textaz03

I have a 86 Power Ram that I'm getting ready to restore and upgrade. It's been sitting for 12 years (since my wedding day) with a blown 360 and I'm torn on putting a crate 360 or going diesel power with it. It sits with a 6" suspension lift with no body lift and on 38's with Dana 70 rears.

First question would be what Diesel engine would be recommended? And how well do try dress up (this is going to be a show truck)?

It has a TorqueFlight 727 tranny. How well does that match up to a diesel? Would I have to modify the Tranny for the difference in torque?

With a diesel conversion, how much of the ignition system would have to be changed over?

That's enough questions to get this going do me. I have more, but I'll wait on them.

By the way, this looks to be a good forum to get some good ideas and help for this project. Glad I found it!

93-12Smoke

If you go with a ve pump 12 valve you need power wire to the starter, the ignition wire to the starter and a write to the fuel shut off solenoid or gut the fss and run a pull cable to the manual kill. That'll get you running.

Dressing it up all depends on you. You can buy aftermarket vanity cover. The 12 valves have independent valve covers for each cylinder, 6 total. The vanity cover goes over all 6. They also have aftermarket valve covers and you don't use the vanity cover. Then you can color match all your intercooler and intake tubing and your motor. Lots of bling out there for Cummins motors. Most of it looks better than the cheesy chrome gasser stuff too.

roxxx

you will have to look at your frame and suspension . Frame probably handle a Cummins But the Suspension may not .

bobva

Is your truck a 1/2 3/4 or 1ton ?

dana 44 will be to weak

gas trans does not bolt up to cummins

easy thing to do is find a beatup body diesel donor you'll have all the right parts that way.

sooty

the gas 727 trans bolts different than the diesel? I picked up a '92 for my changeout for 1500. with 200k miles for my '90, truck had all the conversion parts youd be looking for, consider better economy, 3 times the torque, for the same or less in rebuilding, the leftover scrap will put $ back in your pocket. keep your eyes out on c-list for parts trucks.

j-fox

Find an engine with the trans.

JimmieD

I'd suggest that you first give yourself an education on just what is a Dodge Cummins Turbo Diesel truck. It's obvious you don't know anything about Cummins diesels so it will be real hard for you to understand the parameters of such a swap project without learning what it's all about.

The diesel engine's torque is far beyond a gasoline engine, and what's very important: they deliver almost their full torque right off of idle, before the truck is rolling. So that's a very heavy hit on all driveline components, requiring serious upgrades to deal with it. My swap described in my sig is a good example. The 4BT engine came out of a Firto-Lays Grumann stepvan and had been retired by them because it had gone through 3 transmissions, Pontiac TH475-HO, a 'Heavy Duty' GM trans!

For simplicity's sake, ease of maintenance, least electrical fiddling and by far lowest cost a Bosch VE mechanical injection pump found on the 1st Gen CTD's is much preferred for a swap. All that's needed is starter wiring plus one wire for the fuel shutoff solenoid, that's it. No other electrical hookups needed.

Depending on which transmission is used the Cummins 6BT is going to add roughly 500-700 lbs of weight to your front suspension. A spring upgrade is required.

I don't usually like to refer people to other forums but this is a little different. You can get a lot more info on the basics and more specifically on swaps at the 4BT Swaps Forum. Many very informative Tech Stickies there for general knowledge: http://www.4btswaps.com/forum/forum.php

Overall the best bet is as suggested above, buy a donor truck and then you've got every part needed. It's also a lot easier to use the donor truck and just do a body swap from your '86 than to swap the whole drivetrain. This can also result in much easier compliance with SMOG regulations as it's registered as a diesel truck right from the start. The Cummins diesel was not an option available on '86 Dodge trucks.

On the other hand if this isn't going to be a driver, but just a show truck, it's a whole bunch simpler and cheaper to just stick another 360 in there and call it good.