GM, Dodge and Ford engine sizing in the past

[timswi]

I had the 6.2 diesel in a 1982 GMC pickup. It was OK although had a nasty habit of losing the prime if you parked heading downhill. Then was tough to get started again. At about 25k miles I traded it to my brother in law for a plot of land and put up a spec house which made me good money. He put a flat bed on it and used it for another 100k in his construction business with no issues. So in the end we both did OK with it!

I had a 6.2 in a '89 3/5 4x4 Suburban..Aside from a couple of glow plugs, no problems in 2 years or so of ownership driving it 70 or so miles round trip to work..Fast , no, but got a consistent 23 MPG. Great highway cruiser...Took it to Delaware/NJ a couple of times for work and it was fantastic.

I maintained a 80's something Cadillac Fleetwood 5.7 diesel for a guy, aside from a water pump and a couple of glow plugs, it was very reliable...he owned it for at least 5 years that I know about...Some were good, some were bad..The way it goes. GM tried the V8-6-4 ...We have that today, they just didn't have the computer firepower that exists nowadays but their foresight was on target. Lessons learned and we're all better for it in the long run.

 

[Patches]

Id have to check but Dana 27 in the front and Dana 44 with 2 pc axles were common... the splines on the rears like to strip where the hub bolted to the end of the axle.

Never heard of a Dana 33, that's new to me.

Well, don't take it to the bank, I'm thinking back 45/50 years; thinking the 27's were late 40's, early to mid 50's, 33's next in line and 44's in "Jeep" were 1/2-3/4 ton pickups??

 

[94BULLITT]

I had a 6.2 in a '89 3/5 4x4 Suburban..Aside from a couple of glow plugs, no problems in 2 years or so of ownership driving it 70 or so miles round trip to work..Fast , no, but got a consistent 23 MPG. Great highway cruiser...Took it to Delaware/NJ a couple of times for work and it was fantastic.

I maintained a 80's something Cadillac Fleetwood 5.7 diesel for a guy, aside from a water pump and a couple of glow plugs, it was very reliable...he owned it for at least 5 years that I know about...Some were good, some were bad..The way it goes. GM tried the V8-6-4 ...We have that today, they just didn't have the computer firepower that exists nowadays but their foresight was on target. Lessons learned and we're all better for it in the long run.

The sad thing is the diesels today won't get that kind of MPG.

 

[timswi]

The sad thing is the diesels today won't get that kind of MPG.

That is sad actually..That 6.2 was non-turbo and moved that tank I had around just fine for what it was...It has a massive fuel tank for its time and it lasted forever.

Get the wretched EPA out of the way and I can only imagine what diesels today could do..DPF, after-burners etc..Yeah that's efficient.:grumpy:

I'd love to buy a diesel but the premium and risks are just not worth it right now sadly...I'll eat the fuel delta over gas, that's not the issue to me.

 

[JESSE1]

The sad thing is the diesels today won't get that kind of MPG.

You have to remember that all the early diesels only had 115-130 horsepower and maybe 275 lb/ft torque. That worked okay as long as you didn't have a big load, also they were noisey and smoked like crazy. Modern diesel pickups like my '15 F-450 have 440 hp/860 tq. They also don't smoke and are very quiet. Also much more complicated. You have to drive one to realize how much power they have. They make sense in a heavy pickup designed to pull heavy loads.

The least complicated and reasonably powerful pickup I had was a '94 F-350 with the factory turbo 7.3 diesel. Only offered it for a few years before the Powerstroke was on the market. This engine was completely mechanical and had an ATS turbo installed at the factory. Much more powerful than the NA 7.3 diesel and not complicated like later diesels.

 

[timswi]

You have to remember that all the early diesels only had 115-130 horsepower and maybe 275 lb/ft torque. That worked okay as long as you didn't have a big load, also they were noisey and smoked like crazy. Modern diesel pickups like my '15 F-450 have 440 hp/860 tq. They also don't smoke and are very quiet. Also much more complicated. You have to drive one to realize how much power they have. They make sense in a heavy pickup designed to pull heavy loads.



The least complicated and reasonably powerful pickup I had was a '94 F-350 with the factory turbo 7.3 diesel. Only offered it for a few years before the Powerstroke was on the market. This engine was completely mechanical and had an ATS turbo installed at the factory. Much more powerful than the NA 7.3 diesel and not complicated like later diesels.

Complication...Ergo, the issue.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Have to mention some other engines I have experience with that haven't come up so far. My Dad bought a new Jeep pickup in 1964 that had the overhead cam 230ci six. So far as I know that was the first and for a long time only US made OHC engine. Unfortunately the valve stems leaked badly from Day One so it used a lot of oil and left a long blue cloud on any downhill grade. He was looking for another engine when I got in a wreck with the family Buick, which had a 322 V8. He swapped that engine into the Jeep pickup and drove it for several years. The 322 Buick engine was pretty powerful for the time and ultra reliable. The next family Buick was a two door Wildcat with a 401, a bigger version of the 322. Can't remember what happened to that car but the engine ended up in my Dad's pickup. He put the 322 on a big war surplus welder, that is a different story. The 401 went for quite a while then threw a piston on the interstate at about 70mph. I know because I was driving at the time. So we pulled the 401 out and put the old 322 back in. He then started looking for a small diesel engine. Finally found a Cummins six and swapped that in. It was incredibly noisy, slow and smoky but he was happy with it. Finally sometime in the early 80's he sold that version of the Jeep and bought a new Chevy pickup. These days that kind of experimentation and swapping is hard to imagine with all the computer controls and the government inspection programs. Anyway engines are a lot better so I guess there is less need to swap around in the first place.

 

[94BULLITT]

You have to remember that all the early diesels only had 115-130 horsepower and maybe 275 lb/ft torque. That worked okay as long as you didn't have a big load, also they were noisey and smoked like crazy. Modern diesel pickups like my '15 F-450 have 440 hp/860 tq. They also don't smoke and are very quiet. Also much more complicated. You have to drive one to realize how much power they have. They make sense in a heavy pickup designed to pull heavy loads.

The least complicated and reasonably powerful pickup I had was a '94 F-350 with the factory turbo 7.3 diesel. Only offered it for a few years before the Powerstroke was on the market. This engine was completely mechanical and had an ATS turbo installed at the factory. Much more powerful than the NA 7.3 diesel and not complicated like later diesels.

The power has gone up on gas engines and they get better MPGs. They could do better on diesel MPGs if they wanted to.

 

[wawajake]

I see it mentioned a few times in this thread about the simple engine times before they got complicated.
So I hope to retire in a couple of years and would like to have a project vehicle to work on in my garage , ideally a older pickup truck that would be only used six months a year when no snow or salt is present so just for fun use. But I would prefer a project engine and vehicle that is not complicated by computer engine systems, or buried in pollution and smog additions engines went thru . So a simple fuel air and spark type engine. I get the impression that the smog stuff that choked off the HP dramatically went on the engines after the 70s and computers in the 90s ? but could be wrong. I suspect I would need to watch vehicles before 1974 am I correct? (for example in AUTO Trader magazine)

also ...Since you folks like pictures here is my vehicle nameplates collection I did a four decades ago from car dump vehicles, some are classics now.

 

[roadhunter]

The sad thing is the diesels today won't get that kind of MPG.

Because people on message boards would rip the auto manufacturer if they released a 150 hp diesel in a truck, look at what they do to the eco diesel. I wish they would release a truck like that though . I'd buy a s-10 pickup with a little 4 banger diesel. I love the little cab over foreign trucks they sell to ranchers around here. I think they get 40 mpg +.