L134 or Pinto

Ford is a four letter word sooooo.....haha just kidding. I cant help you with the four speed, but what is your intent on the jeep? Wheeling, cruising, keeping up with modern traffic. Also budget and parts you have. A 134 with a 3 spd can do a lot except "no overdrive" keep up easily with modern traffic.

. If you know me at all, you won’t need to ask. The L134 and the T90 are more fun than you can imagine. Any swap is only the beginning of your troubles. Someone at cruise night might look at the Pinto engine and say, “nice” and walk away, but the stock jeep will get no end of good comments and thumbs up. JMO. Your jeep, do what you want. BW

Good comments guys. So far I have lined up a L134 and a F134.

Ted's Ride, here is some good reading on the subject. (containing some helpful links)

I went a slightly different route with the one I built years ago.

Instead of the T-90 I elected to adapt the Pinto C3 (which is essentially a C4 adapter wise) to the Dana 18.

I loved mine, wish I had it back and will probably build a clone if anything happens to this l-head.

It certainly got down the trail just fine without having to rev to its "max torque of 3200rpm".... but different strokes for different folks.....I won't try to talk Old-time or Anybody else into building one , just saying with the automatic and 5.38s it is an enjoyable trail rig.

Mine ( and the one I have in storage ) was a '71 2000.....they were rated close to 100hp.

Yes, the earlier versions are getting harder to come by....a bunch got used up on roundtracks around the country.

One combined with one of those super duper low geared transfer cases everybody seems to be clammering about these days would be a very offroadable rig and still run 60 mph.

Hopefully m38mike will join in on this conversation since Blue Mule has had a pinto motor most of its life and Mike has years of experience both on and off road. He drove Blue Mule back and forth from Salida for work and the drive home is a significant upward long pitch going home.

From what I understand (no personal experience). People like the pinto motor because it produces more torque at higher RPM where it is needed, on the highway. Off-road, you can get your power from your gears. I don’t know the specs on the motor but I would guess that even though it may not produce “max “ torque at low rpm, it is still producing as much or more than an L134. (no data to back that up)

If the choice were mine, and I was content to cruise 40-45 on road, I’d use the L134 out of bias and convenience.

If I had a good Pinto motor then I would be very tempted to use it, but I wouldn't try to find one.

If you don't get a Go-Devil, get a Buick V-6.  Or a Dauntless V-6.  Okay, they're almost the same thing.  They're excellent choices for the application.