Will I regret not swapping to cummins?

[davo727]

I bought this 92 dually for $1400 , I like the truck its in good shape no rust but the 6.5 needs to be pulled and gone through so with new internals and machine work and probably new heads and 700 for an exchange on the db2 pump from ss diesel and 300 or so for injectors and etc and ect it will end up being $3000 or $4000 or who knows?
I do all my own work other than the block boring but since I havent sunk any money yet into the 6.5 and im not sentimentally attached to it maybe I should just buy an early 90s dodge with a cummins for $2500 to 3500 and swap the motor into the chevy. I have been seeing some of the old dodges cheap lately.

Im gonna go ahead and pull the 6.5 next week and tear it down and see if the block or anything is good and ponder which way to go with it.

 

[mfgguru]

Depending on how much you tow and how much crazy power you want, you can't beat the 6.5 for daily driving. You will spend more in the end putting in a cummins, and the earliern stock cummins were no match for the 6.5. The manual pump on that truck eliminates a lot of the problems with the newer model truck due to the lack of electronics. Stick with the 6.5.

 

[RCpullerdude]

Stock, the early Cummins where no match for the 6.5. 20 less HP and 40 more ft-lbs of torque than the truck in my sig, but they can make much more horsepower much easier. My teacher's '91 Cummins makes probably about 2-300 more horsepower than my 6.5 could ever dream of making.

 

[Tow Master]

If you dont mind the work Id say hands down the cummins would be the way to go. Alot more power and easiar to work on/ get parts for.

Then again I just replaced a 6.5 in my truck and cant make it run :nonod:

 

[Matt Bachand]

How are the cummons with Economy? Compared to the 6.5?

 

[RCpullerdude]

They tend to be the same or better from the people I've spoke with.

 

[davo727]

Its gonna be around july 10 or 11th before I have a chance to pull the engine, im trying to bust my butt working overtime at the airline right now so i will have some $ to drop into this project.

Trans is already out so the engine pull will be easy.

 

[Z79outlaw]

I'll have less than $6000 into my Cummins conversion when I'm done with it and it'll be around high 200's for now, I could have alot less into it, but my Clutch was $2300, I could of went cheaper on that route but It's gunna make some ponies, but I'll end up somewhere around #600 at the wheels buy next spring, and still probably have less than 10K into the Cummins conversion and SRW conversion. 10K into the 6.5 and what do you got? the latest highly toted 6.5 that puts low to mid 200's at the wheels because they still dont make a pump for the 6.5 that can fuel enough to make any power.

Really if I didnt care about power, I could of done a Cummins conversion with the cheaper more readily available VE 89-93 motors for under 3 K's and it'd be easily tunable to 250-300 at the wheels without really doing anything to it. But having a 96+ NV4500 makes the whole ordeal alot cheaper.

Most people get as good or better economy with the 6bt's and the 4bt's will net mid to high 20's in many circumstances.