Diesel engine swap

[DieselSJ]

Originally Posted by hatzie

If a rotted out Panel truck with a Cummins 4BT fell in your lap for $250 you could swap it in for around what you paid for the 454 modifications. That's a Unicorn.

I have a couple vehicles that I would purchase specifically for a 4bt swap should an engine fall in my lap for $250.

Truth be told I did consider building a LS based 408 for the dually because I have seen some extremely impressive, nearly flat torque curves (500+) that would make an excellent towing engine. But I was looking at nearly $10K for the engine alone.

I also considered building another 6.5 to match what I put in my Jeep. But the cost of building a 6.5 is getting into the close to $10K range now and too many replacement parts are Chinese sourced (can't find a set of non-cracked GM heads anywhere). The stuff that AM General has is stupid expensive, but North America castings.

So for now the 454 got the heads, cam and tune which will get me along for a while. And the NV4500 makes it tow way better than it ever did with the TH400. And sometime in the future it will get a mechanical 6bt/NV5600 combo.