The first diesel Astro conversion??.

[ihatemybike]

Well guys I know with this post I might stir the pot some.I can almost not believe you are suggesting off- brand engines.

Off brand engines? Well if I've been reading my Diesel Power Magazine correctly, GM uses Isuzu labeled as Duramax, Dodge uses Cummins in pickups and Mercedes-Benz in the Sprinter, and Ford uses International labeled as PowerStroke, but on their larger trucks you can also get a Cummins, Jeep uses VM Motori and Mercedes-Benz. Ease of finding adapters or lack of needing them are the main reasons to pick the Cummins 4BT or a Duramax.

[GEJ]

Well guys I know with this post I might stir the pot some.I can almost not believe you are suggesting off- brand engines.

Off brand engines? Well if I've been reading my Diesel Power Magazine correctly, GM uses Isuzu labeled as Duramax, Dodge uses Cummins in pickups and Mercedes-Benz in the Sprinter, and Ford uses International labeled as PowerStroke, but on their larger trucks you can also get a Cummins, Jeep uses VM Motori and Mercedes-Benz. Ease of finding adapters or lack of needing them are the main reasons to pick the Cummins 4BT or a Duramax.

Aaron-with all due respect,my thinking is a Duramax is closer to a Chevy branded engine.Just one of those things with me.Surely all the makers of these brands farm out for their diesel engines.As Pots said,I think it was Badassbee that had a diesel engine mounted in a sub frame before he had to abanded it.But i thought it was 6.5 version.That is as close as we have come to having one here.Maybe one of the Brit's can show us one that was done over there.

[potskie]

.That is as close as we have come to having one here.Maybe one of the Brit's can show us one that was done over there.

Nope there are a couple of the olds 5.7L diesels in a couple of astros. I know they exist we had pictures of em on AS and I've been searching to get them back up on ASV. So technically there are diesel astros running around.

Also a guy near me has a diesel Safari. I met him a few years ago by accident when I heard his van start and my jaw dropped and I ran over and asked him if it was a diesel. He said yup it's custom and then took off. I've been keeping my eyes open for that guy and his van for a long freaken time but still haven't come across them again.

[astroshepawd]

Maybe one of the Brit's can show us one that was done over there.

GEJ, To the best of my knowledge there have been none converted over here yet. A full size Blazer/Tahoe/Yukon, doner vehicle is proving illusive for me to give it a go at the moment.
LPG, conversions, is about as good as it is over here at present.
Shep

[Great A'Tuin]

I thought I'd wake this discussion back up...

I've been thinking of a diesel in The Great A'tuin and after reading through the thread, I like the idea of the
Isuzu 4BD1T/4BD2T. I know the turbo is on the bad side, but that can be relocated...
I also found this:

http://www.isuzudieselswapper.com/

Looks like there is now an adapter kit to bolt this engine straight to our 4L60E trannies.

Does that change any opinions?


john

[1Gary]

That is a good find.Since I started this thread,I have seen some conversions completed.One was a van being sold that was a Cummings.It needed the dog house to mod'ed.With your link,it is a question of how that engine would fit the Astro engine compartment/dog house??.

[Great A'Tuin]

Looking at how much room was in the Chevy he started w/ and how much we have, I think it would be tight but doable. I also think flipping the turbo around so the compressor points forward would aid clearance. Not sure where the intercooler would go. It would be easier to use a non-turbo engine, but diesels w/out turbos just don't seem right to me.

That said, I wanted the diesel for my AWD and I just don't know if the torsion bars would take the added weight. The 4BD1/2T engined weigh almost 800 lbs! If it were a 2WD, I could just put in beefier coil springs.

'Course, now I want an a 2WD shorty for this project...

[Kabey's Van]

I still say stay with a gas V8.
For the money invested a V8 is a no brainer.

Peter

[Great A'Tuin]

The very fact that V8 is easy makes me not want to do it.

[1Gary]

Is it a question of the extra torque worth it and if the current cost of diesel fuel offsets the fuel mileage where it ends up being the same costs as a gas engine??.In his example the engine has a red line of 4,400 rpm,so nothing exciting there aside from the pulling power.One thing I did see was the gear ratio of 3.40's being the best for the engine and as you guys know,many of the Astro's have a 3.42's.Guess I would want to know the Astro's rear end would hold up with the torque over the long term??.

[Great A'Tuin]

It was also mentioned that 3.7 ratios work well and mine has a 3.73, but yeah, I wondered the same thing. Just how tough are our diffs? Do the V8 folks have problems?

For me, the advantages of diesel, beyond the low-end torque and improved mileage is the potential to run veggie oil. I have a buddy who runs a VW TDI on home-made biodiesel and a Suburban as a grease-car. He is paying almost nothing for his fuel.

[Kabey's Van]

The very fact that V8 is easy makes me not want to do it.

Well that's what I have been thinking lately too, just in a different way. For years I have built small and big block Chevy engines and have always enjoyed the fact that you can build anything from mild to wild with this family of engines. Parts are plentiful and easy to obtain, and in a lot of cases interchangeable.
Recently, I have been looking for another project and came across an ad for a '72 Cadillac Coupe Deville. Never worked on a Caddy before. It's been parked for 21 years in a heated garage with only 38,000 miles on it. I could care less about the car, I'm after the motor, after all it has a 472 in it.
Bone stock with iron heads and intake these engines produced about 370 hp@3200rpm and 525 ft/lbs@4000rpm, some pretty crazy numbers for a completely stock engine that only weighs 80lbs more than a sbc. Put a better intake on it, get rid of the points ignition, rollerize it, get it breathing a little better and you can push these numbers up significantly. From 1968-72 472/500ci Cadillac engine blocks are made from a high nickle content iron, are internaly balanced and the blocks are capable of withstanding up to 2000+ hp.
But after looking into some more I found that there is very few, if any, aftermarket performance parts avaliable for these engines. What is avaliable is outragiously expensive and needs three adapters to make it work.
I found that I would be defeating the whole purpose of trying to make something better, as everything would be held together with adapters.

Peter

[Great A'Tuin]

I like that way of thinking!
If I weren't into challenging projects, I wouldn't race old SAABs!


john

[Coyote X]

A 6.5 is a pretty good swap

No speed demon but if you want speed you don't really want a diesel anyway. The main advantage of a 6.5 is no custom fabrication except the standard motor mount things and everything just fits together more or less.

I have done some pretty insane swaps in the past and they all ended up working but being very impractical and ended up sitting in the garage most of the time because they were not good daily drivers. My first big project was a kit car with a 500 caddy in it. It was way overpowered and just a general pain driving around and had so many custom fit parts that it was impossible to work on a year later when I needed to fix something and could not remember what car that part came off of. It was easier to just find a new part and rebuild that part of the car with the new stuff. My next big project was a Metro. I built a tube chassis and it came out much better than the kit car. I kept it 100% Metro drivetrain and it is easy to fix now and has no general problems but I was overly aggressive in it's design and it was built with only the goal of high MPG with everything else secondary. So it is very rough riding with no padding or soundproofing and pretty uncomfortable to sit in. It also has nothing that isn't required to make it run, only what is required to be street legal. So no radio or anything else.

So from my past cars I think this Astro I built came out pretty good with a good balance of the ultimate goal of making it a 1 ton van with the features I want but still keeping it usable as a daily driver with no issues or annoyances. It is easy to find parts for it since it is only a 94 Astro or 94 G30. It is still normal looking and can be worked on just as easily as any other crowded engine compartment. It is reliable and I don't have to worry about breaking down far from home since it is all standard parts with nothing really being fabricated. I could get parts from any auto parts store and be back on the road quickly.

So I think for a weekend car or a show car making something that is hard to use daily isn't bad but for anyone planning on building something they should really think about how it is going to fit and how hard it is going to be to get that last 10% of the build done where everything is buttoned up and ready to drive.

[1Gary]

A 6.5 is a pretty good swap

No speed demon but if you want speed you don't really want a diesel anyway. The main advantage of a 6.5 is no custom fabrication except the standard motor mount things and everything just fits together more or less.

I have done some pretty insane swaps in the past and they all ended up working but being very impractical and ended up sitting in the garage most of the time because they were not good daily drivers. My first big project was a kit car with a 500 caddy in it. It was way overpowered and just a general pain driving around and had so many custom fit parts that it was impossible to work on a year later when I needed to fix something and could not remember what car that part came off of. It was easier to just find a new part and rebuild that part of the car with the new stuff. My next big project was a Metro. I built a tube chassis and it came out much better than the kit car. I kept it 100% Metro drivetrain and it is easy to fix now and has no general problems but I was overly aggressive in it's design and it was built with only the goal of high MPG with everything else secondary. So it is very rough riding with no padding or soundproofing and pretty uncomfortable to sit in. It also has nothing that isn't required to make it run, only what is required to be street legal. So no radio or anything else.

So from my past cars I think this Astro I built came out pretty good with a good balance of the ultimate goal of making it a 1 ton van with the features I want but still keeping it usable as a daily driver with no issues or annoyances. It is easy to find parts for it since it is only a 94 Astro or 94 G30. It is still normal looking and can be worked on just as easily as any other crowded engine compartment. It is reliable and I don't have to worry about breaking down far from home since it is all standard parts with nothing really being fabricated. I could get parts from any auto parts store and be back on the road quickly.

So I think for a weekend car or a show car making something that is hard to use daily isn't bad but for anyone planning on building something they should really think about how it is going to fit and how hard it is going to be to get that last 10% of the build done where everything is buttoned up and ready to drive.

And with this post Sir I want to give you three thumbs up.Excellent!!.