The lore surrounding the Jeep Wrangler is legendary. Born of the American military 4x4 that helped the Allies win World War II, it's been a staple of American automotive culture for 75 years.

Relish, then, in the sacrilege that is a ratty old Jeep Wrangler powered by a Lexus V8 that was assembled in Japan.

Redditor / YouTuber / OppositeLock poster "American Locomotive" brings us this delightful mishmash of a Japanese engine powering an American icon. According to this Reddit thread, the 1UZ-powered YJ Wrangler belongs to a friend of American Locomotive, built when the Jeep's factory four-liter inline-six started getting tired.

In its place went the Lexus V8, a double-overhead-cam, 32-valve, oversquare engine that came from the factory with six-bolt mains. This engine has been finding its way into plenty of home-brew drift cars over the years, but it's an unexpected find in a gnarly Jeep YJ.

The strangeness doesn't end there: This Lexus engine spins a re-drilled Toyota 4Runner flywheel and pressure plate, transferring its torque to a Camaro V6 clutch disc, then on to a Chevy SM420 four-speed manual transmission from 1967 bolted up thanks to a 3/8-inch plate steel adapter. The transfer case is the stock Jeep NP231 unit, and the axles hold 4.10 gears, with a Ford 8.8-inch rear end.

That may be a weirdo amalgam of Japanese and American parts, but the final product sounds like pure NASCAR badass:

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Amazingly, this isn't even the first time American Locomotive has helped pitch a Lexus V8 into a friend's Jeep. A different friend has an XJ Cherokee that's also powered by a 1UZ, a swap inspired by the discovery that the Cherokee used a nearly identical automatic transmission as the Lexus LS400.

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But back to that YJ. With super low gearing meant for rock crawling (that Chevy transmission sports a 7:1 first gear), this Jeep will happily lift a front tire off the pavement when you romp on it. I don't care if the engine was built on Mars, this thing sounds like the world's angriest stock car:

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We should note that, toward the end of that video you just watched, there is some very dangerous towing going on. These guys are doing just about everything wrong, and it's a good bit of luck that the worst that happened was the YJ's bumper got ripped off. Tugging a stuck truck like that is a good way for someone to get whacked in the head by a broken chain or bumper piece. Don't be dumb.

Now that the parenting is out of the way—holy damn, listen to that thing.

via Oppositelock

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