4.7 rebuild & opinion

[oneway71]

Hello

I just rebuilt a 4.7 out of a Grand Cherokee Limited. Over all I liked the engine. It was easy to work on including the 3 timing chains.
The only thing I didnt like is that there are no cam bearings. Its built like a briggs & stratton.

If the journals were bad on this cam/head; How would they fix it, without having bearings available?

Anyone else like or hate this motor?

 

[moper]

I dont have one, but in heads that have no bearings in some cases the cams are available oversize, the cam saddles cam be resized like a set of main bearing bores can, or the factory simply says replace the head.

 

[Hersbird]

On the Dakota web board there is a guy running a homebuilt turbo on his 4.7 and it rips. It also has held up fine to the boost last time I checked but that has been a couple of years now. They are good motors with potential but were kind of forgotten by the factory when they started doing 5.7 Hemis. I think it actually is bigger, heavier, and costs more to manufacture then the 5.7. It didn't get much better gas mileage either. The factory was boosting this motor on a couple of concept cars they made. Makes me think it might be a better design for taking boost then 5.7 but like I said the factory seems to have lost interest in it. I think Allpar has a good write-up on it.
http://www.allpar.com/mopar/47.html

 

[fishy68]

Got one in my 02 Dakota and love it. Runs fantastic considering I have done very little to improve performance. Can't make it get less than 17 mpg in town. Run's high 14's when it hooks up. No sure grip in it so most of the time it spins bad. Got 65,000 miles on it now and no problems. I keep the oil changed regular as they seem to build up condensation more than normal. That's the only thing bad I've seen with them. Haven't had to do anything to it, knock on wood.

 

[Guitar Jones]

Hello

I just rebuilt a 4.7 out of a Grand Cherokee Limited. Over all I liked the engine. It was easy to work on including the 3 timing chains.
The only thing I didnt like is that there are no cam bearings. Its built like a briggs & stratton.

If the journals were bad on this cam/head; How would they fix it, without having bearings available?

Anyone else like or hate this motor?

Not a fan of it but not a hater either. As for the head, you just replace them. Same as if it's been overheated and warped because you aren't supposed to cut them either.