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5.7 swap to 6.5 turbo diesel

More Engine weight= more suspension.
Diesel tank requires return line submerged to height of pickup.
2 batteries (still 12 volt net) for starter.
If you need obd1 or2 for smog or emmisions- its a can of worms.
Required engine oil cooler
Do power steering/booster cooler also.

This engine should never be over 210, best at 195 ect. Big happy radiator. Even the factory bumper had the holes for more air. Install what you have, and be careful. Expect to upgrade ($$).

I would ditch factory dash and do all aftermarket gauges if you don’t understand how to bypass and rig factory gauges
Coolant temp
Oil pressure
Voltage
Fuel pressure
Tach
Boost
Egt
This engine has it’s good and bad things. If you have not spent hours reading and learning, I suggest you do.
Don’t hesitate to start your own thread to hit all the details you may need to learn.

whats so bad about factory dash?
 
Friend of mine said the 4L60e would routinely go out at 100K miles in his 1500 Suburbans. He still can't believe I've got 220K on my 4l80e.
 
I pretty much had a 6.5 given to me ...

Full stop. You need to do a teardown on the engine given to you. Unlike gas engines these engines crack heads and the mains. Cheap throw away engine. You need to know if it's scrap metal before starting a project like this. Normally you can just do rings as not much else wears aside of a stretched timing chain.
 
Roger that. They run great till the second the mains let go or they hydrolock from coolant via cracks. Just saying "running" doesn't mean you are crack free. Lots of "Zombie" engines out there that don't know they are scrap yet. But in context of a major project - make sure the core of the said project is solid first.

Case in point I ran an engine with known cracked mains and it's close to letting go in a bad way ~38K miles later. The engine ultimately failed from a bad IP governor at 4300+ RPM.
 
Friend of mine said the 4L60e would routinely go out at 100K miles in his 1500 Suburbans. He still can't believe I've got 220K on my 4l80e.
There's a bunch of 4l60e's out there with 250k still going strong. The owner and how they treat it is the biggest problem with the 4l60e.
 
Sorry I was off. I was thinking there was a difference in the gasser gauges ohm range . Awesome it’ll work.
 
Sorry I was off. I was thinking there was a difference in the gasser gauges ohm range . Awesome it’ll work.
There was in 98 with the fuel gauge. In 98 GM changed the sender in the tank from the old 0-90 ohm to a 30-240 ohm for gassers, but even then the cluster itself stayed the same. The only other difference is the tach of ignotiin triggerred vs alternator triggerred.
 
The webs are internal reinforcements that go from one side of the block to the other, cast as part of the block, and are also machined to carry half of the crankshaft main bearings and are drilled and tapped so that the main bearing caps can be bolted to them. Every engine, diesel or gas, cast iron or aluminum, has them. The pre-Optimizer 6.5 blocks were well known, that due to the factors of poor metallurgy and poor web design, to crack both around the main cap bolt holes and also the cam bearing journals on early blocks, too. Basically, if you are going to do a "rebuild" and drop the pan and find main web cracks, don't bother with a rebuild using that block. Don't loosen the main cap bolts to pull the caps to check main clearances/journal condition, either. Just check/do the rod bearings if you want, then re-ring it and run it till it blows. Just ask @WarWagon, as he's the resident expert on detonating 6.5's.
 
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