Recently bought my wife a grand chherokee with a 318, and was wondering what upgrades you guys recommend that are easy on my ever shrinking wallet. I just put a 40 series flowmaster on, and it has just had a general tune up, plugs wires cap rotor, etc...

Any ideas, or suggestions would be appreciated!!

A good plan is to attack the worst(most restricted) area 1st which would be the exhaust(add headers & a mandrel 2&1/2" system)(always thinking of the engine in terms of an airpump). If it has a carter 2bbl You can even use the pri jets in an eddy strip kit to rejet it. Better yet obtain an edel performer alum intake which does have a spreadbore carb pattern(they're cheap) with a demonsizler prepped thermoquad. EDIT I forgot about recurving the dist/timing also

If your talking about a Jeep...you have a 5.2L Magnum and not the LA 318 right.

The muffler is a good start but I would have gone with the 50 series muffler. I think the 40 is going to be too loud for you but that is personal preference. THe rest of the exhaust system should be pretty good as the factory system was already mandrel bent. Headers might add some power but they are NOT going to be cheap.

You are probably not going to put a carb on a fuel ingected engine so that is out. I would put on an after market intake system. Some of them can be spendy but I found a cheap one on E-bay for my 00 Durango. It looks and sounds great.

THey do have some magnum intakes on the market as well as the magnum R/T heads but that is getting into a lot of money. I'm pretty happy with my Durango and all I have done to the 4.7L is a 50 series Flowmaster and a different air intake kit.

I'd do a high flow cat, can be bought for 50-75 and on my truck I picked up 2mpg. A could air intake would help some too and like mentioned can be found cheap. Otherwise your going to pay a good bit to get anything else done.

Oh I was thinking LA

What do you guys think about a jet chip or someting like that? Underdrive pulley?

I put underdrive pulleys on my Lincoln 5.0 and it made a noticeable difference.

Homemade cold-air pipe helped me also. On a mass airflow system the meter might be a bigger restrictor than the airbox, so look it over before spending $$$.

There might be some Bosch Type 2-3 (?) injectors that give better atomization and therefore more MPG and power. Search Ebay for cleaned injectors and you'll eventually stumble on the info. 'Cleaned' injectors are pretty reasonably priced ($80-100 for 8 of them).

I have a hard time believing that chips make a big difference in a gas engine. Pulleys can give you more power, but I've heard bad things about them too. I've heard that under stop and go trafic the alt might not be putting out enough voltage. I've heard of the check engine light coming on in certain models exc...

One other thing you may consider is replacing the engine driven cooling fan with an electric. I know that the Dakota R/T guys do this and seem to like it. One thing to remember is that the electric fan may not be enough to keep the Jeep cool on hot days with the air on.

if she's like my wife she has a heavy foot. A little emphasis in that area may help. Seriously, you may want to consider synthetic oil in the engine, tranny and rear end.

what year? if they make a MP computer get one. 20-30 HP in that alone. Hi-flow cat and 3" exhaust as well as getting some cool air into the engine. Headers are good but can be a pain and get expensive for 4x4's

I have already switched and put synthetic in all.

I just want to do what i can that is fairly subtle, so that when I drive it, it's what I want. Don't want to be out done by those import suv junks while at a stop light!!!

It is a 96. I would definately be interested in a mp computer, if any one knows of one that will work let me know.