I'm getting an 89 cummins, i was wondering how important the intercooler is, i have never owned a non intercooled truck. do i need to work on putting one in or is it ok without it? I'm not goin to race it or sled pull with it, just may "hop" it up a little. Also how hard is it to swap the grill to a new 92 or 93 model grill. thanks for any help

 

The whole core support has to be replaced to use the 92-93 grille. The intercooler isnt THAT important. We have two non intercooled trucks and they have bigger STOCK injectors than the STOCK intercooled engine injectors, and with a smaller exhaust housing and the typical VE pump tweaks it will make a fun to drive,good on fuel, sweet low budget first gen. I can promise you it will be fun to drive without EGT's going insane. welcome to the first gen forum

 

there is a thread in the sticky about putting newer style grille on the non-ic trucks. I had a non- ic truck first and i felt like it had more pep, stock. then my stock 92 ic'ed truck.

 

the non intercooled trucks get really fun when you turn up the pump but watch the pyro because with stock sticks they can cook things, if you can do fabrication work the stock core support will work for the newer grill you just have to move the head light buckets, but if and when you intercool your truck it will take a little more work than just putting in the intercooled core support.

what is the truck, 4x4, auto?

 

I got 2 89's one has a powerstroke i/c and the other has none. I would get a pryo to be safe. If you get alot of boost out of the Baby H1C its gonna be hot air. I put a bypass pipe in my truck once to test difference of boost with and without i/c and boost was up without but temp spiked to 1500 very fast. Could not even get to 70 mph without temp spiking. I left my other one stock and has no gauges.

 

well i just picked it up and it looks good. body is completely straight, interior is almost new with no cracks anywhere on the plastic molding inside, just needs a headliner. It runs good and the fella told me that the motor was rebuilt in 00 and only has about 90k on it. the pump has been played with a little (a 60+ year old man owned it since it was new and has every record of fill up!!). i think i'm going to keep it non i/c just dont like the grill. what kind of fab work do i have to do to get it to fit.

 

The easiest thing to do would be to find a core support and grill from a 91.5 to a 93. I think that it would be faster to swap out all the right parts then to fab up mounts and move the headlight buckets but thats jmo. If you are going to put a intercooler on it some time I would say to go with the "newer" style grill. I put my Powerstroke Intercooler last night and it is very tight on the radiator and you have to do mega work to use your (89') factory grill.

 

i'm probably not goin to put an intercooler in it, i just want the new grill

 

it would be cheaper and faster just to get the intercooled core support, and you have to get the newer grill from somewhere, so i would look for a newer grilled truck and rob the parts off it.

 

The the early Non IC trucks had a head cracking problem around the larger injectors due to the injector hole size so a EGT guage would be a good idea.

Bob

 

All you gotta do is move the headlight buckets up about an inch. It'll be obvious what you have to do when you put the new grille on the truck.