Hey guys,

I went ahead and put my JD 60 project on hold to work on my pickup. I put a 3.9L cummins 4bt (4 cyl turbo) diesel engine in my 1995 ford F-150 4x4. It replaced my 302 v8 that was in truck because the 302 was getting tired and having continual small problems. Ive wanted a diesel truck for a long time now and this is the first opportunity for me to afford one. I got the engine out of an old bread delivery van with 70k on a rebuild. I spent two weeks of my winter vacation (im still in college) doing the project and Ive been really pleased with the results. The low end torque is awesome and Im getting low 20s mpg. Just thought yall might be interested.

-Jordan


Heres a few pics and link to my buildup thread...

http://4btswaps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7059

Sweet, You should send some pics to Diesel power Magazine.

Interesting
What do you have for a transmission, any trouble mating or did you use the same as the bread truck?

Nice conversion. It sure does beat going to the local dealer and buying new!!

The trans is the same 5 speed that was in my truck (m5r2). I used the adapter from the bread truck, which had a ford t-19 in it. Anther reason why I wanted to do the swap...Ford doesnt make the truck I need (1/2 ton diesel) so I built my own. Plus getting 22-25mpg out of a full size truck is pretty awesome.

How's it go down the road? As peppy as the stock 302? I'm pretty interested, thats almost exactly what I want to do.

I get between 20-22 with my 2006 Dodge Ram with a hemi at 65 mph. You can get good fuel economy as long as you feather the throttle. Be consistant in how you drive and you'll see a big difference.

That said, there's not any easy way to squeeze 22mpg out of a 302 equipped F150. The 302 is a good motor, but fuel efficient it is not. I think the diesel was a great idea/upgrade for his truck. Plus now he can burn WVO if he so chooses.

It runs down the road pretty well. It isn't fast by any means, but it will get up and go well enough for me. It can merge onto the interstate and get up from 20 to 70 without any problems. I dont know if "Doc Holiday" is on this site much anymore and he can attest to the fact that its not a snail.
My ultimate goal is to hit 28-30 mpg on the highway...which isn't easy for a 4x4 truck lifted 2.5 inches with 32 inch tires. Later, I plan on upgrading to a different turbo and possibly injectors to get more pep and fuel economy. The big problem I had with the 302 was the power band was completely wrong for my pickup. I have 3.08 gears and cruise at 1500 rpm at 55mph. The 302 lacks low rpm torque would often slow down a lot on hills without downshifting, and I hated having to rev it up to 3000 rpm just to make any power. However, the cummins has that great low rpm torque that pulls the truck nicely down the road...and I never have to downshift! As someone else mentioned, I do have access to about 15 gal a week of waste vegetable oil so I am looking into the biofuel option as well.

The best part...stopping at gas stations and having people ask me what engine is in my truck. Last week one ole boy came up to me and said, "That dont sound like a powerstroke, what the heck you got in that thing." Haha, which led to a 20 minute conversation.

No need to make biodiesel, you can burn WVO (waste vegetable oil) as is. Do some google searches for "wvo" and you'll see what I mean. I know of several people that do it around here.

I had a boaught a 2000 F-150 w/5.7 litre and I couldn't get anything better than 16 mpg. I had nothing but problems with that truck. Needless to say, in my opinion, FORD SUCKS!!!!!! The only good engine they made for there pickups were the 4.9 in line six cylinder. You can't kill those motors if you wanted to. But anyway, good luck with your truck. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

I have read up on the differences in WVO and biodiesel and am exploring both. One one hand, my truck sort of lends itself to WVO because it has two fuel tanks. However, I dont like the extra stuff involved with WVO such as the fuel heater, etc. Have also read of a few horror stories with WVO causing injection pump problems on older diesels, but Im not sure how well-based those claims are. Even though biodiesel has a few steps to make, it seems a bit more appealing to me. I still have hours of research to do but maybe this summer I might try experimenting with biodiesel. With regular diesel at $2.09/gal, there's not a huge motivation to get the ball rolling on biodiesel, but im sure these fuel prices wont last long IMO.