OK... I am the new owner of a well taken care of 93 Dodge diesel with a 5 speed manual. It has 4.10 gears and is currently outfitted with a rather bad looking PTO powered hydraulic man lift ( its a bucket truck ). As it sits the truck weighs in at a portly 13,879 pounds! I plan to remove the fiberglass toolbox bed, and the lift assembly and reinstall a normal bed. Even though I relize that by removing some of its extra weight, some amount of additional acceleration is likely to appear, I doubt it will be enough. This thing is SLOW. Merging on a highway is out of the question, and forget about passing someone. Although admittedly it is fun to mash the pedal and leave the little rice burner ( they always follow to close don't they ) in a thick cloud of smoke!!!!

This is only the second diesel I've ever drove - the first being a 198? Ford Automatic --- this truck is actually quicker than the old Ford, but not by that much.

So all that being said, does anyone have any good ideas or examples of what can be done to a 93 Cummins to bring it to life? I'm obviously not going to RACE the truck... I would just like it to be as quick as say a stock 2000 or so. Is that even possible???

 

You can make it as fast or faster than a stock 2000 for almost free. You should study the First Gen. Forum on how to turn up your pump, it's really easy.

But beware, the power is addicting. After the freebies you'll have to start spendin some cash for more power. First a smaller turbine housing, then some hot injectors, now some gauges, a bigger exhaust, hybrid turbo, and on... Just a little more power and I'll stop, this time I mean it ...

 

Thanks for the info. I was just reading your extensive list of mods to your 93 and of course I have to ask what kind of power are you getting out of that beast, and how much do you think you have invested in it to get to that power level?

 

Start by getting the crane and utility body off first. You'll see a huge improvement in performance with just that.

 

Start by getting gauges so you can baseline what you have and can see the differences (good or bad) as you start to BOMB. Too much EGT's and you won't have a truck to mod anymore.

Then turn the power up on bucket truck and you will like it.

 

The first 100 HP is nearly free, after that it starts to run into money.

 

1st! Make sure you take up all the slack out of your throttle cable. Adjust your throttle linkage so that you get full travel at the pump, but make sure it reaches or is stopped by the stopper. You might be surprised at what you might achieve from the notorious cable stretch.

 

How much power? Wish I knew. All I know is when you romp on it at 80 mph it can break the rear tires loose and start to drift sideways . I need to dyno to see how much HP i've got. I plan on attending Edge days in Sept. so hopefully I will find out then.

How much invested? Lots and lots of time. I've never kept track of how much money, probably alot more than I want to admit to.

I need to update my pics, as my truck doesn't look much like them anymore.