OK, been searching, reading and found most of the info I need from size, weight, and adapters but the one I haven't see is how well will a 4bt tow. Yes, the big 6 would pull better and all that noise but I'm not interested in all that weight or extra power tearing 3/4 ton parts up.

What I want a 4bt to do is, power a truck with a camper and pulling a Jeep (12,000 pounds total for a round number). I'm not worried about pulling mach 9 up a 7% grade but at least pull the speed limit over normal terrian and not slow to much for most long steep hills. The reason behind running the small engine would be mileage. The weight of a 4bt is also close to the weight of a Ford FE block that it would be replacing, so no suspenion mods would be required for weight.

The engine starts off with 105hp and about 270tq which is a little low (but not a lot less then my mid 70s Ford 360) but if it was tweeked to 200hp and about 400tq I'm thinking this should pull as good if not better than most stock big blocks with 2-3 times the mileage.

Am I completely out to lunch on this theory?

 

I wnat this back up top, because I am wondering the same thing.

 

i had a lays box van with a 4bt and a turo 400. this thing is a big brick, but it is a aluminum body step van. and to tell you the truth it suprised me how well it did. it was not intercooled. i think it will do fine after some bombing.

 

I have seen turbo charged 4BT's crank out around 250 hp and 650 ft/lbs without going too nuts.....actually a 12cm HX35 was used......that amount of power would make for a nice tow vehicle but expect a pick up with a camper and towing a Jeep on a trailer to have a combined weight over 12,000 lbs! The combined weight of my truck/slide-in camper/trailer/Jeep is 19,300 lbs.

 

What exactly are you putting this in? And how much did you pay for the engine?

 

We put a 4BT in a '69 Dodge in 1986 and put 385K on it. We added an external aftercooler. It work very well at over 20K gross. However we ran a three speed spicer aux behind a 4 speed Ford tans. 25% under, direct, and 15% over (@ 300K it got a 27% over due to parts for the aux). Being able to keep the RPM in the proper range is critical when you lack brute power.

Actually the thing has sat for 5 years and we just fired it up SAT and it ran like it had never stopped. Does it have a balencing shaft? Ours does not and the clutch will only last about 70-100K. Then it will shake the damening springs apart and the fall between the disk and flywheel and won't disengage the clutch. It gave us 24 MPG in the 6800# truck (Crew Cab Short bed 2wd tilt hoist under stock bed). We used the 4BT so we did not have to modify the firewall.

Randy

P.S.: It had 3:73 gears and we swapped it to 3:07 @ 300K so we could run direct in the aux when crusing (60 MPH). The 27% OD was great at 75(1700 RPM) with 3:07. But it only worked well because of being able to split the gears.

 

what cruising rpm gives you the best economy?

 

With the 3:73 and 15% OD we usually ran 60MPH @ 2000RPM and got 24MPG. We never did really try a great variety because of the slow speed already. When we went to the 3:07 and 27% OD we would run around 70 @ 1700 or 80 @ 1800. It did not seem to have a huge effect one way or the other. A '69 Dodge 3/4 ton is not the most aerodynamic vehicle on the road.

Randy

 

newriverSpecon-

Do you have pics of your swap that you can post by any chance? I'm always amazed what people can fab up!

 

We just pulled the engine last Saterday. Some guy wants the body. We still have it. What are you interrested in specifically. There is not a lot of major changes. Thats why we used the 4 instead of the 6.

Randy

P.S. I'll try to put some of our other FABed up projects in my gallery tomorrow.

 

Nothing in particular - I just like old "real" trucks in general and then how people mod them up to suit their needs. But...if you do have any pics, I would like to see the engine compartment as well as the cab (how all the shifters fit in there for example).

I have a flatfender jeep that I restomodded since it was all built to hell when I got it. I saw a feature in JP magazine back in the day when they actually had good technical articles where a guy had swapped an Izuzu diesel to replace the worn Go Devil. He built custom tranny adapters etc, but from the outside it still retained the stock flatfender look. If the little Go Devil in my Jeep ever goes out, I would love to swap a small diesel into it (VW, 4BT, or whatever). Right now my CTD gets better mileage than my Jeep, but the Jeep is way funner to drive in this Indian Summer weather!

Picture of my jeep on page 2 of this:

http://www.turbodieselregister.com/f...d.php?t=139653

 

I'll try to get some pics of the engine comp. As for the shifter it would look like a t-case shifter. The aux trans uses two rods out the front with a spring and ball lock-out to keep it from geting into two gear at once. The rods come up to a shifter base (like a remote control). The set-up came from an old class 8 truck. Parts are getting very hard to come by. We had to make a bushing to replace a ball bearing just to get one of the trans working. We are still using the 15% OD in one of our trucks.

Randy

Not a member of the TDR so I can't view it.