Heart Transplant Question

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TwoUp

Gibs I have,
Now have to deal with some other posts here. This I will do with relish.

Not anyone has posted with a successful 6.5 upgrade. Why I do not know? It remains that others have posted on their failures and because they have or that "someone they know" has failed they bag the motor. Where is someonoe that has succeded in doing this modification to advise on the outcome. Similarly then persons go to another motor that you have not asked for. Why? Sheep run this way..........

Gibs,
The upgrade you mentioned is attainable. If you plan and do so then this is a good outcome. Towing as you mentioned is a breeze with this motor. Plan well and achieve the desired outcome.

I have mentioned previously that my motor runs cool. This is true and given where I am located and that I usually go further North (don't know why) as a general rule than I would suggest that this is a reasonable platform to work with. My fuel usage is real for you to use as a guide. The motor is fitted to a 98 Defender with the standard gearbox and Ascroft, fine, transfer case gears to reduce the revs.

As this thread is about a 6.5 heart transplant, I hope you accept this as a guide from someone that Has succeded in fitting a simple motor to a vehicle. Really it is not that hard.

Regards,
PeterW

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Well here's my none success story. I purchased a 96 6.5 chev turbo engine (96,000k old), it had a damged bore due to injecter failure. So had a resleeve done, and had the motor rebuilt, new mechanical injecter pump(tweaked), reco injecters, new starter etc..Being a 96 model block, this is the engine to have, less prone to failures. it ran the serpintine belt water pump, dual thermostats etc..
Anyway i pulled my holden 336 stroker out (which was only 5000ks old) had the tubo 700 rebuilt to suit the Chev, with 6.5 chev governer, low stall converter etc.., dropped the chev in (its just a chev so bolted straight in almost, although it is bigblock size), cut and welded exhaust manifolds to make them fit, had an MQ patrol 4 core radiator modified to fit.
Got it running, had a few teething problems straight away (water pump gasket leaked) idled well, sounded awsome, off idle torque was fantastic, drove no different to the holden stroker, fuel economy was alot better aswell.
All was going ok, putting around town and all. Set off on a holiday and thing started getting hot, could only putt in it, any time you put the foot in it would get hot, and oil pressure would drop off. After weeks of frigging around, motor out off to engine shop, they pulled it down and couldn't find any problems with it, even stuck a new set of big end bearings in it just in case, and a new oil pump. New thermostats ($200:eek:) etc.. kept doing it, i spent months and months on it (and$$$$$) At this stage i was over it, performance was ok, economy ok, but nothing to right home about.
Finally fixed it with an 80mm thick 2 core aluminium radiater sho horned in there, at this stage i hated the thing and had learnt ALOT about these engines, particularly from the websites in the US.
The reason i went for this engine was IMO the 300tdi/Td5 was to small, 4bdi was to gutless (read all the carp from 4wd mags) and all the hype (advertising) on these chevs suckered me in.
From what i now know i think the success rate would be around 50%, some are real happy, some are not overly impressed but it works and for the money would never do it again, the others just cut there losses and started over (me).
IF you were to get a good engine and could cool it successfully then it would be good, not great but good.

Now for me, after driving one, an intercooled, boosted, isuzu 4bd1t, leaves it for dead, better to drive, better economy, and the feeling of reliability, how many isuzu conversions have failed?? none that i know of on this site.
I should have listened to John (Bush65) and done the isuzu instead, he's a very wise man:D
My 2c.


(p.s, this has been discussed on outerlimits a fair bit aswell)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TwoUp

Gibs I have,
Now have to deal with some other posts here. This I will do with relish.

Not anyone has posted with a successful 6.5 upgrade. Why I do not know?

Regards,
PeterW

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Peter, Mine was succesful, I bought it with the chev diesel, fixed all the niggles and turned it into a reliable unit, it just doesn't change the fact it was fuel hungry and lacklustre in the performance stakes

Vern's the same, even the fella who crossed the simpson with us last year, who spent all that coin with Linquip on his GU, which was a reliable unit was far from impressed with the performance and economy, A chipped 1HD-FTE towing a Kimberely camper easily flogged this thing performance wise and he had no trailer

Baaa, baaaa black sheep:)

Ha Vern do you think that the fact that your fuel pump was tweaked had somthing to do with the heating problems.

As you probably know adding fuel creates heat, my thinking is that with standard fuel metering the cooling system is able to keep up, but not able to with the fueling turned up and driven hard. Just a thought

nah i even had the pump set back to original, as i said, once i'd shoehorned the aluminium radiator in it was all ok, i've seen a couple of defenders with them in with the biggest 4 core copper radiator in them that overheated, on was even running 2 radiators (remote on the back)(both of these where from brunswick deisel), was fine for putting around but not so good under load. Matts would boil itself aswell in the bush.
Have to remember that this is a big block chev, which from factory would have ran a big radiator, probably nearly twice the size of what Rover has to offer. .

So basicaly the biggest problem is one of Cooling - eg Needs a Big Arsed Radiator. Thats something I have overcome before.
I'm after Nm, an lots of it. A V type engine will always out do a straight for Nm's given same size Cubic inch. Go up in CI and from Straight to a V, by all rights should give a hughe boost to Nm's. I suppose I could always look at a V6 Diesel.
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/03/06/g...iesel-for-cts/

Only one problem, it has a Turbo. :(

I really want to keep the engine as simple as possible to be honest, but I may not have a choice in the matter.

yeah cooling, but that can be sorted with $$$$$, ONe of the defenders i was looking at has had over $28,000 spent on it just on this conversion, from memorey the engine was $14,000 (not sure if that was fitted) from Brunswick, a year later it required new heads (cracked, common), its had 4 radiators, just to try cool it, the list goes on, anyway $28,000 later and its still not perfect (well wasn't last time i saw it) I can't see you getting much change from $20,000 (unless you get a low mileage engine from someone like Dewars) for this conversion. The good thing about them is they drive just like a stock 350 chev with a lower rev range.
There a high comp engine (22:1) so turbo's not a great idea which is fine seen as you don't want one. IF your still interested then check out 'the deisel page' website, its dedicated to the GM diesels, plenty of info on there, but remember their putting them in mainly in big rigs where they have engine bay room, for big radiators.
IF your after other ideas you might find something on here Cummins 4BT & Diesel Conversions Forums.

Thanks Vern for the Links.

here to help:)
sometimes:p

I can see this is not going to go over very well, but must be said. It is getting hot here and as you would expect the engine (6.5) would be developing heating issues. Now as most of the previous is about this I will have to say mine is in normal driving running at 75deg, I can get it up to 95deg if I load it up and give it a good flogging. Perhaps I should restrict airflow to the radiator as running cool is not good for the motor. This was achieved first go, well second as I ran thermo fans first up and didn't like them.

Happy for anyone to inspect for accuracy.

Pics in previous post.

Regards,
PeterW

My only experience with these engines was in a 130 and 60 series cruiser and both cost $$$ and both overheated.Last year I helped the 60 series owner fit the largest fan we could get and make up an alloy shroud to suit and it still climbs into the red towing his boat at any speed over 80.Apart from removing the wings and bonnet overheating seems to be a constant complaint with these engines regardless of what they are fitted in. Pat