in XP?
In reply to Strizzo:
No! My idea is better!
Just kidding. A subie probably would be better, but the jeep is just so easy to work on, and with the roll bar you could easily mount a machine gun to the top bar.
Joey
In reply to joey48442:
I'm pretty sure as soon as you mount a machine gun to any Jeep it's almost guaranteed to flip over in a spectacular A-Team-like fashion. 
This front bar:
From CARS
PLUS this passenger bar:
PLUS this engine:
PLUS one of these:
Shake vigorously, then go looking for these:
