This will be a budget build. I'm hoping to keep it under $3k, and so far I'm well on track at $500 for the engine and $500 for the truck.



There must have been 150 lbs of mud under the truck.



Old 6.0 and 4l80e gone.



Mocking up the 6bt

 

Stock down pipe with the first bend cut out to fit. It's still close the the firewall. I'll clearance the firewall, probably with a calibrated ballpeen, and wrap the pipe.


Pinch weld cut before folding over for added clearance around bell housing.


After founding pinch weld back.

 

Was just discussing this with sixslug in my thread about when my silverado was rear ended being if it needed major front end work and a new engine was required that a 12v would be thrown in there... Kind of funny to see this thread not even a min later. I will definitely be following this!!

Seems like you made alot of progress so far, Good luck!

 

Very nice. Wish I had something like this to play with...

 

I'm really surprised how well it fits in the truck. The oil pan clears the front diff like it was made for the truck, and it sits pretty low in the chassis for being a lot taller than the lq4 that came out. I did a lot of looking for people who had done this conversion and everything I found said nobody does it because it is too hard. So far I haven't found it to be that hard.

 

Im glad that so far it hasn't been that hard, hopefully it stays that way for you... From the looks of it as long as you clear the tunnel with the mods you have done so far to the pinch welds I cant see anything else being a big issue.

 

Today turned out to be a really slow day for me, so I decided to tackle the power steering and hydro boost issue. The chevy came with hydro boost and the cummins did not, so I wanted to figure out a way to get the hydro boost working without spending much money.

The first idea I had was to just plumb in an extra return line on the original pump mounted on the cummins. My better judgement told me that there probably wasn't enough fluid capacity, and there is probably different valving required to get enough volume to run a hydro boost.

So here is what I came up with. The stock pump on the 2500hd is basically the same pump as the dodge unit except for an obviously different reservoir, and probably different valving. But it wasn't as simple as just mounting the 2500hd pump on the cummins because the cummins pump has a machined surface around the shaft seal to allow the pump to be mounted inside the adapter that mounts to the back of the vacuum pump.

So I took the guts out of the 2500hd pump, put them in the cummins housing, and installed the 2500hd reservoir for added fluid capacity.

Cummins left with machined housing, 2500hd right


Pressing the rear pump cover to remove snap ring


Pulling the drive adapter off cummins pump to remove internals. Dang puller probably took me 30 freaking minutes to figure out. My two jaw puller kept slipping.


Cummins housing with 2500hd guts and reservoir.


Adapter installed


Pump mounted.


I had to modify the return spring bracket to allow the larger reservoir to fit, and the bracket must be removed each time the pump is removed. It took a little time to figure out, but it should be well worth it when the trucks brakes work as designed. At least I hope so.

 

Thats a cool project. What are you doing for a transmission?

 

Whatever I come across that is cheap... I have my eye on a 48re trans and t-case. If I get it I'll put a manual valve body in it which will kind of suck because I'll just have to run high line pressure all the time and it will shift pretty hard.

I had considered adapting the 4l80e, but the adapter plate is $1k, and the controller is $800, and then a new converter.

 

I'm highly considering doing this same swap in a 2001 2wd 2500. Then later on doing a solid axle swap and converting it to a 4wd. What did you do with the 6.0/4L80? I'd love to put that in my 86 mustang.

 

Well I decided to scrap the dodge trans idea and go with the 4l80e. My idea behind that is I want this truck to be user friendly. I started looking into the cost of running a stand alone controller on the 48re and the costs are pretty steep. So I bit the bullet and got an adapter and flywheel for the 4l80e. Stand alone controllers for the 4l80e are pretty easy to come buy.

 

Any updates?

 

I have not even been able to bolt the new trans adapter on yet. If I could just get the truck back in the shop and on the lift I know I can have all that knocked out with the trans and t-case mocked up in a matter of a few hours, but I just have not had the time.

I could have been working on the radiator and intrercooler setup, but I wanted to have the trans in first so I knew the angle the engine ends up at isn't going to cause any clearance issues with the fan.

 

I got the truck back in the shop today. I got the adapter installed, mocked up the tranny. I didn't realize I didn't have the correct dowel pins for the trans, as the adapter came without any hardware. So I need to track those down, but everything fit really nice.

I got really lucky with the transmission cross memeber. My setup has moved the trans back an estimated 2" (I have not measured yet). The frame of my truck has provisions to move the crossmember back about 2", I'm assuming for other trans configurations from the factory, but the holes lined up perfectly for my setup.

The new adapter uses a ford 6.0 starter on the passenger side of the truck.



I installed energy suspension engine mount inserts. They really stiffened them up big time, and my factory mounts were in bad shape. They made putting the mounts back in a huge pain because of the way I built my mounting plates... If anybody uses them on a similar project buy them and install them before you build your mounts.



So far fan clearance looks ok. I would like a little more around the core support, but I think it will work ok.





The factory gas engine core support does not leave much room for an intercooler. I think I'll either get my hands on a 2nd gen dodge cooler, or find a duramax core support along with the radiator and intercooler.



I know this engine is super nasty with baked on oil and grease, and I usually wouldn't put anything like this together in this condition, but the whole truck is nasty. I have washed hundreds of pounds of dirt out from under the truck, and I'm just tired of trying to clean it. I need to get in back on the trailer and haul it to the car wash or buy a power washer. I don't ever expect this truck to be show quality, I don't have the time or money to try and polish this turd.

 

Will the stock Chevy torque converter work?