To Stroke or not to stroke ...diesel? 4.0

[cLAY]

Your example may work  if you are on a level surface and the vehicle weight increases surface contact footprint, which is why a narrower tire on ice works better. However when you start to try climbing things that weight holds you back like a fat guy trying to climb up an icy sidewalk.  Same with snow, a narrower tire on a heavy vehicle works well on snow that isn't too deep, once the snow deep enough a lighter vehicle on fat tires with a light throttle does better.

[hamrtime]

... that weight holds you back like a fat guy trying to climb up an icy sidewalk. ...

i am that fat guy   

fair enough, will give it some thought always willing to learn.

on the diesel my last words of wisdom - here goes:
am average home garage capable dude, i mod'ed my yj - some work
i did and some things had the more capable do, pretty happy with
the outcome - prior to that learned the hard way [mostly cars] if you want a
custom vehicle expect lots issues [quirks] and if your not above
average shadetree dude you better have deep pockets.

one thing that was important too me is what's things going to look
like down the road, can i still get the wire harness/computer i need
for custom eng [or any] swap in 3 yrs, will my gauge's work, does it
push my tranny back so i have to cut the floor and shorten driveshaft$,
alot of these trending swaps especially if your relying on kit can be
discontinued short lifespan or rare
junk yard parts might leave you with big problem.

4L works - you can get parts for it in smalltown backwater north america,
foreign swaps like a diesel  I say only do it if you got the talent to keep it
running or ca$h to throw at it else make a list of pro's and con's , and consider what
your return on investment will be  [ before anyone says it no I am not an
accountant      ]

[Bnine]

If you have ever wheeled with a suzuki, or watched a rock crawling competion the weight versus traction discussion is a non starter. Its just blaringly obvious less weight performs better.

To address your tire comments, that is why we air down when we wheel.

You need a relatively strong, heavy tire when wheeling for a few reasons. First of all, jeeps are not as light as people think. A built jeep YJ or TJ on 33's or 35's commonly tips the scales between 4100 and 4800lbs depending on how they are set up.
There are times offroad where you can get most of the vehicle weight on 2, or rarely even 1 tire. You want something strong enough to take that random abuse.

How you make up for the stiff sidewall traction wise is by airing down.

A C rated tire on a wrangler will flex really well on mid weight wrangler anywhere between 8-15lbs. Depending.

D rated, and E rated tires have to be aired considerably lower to perform as well, but when they are aired down accordingly, they will run right beside the C rateds for traction. Most D's are ran between 8-10 pounds.

Most E's never run more than 5 pounds on the trail.

Of course, when you use ultra low pressures, you want to have beadlocks.

A lot of people use small scale accurate gauges to measure this type of stuff.

What I have leaned over the years is that if you watch your sidewall as you air down, it will tell you where it needs to be. On even ground, you pull air until the sidewall starts to bulge. You'll find doing that you end up with the numbers above every time anyways.

[Dingleberry]

Most informative, sir!