Engine replacement with smaller displacement motor?

I doubt you'd be happy with less than half the HP and nearly 1/3 of the torque.

You'd be in for some pretty extensive fabrication work, along with probably rewiring much of the truck. All the electronic modules on the truck will likely be wanting to communicate with the engine ECM, which would no longer exist.

 

Well, I'll tell ya', it's better to have the power and not need it, than t'other way 'round. However, what you plan to do seems totally legit, and it's all about saving money today, I say go for it.

 

Cat has the right of it. Its doable and would likely work. But its going to be very underpowered, very slow, a lot of the fiddly bits wont work. Its going to be VERY heavy for a pickup and likely get stuck pretty easy or bogged down if heavy and an absolute metric #### ton of work to get everything working.

If you do it yourself it COULD be worth it. But i think you would be happier finding an old generic F250 or maybe an old box truck or uhaul. Some such like that and cutting the bed or box off for a flatbed. It wouldnt cost a lot more, would be WAY easier to fab and likely cheaper on the backend.

 

DT is a good engine. The 360 will be slow, but, it will be dependable. Shame it’s not a 466….

 

I don’t know any specifics about your truck and engine combo.

That being said I drove a 26k gvrw dump truck with a 5.9 Cummins with an auto transmission years ago. That was the most under powered, slowest truck I’ve ever driven. To the point it was unsafe driving down the highway. Fully loaded with a slight uphill on ramp I could get it up to about 30-35 by the end of the ramp, merging onto a 70mph interstate. Any slight hill and I was down to 50.

How much of that was the 5.9 and how much was the automatic transmission? I’m not sure but that truck was a DOG.

 

I own that truck. It’s definitely an in town truck. Put 10 ton of rock on it. You get there, eventually. I personally think it’s the 4 speed auto that makes it such a dog.

 

I got one of them too old f700 flatbed with a 4 speed Allison
Put one super sack of sand on it and forget passing anything put 3 on and passing granny on a bike is a challenge…. It’s gonna be upgraded to a mt 653 soon since I just pulled one out of a truck we are parting out so I guess we’ll see

 

Let me know how that goes, because I was either wanting a 653 or just doing a manual swap

 

I was going to swap the auto for a manual until this came up….should be considerably less hassle since I don’t have to add a clutch linkage.
I will have to change the flywheel housing to sae2 instead of the 3 that’s on there now unless I can use an adapter.