Will my plans work as well as I hope?

[deejaaa]

my experience in finding a decent 6.2 NA:
had a fellow member here, had an engine, guaranteed it to be a 'great engine', so I bought via paypal. picked it up, had dirt dobbers in all openings but i kept on. tore it apart and looked at the mains: cracks like a spider web.
he swapped it for another 'good one'. it was 1 1/2 hours each way. it checked out the same: cracked main.
pissed, he swapped for one more, it was crap so i got my money back. i ended buying a 6.5, complete, off of Craigslist for cheaper, closer and in great shape. still running it today. the 6.2's, between myself and my wife, almost completely ruined the taste i have for diesel. this was in in 2008.
hope you have better luck.

 

[Will L.]

With a turbo yes Not n/a. You better count on a bigger budget. ATT turbo. Pull the heads and swap precups.
Do all the other stuff mentioned.
What trans is in it now?
What does it weigh?

 

[Dw89xj]

Its also th400. Not sure on weight. I'm starting to think I may sell off the diesel and keep the rest of the Parts for backup and upgrades for my suburban. Its fun to dream but its sounding like he 6.2 might not be as good of a choice as I had originally anticipated. Maybe cool for a ratrod s10 project. I'll still check the diesel over but I don't know that I'll use it. Thank you guys for your experiences and knowledge but its starting to seem my idea will not work as well as I hoped. My thoughts were based off of having a na 7.3 and thinking it would be similar but not as much power but its sounding like the 6.2 is much much worse. Thanks again.

 

[Dw89xj]

With a turbo yes Not n/a. You better count on a bigger budget. ATT turbo. Pull the heads and swap precups.
Do all the other stuff mentioned.
What trans is in it now?
What does it weigh?

Turbo just wouldn't be in the budget yet. I wouldn't take it on any trips just move it to a local campsite for now. But I'm having second thoughts on the 6.2 my budget would stay the same after getting everything I just don't think doing the reliability upgrades will allow enough left for turbo setup. In all honesty I probably only need to make one trip about 190 mi each way this summer then just move around locally. We have a lot of campsites within about 15 to 20 minutes from my house. Who knows I may just try it out and might find its enough for me. I may hate it. I may sell it. But I already made a deal to trade for most of diesel truck minus interior and axels.

 

[Will L.]

Theres always the -throw it in and see how it does theory. All the parts you would buy is only for the long term. You might put it in and decide you hate it, or your happy with it as is...

 

[Dw89xj]

Yeah true, I have done that before.

 

[WarWagon]

So find another diesel truck/SUV with a blown engine to resurrect, if, the stuff you bought turns out good. I don't recommend it, but, I have 30K on a block with at least 2 cracked mains. You don't know unless you look leaving lots of zombie, they don't know they are dead and un-rebuildable, 6.2 and 6.5 engines running around. You know when/if the entire main cracks completely out of the block.

In good shape a freshened up 6.2 engine can bring some cash. Not as much as a 6.5.

 

[EWC]

Had a good 6.2 block , bought all the parts to rebuild including new pistons that were coated . Guy doing the boring put it in the fixture wrong , bored 2 holes before he caught it . Seems the bores for the mains are not the same and the block was not level . He tried to find another block but couldn't . Took me a year to find a good standard block , all the other spares I had were cracked mains and I refused to rebuild a cracked block .

I think swapping to a 6.2 would be a lot of work for minimal gains if any over a 350 .

 

[Dw89xj]

I'm dedicated to the deal just gotta decide what I'm doing. By the sounds of things I'm better off to stay gas. The camper I know really should have a big block but that diesel might be calling it home just so I can move it around local. We have nice campsites nearby you rent yearly so I may just do that and keep tenting when I go far away to camp. Thank you guys for educating me and helping me make a better decision. Now what am I going to do with an 80k mi jasper 6.2 is what I need to decide. Maybe s10 rat rod project?

 

[GM Guy]

I vote stick it in, dont get too worried. Warwagon is kind of the worst case scenario guy. I would love to go ride along with him in one of his rigs, I bet the high Rs are found, and the pedal is on the ground at all times.

I can still easily get 20 mpg out of a 6.2L on ULSD, back in the day of good diesel a friend of ours was allways trying to crack 30 mpg in his 6.2L 700R4 4wd half ton, but could never get it. best he ever got was 28, and it would do 25 fairly easily.

That said, the 6.2L in dad's 85 service truck doesnt do that great, only like 15 mpg, but it has a stuck open t-stat and air and fuel leaks. That truck weighs close to 9K all the time.

But, for the short miles, there will be little payback, the only advantage is no carb to gum up and doing it for enjoyment.

 

[Dw89xj]

I vote stick it in, dont get too worried. Warwagon is kind of the worst case scenario guy. I would love to go ride along with him in one of his rigs, I bet the high Rs are found, and the pedal is on the ground at all times.

I can still easily get 20 mpg out of a 6.2L on ULSD, back in the day of good diesel a friend of ours was allways trying to crack 30 mpg in his 6.2L 700R4 4wd half ton, but could never get it. best he ever got was 28, and it would do 25 fairly easily.

That said, the 6.2L in dad's 85 service truck doesnt do that great, only like 15 mpg, but it has a stuck open t-stat and air and fuel leaks. That truck weighs close to 9K all the time.

But, for the short miles, there will be little payback, the only advantage is no carb to gum up and doing it for enjoyment.

That gives me a little hope. I appreciate the honesty all around. I guess I'm just going to hang onto the 6.2 and put in something it wasn't offered in. The suburban is a project but I want it to tow good too. My goal was a decent mileage fuel sipper for my hunting and tow rig but its sounding more and more like I'm best to just leave it gas. The rv I just acquired I'm still unsure of. It won't be driven much maybe one trip this summer and the rest of its life will more than likely be on a private campsite. Other than that just start it up to charge battery bank if there's not enough sun. Maybe the diesel would be fine for that. Then while its set up on site I can get away with using kerosene or off road or ulsd depending where I'm at and what's convenient to get a jug or couple jugs of. Just set it to high idle for a while let it build up my battery bank and be fine til the batteries drain down. Winter I'd run it more to keep the batteries in check to run the roof top heater. Its a tough call but I have the deal already worked out so I will soon have a 6.2 without a home haha.

 

[smokymtn65]

I still get 22 out of my 6.2 K10 and I know it would do better with some new injectors and some TLC, I have put 100k on it and they have never be out since I have had it.

 

[Dw89xj]

Here's one of the jasper stickers I'm having problems finding or saving the other pictures he sent but there's more as soon as I figure out how

 

[Dw89xj]

Here's the others.

 

[Dw89xj]

I guess that's about average HP I hear everything between 130 and 160.

 

[WarWagon]

I vote stick it in, dont get too worried. Warwagon is kind of the worst case scenario guy. I would love to go ride along with him in one of his rigs, I bet the high Rs are found, and the pedal is on the ground at all times.

Even so there are many diesels littering the scrap metal pile that were driven by "grandpa" to church on Sunday. The vehicles that get a lot of miles rolled on the clock fast are the ones making 1 million miles. Hard miles don't have the original engines. Neither do bad luck cases in any driving style.

I actually advocate higher RPM for towing. (IMO the PO of my 5.9 Dodge lugged it to death with the 6 Speed and a 5er RV.) The higher RPM is useful with higher loads of towing because you have more water pump RPM, Oil Pump RPM, Fan RPM and this all means more cooling you may need depending on load. I don't wind out to 4000 RPM under power like some who are crazier than I with 20-30 year old valve springs that didn't like high RPM even when NEW.

No reason to waste the upper part of the tach, after all, its called a High Speed Diesel.

The terrain around here is hard on any vehicle going from near sea level when I started out on parts runs to 7569' at The Mongolian Rim visitors center. Talk about boost creep of 2PSI with a TurboMaster just from altitude! @GM Guy when we are doing 33 MPH flat out in a 55 MPH zone, with the flashers on, let me know at any time when you want me to quickly come to a complete stop by lifting it off the floor. We can then roll backwards even with some throttle applied... I guarantee excitement from doing this.

After all This is my backyard.