I have had people asking me about how I did the swap and instead of writing it all out 100 times figured I would post it here and link it to everyone who asks and I will try to write it out in as much detail as possible... right now this is just car info, I am fixing to try this on an 03 5.7 truck with a broken valve spring and will post that update later for the truck guys.
First off I bought an 07 charger with two dropped seats, I pulled those two pistons and threw in some nice used take out pistons I had here and a quick dingle ball hone of the cylinders, one of those cylinders had a bit of a score mark down low but since it was mostly below ring travel when cylinder pressure is lowest I just went with it, this is kind of a beater car just for funsies. It runs great and no oil usage so I think it's fine. I unbolted the motor mount and steering rack to remove the pan and did it all in the car. I know this one was fighting the previous owner with overheating because it had blackening in the cylinders, a brand new water pump, brand new radiator and a heater hose leaking on the back of the engine that I had to fix that probably caused it all in the first place. Now you know where to start the swap.
I already had all my parts laying around, if you don't have a stash of parts I will try to list everything you need from the JY...
I had some nice low mile eagle heads laying around, cleaned em up, drilled an EGR passage in the passengers side head, it is very easy to do even free handed because the hole is already started and the bolt holes are already there, just take a 3/8 drill bit and drill it to the same depth as the hole in your old head from the end of the head toward the ex valve (don't drill all the way through just drill it as deep as your old head!!!), then use the same drill bit and drill from the ex side to the first passage you drilled and be carefull as you get down to intersect the first passage as it can jam or break your bit when you break thru the other passage. All the bolts are the same for the heads and rockers and such but a few of the the exhaust manifold bolts are different for the different manifolds so buy a new set for whatever manifolds you use. If you are going to tune the engine you can skip the EGR passage, I don't have money for a tune right now so to keep the engine from detonation and to keep the CEL off I put it on there.
I used a pair of eagle ex manifolds because I had them but I think the early ones would seal if you can't find any but the ports don't line up perfectly. The eagle manifolds bolted right up to the existing pipes but the heat shields would not bolt on so I have no heat shields for now, I will find some in the not too distant future.
I used fel pro head gaskets because they came with another project I bought, if buying some I would get factory ones but the fel pros seem ok. Either eagle or pre-eagle will work but they are slightly different, dont use the cheap chinese ones on fleabay for many reasons.
I used an eagle car intake, you can bolt it on with spacers or you can use your existing manifold with adapters.... then there is the redneck way I chose that works great. The eagle intake will not bolt on flat to an early block, the ports and bolts and such line up but the manifold will not sit down flat because the water passage in the front of the block hits the bottom of the intake. There is a good 1/4 inch gap but it hits at an angle and with very little clearance it will clear, I trimmed maybe .050 off the intake where it was hitting, you can't take much off the intake because it is pretty thin plaz tech... the block however is thick iron and I removed probably twice as much material there and had more to spare if I needed to grind more. Since it is all angled area where you grind I did not need to remove 1/4 inch of material to get it to sit flat! That big gap looks overwhelming till you think about the angle it is trying to clear at and now I can easily slide paper between them. I also trimmed one rib just above the coolant temp sensor, you may or may not need to depending on where your sensor is clocked when it is screwed in, my plug would not quite go on till I trimmed it a tiny bit. You may also notice the eagle intake has nowhere for the other end of the EGR tube to stick into... never fear your inside a rednecks mind right now... I had a throttle body spacer laying around I took off another project, I ground out the giant swirly threads inside that restrict flow and drilled a hole in the side to stick the tube in. Before that I just had it stuck in a small slice in the intake boot witch seemed to work but I like this rout better. I did cut the tube and put some high temp rubber hose on to make re-routing it easier rather than bending it. The eagle intake bolts are different length so you need the eagle bolts to do it the redneck way, if you buy spacers hopefully they come with longer bolts.
If you attempt to bolt on the early intake without adapters it will have bad overlap and not seal with the rubber o-rings, they will be sucked into the engine and you will have a massive intake leak. I suppose if you were more redneck than me you could just use "right stuff" to seal it but that is too redneck even for me!
The eagle heads require longer pushrods than the ones on the early engine, eagle push rods work just fine, I had to let the lifters all bleed down some before I could twist the pushrods with the valves closed, make sure you can twist every single pushrod before starting the engine!
I used the plastic valve covers off the car, I don't think the earlier aluminum ones will fit without some grinding though.
It all went together very easy and could go even easier if you skip the EGR stuff but I hate check engine lights and can't afford $2000 for a proper tune, that's more than i paid for the car, Now you might ask how does the factory tune work? Well at part throttle it easily adjusts the A/F ratio based on the O2s readings so it may not be perfect but it keeps it very close and works great. WOT the computer is running it a little rich, the eagle top end adds a little air and leans it out just a little so it is very close to where it should actually be. The timing could be improved with tuning but it's on the conservative side. The timing will get advanced when EGR opens to compensate for the loss in combustion efficiency that EGR causes, this is the reason I think it HAS to be hooked up if you run this without a tune, at 12 to 1 compression and a tiny cam building very high cylinder pressure you do not want it advancing the timing for EGR when there is no EGR!!! Also since the engine is now making a little more power at part throttle you will naturally run a lower throttle angle and lower MAP pressure so the computer will give you a little more part throttle timing already.
With whatever gas was in the car when I bought it I had significant spark knock retard I could see on the scanner but could not hear so I immediately drained it all out and filled with pump premium and no more knock. This is important to remember because not everyone has a scanner and you may not hear the spark knock but it is there and you HAVE TO RUN PREMIUM!!! These pistons will not last long with detonation.
This swap should get significantly better MPG than stock so hopefully that will offset some or all of the cost of premium VS low grade. I bet it would run even better with E-85 and if I had e-85 available locally I would have run even more compression. This is not a 1950s designed BB with iron heads and heat soaked iron intakes and one spark plug hiding somewhere in the edge of the chamber that rattles it's brains out at 10 to 1, the new hemis LOVE compression.
OK here is the junk yard parts list as best as I can remember
Complete eagle heads... only the rockers, shafts, retainers and keepers are the same
Eagle intake and bolts, otherwise bare is OK as you use your existing injectors and rails and such but grab the throttle body bolts if you can they are longer, I just drilled my holes a little deeper.
Eagle ex manifolds (optional as explained earlier)
Eagle pushrods
Eagle exhaust bolts if your too tight to buy new ones but the ones in the junkyard are probably broke or will break when you put them in
If you grab a spare intake boot you can have a good one whenever you get around to tuning it if you cut yours for EGR.
All the new gaskets, valve stem seals and such are just standard eagle stuff when you order it.
The starter has zero problem starting the car quickly.
As for driving the car... it's a blast! the RPM goes up and down very fast now, seems race car like and the pedal is very responsive at any speed. I have yet to drive it sanely enough to get a fair MPG measure, it is a hoot with the muffler delete the previous owner put on and the super fast reving nature it now possesses.
If you really want some giddy up you could slide a 6.1 cam in there and it will work fine with the eagle springs. You will need a few more gaskets to stick it in but it is a good time to do it. It will really like a tune if you do this as the RPM try to go up significantly more. I didn't have one laying around in my stash so I kept the factory 5.7 cam in there.
If you have any more questions please ask here so everyone can see the answer I give as very likely I have forgotten something important.
