I was thinking the same thing.

Now I'll get flamed here. But no one suggested a cherokee. Yes its Uni-body, but by his description its not like hes going to go out and do serious rock crawling.

4doors, longer wheelbase...whoever said short wheelbase as a pro to a CJ is way off, its actually a serious drawback, which is why anyone building a serious offroader from that platform extends its wheelbase.

Anways. hpd30 front.
1987-something came with a d44, 1996+/- came with a crysler 8. the d35 is easily swapped out with minor welding. All YJ's and early TJ's also came with the d35 as did some CJ7s

The Unibody came be strengthened.

And again, the 4.0 is not a bad engine I dont know where that came from. All engines have their querks, the 4.0 has fewer than most.

Buy a cheap cherokee for $800-1500 and put the rest of the money into lift, tires, winch, lockers, gears etc if you max out on just the vehicle than your stuck with stocker friendly trails only.