A few questions about doing a diesel.

[Dr. Sievers]

Okay this is more just slapping an idea around than anything, has anyone successfully dropped a diesel into a Fiero? I've seen a few TDI engines out of jetta's but I mean has anyone ever dropped in a 4bt cummins or heck a 6.5L GM diesel? What would it take to be able to accomplish this?

I know that the Ls7 is a 427ci and that could fit but would an old 6.5L out of a 95 2500 work? it shares the same bolt pattern as a GM V8 gas truck so you could mount up an F40 to it with the proper adaptor plate and all. My only real question lays in the will it actually fit. The pure demensions of it. And if down would it be worth the effort?

Does anyone know anything about this or have any info on something like this?

I'm not saying that this is something that I want to fly off tomorrow and do but I am rather intrigued by the idea.

 

[fiero400]

thats alot of torque the 427 does not make near a much torque as the diesal counterparts i think it could defenatley fit its just getting a trany and what not the wont destroy itself on take off lm gonna call a buddy in tenassee that has a fetish for desals ad see what he says

 

[Dr. Sievers]

So I actually did a lot of digging into this, and, I think that the cost and effort aren't actually worth the end result. to get one of these engines with wiring harness mounts and everything else you would need would be close to 9 grand and you would add about 450lbs to your car doing that. My car has been shaved rather light, it only weighs about 2500lbs the scale said with me in the car that it was 2710lbs and I'm about 230lbs so the car is light and to add that kind of weight to the car would just throw off the balance. right now the car is probably about a 40/60 split and if I did that we'd be talking a 35/65 split so bye bye handling. I also found out that the torque rating for the NA 6.5L GM diesel would be just fine for the F40 transaxle and the Turbo'd version would be a hair over the recommended torque allowance but hey that's recommended and we all know recommended. You'd also need a heavy duty clutch plate for this. And Brakes are a must obviously. When all said and done you could be spending over ten grand on this project easily. Which might as well buy the LS3 and a couple turbo's and drop that in.

The 4bt was also something I looked into, I didn't realize how tall this engine was. Unfortunately this four cylinder would stick right out of the top of the engine bay so you'd have to remove the trunk all together.

There were two engines thought that I found that would be worth the effort. The Isuzu 1.6L turbo diesel. You can cheaply and easily modify them for about 190 hp and about 340 lb/ft of torque. They don't affect your weight. and the munchie could handle the torque just fine. you'd only have to affect the dogbone and the front motor mount and since the engine is almost as old as the car it's going in you wouldn't have to worry about smog.

There is also the VW 1.9L which again wouldn't affect your weight at all, would give you approx. the same hp and torque as the isuzu you can mount it up with it's own transaxle and you would only affect the front mount the dogbone and the front mount for the transaxle. and since you can get them from say like 97 you wouldn't have to get it smogged either.

there was one other engine that I found but I haven't been able to do enough research to be able to figure out if it was worth the effort or not, it's a Kabota 3 cylinder that produces about 110hp and about 300 lb/ft of torque and comes out of a very common tractor and you can get these out of kabota's from as far back as 82 so you can get ahold of one relatively inexpensively. Just don't know anything else yet.