Forgot to add that i successful cleaned the cylinder in the cummins by dumping some mystery oil in the cylinders and letting it sit for a week. turned the engine over a few times by hand and the rust is completely gone! the head is the next thing for me to work on but i am fairly confident , that mystery oil stuff is great!

Also figured out the pictures thing finally...have to do each picture one at a time...its going to be a long annoying process...

 

Hey guys so...not sure if most of you have heard outside of the wonderful state of Massachusetts but the state is cracking down on yearly inspections and unfortunately...I wont be able to get this truck to pass inspection if I continue and swap the cummins in. I could have gotten away with it before but they have installed cameras in all the inspection bays now and require the mechanic to videotape the entire process and inspect under the hood etc.. unfortunately this swap wasn't going to be technically legal anyway by federal standards but I've seen plenty of people do it here in mass... most of which i think are royally screwed now.

My thoughts are to call it quits on this long long long long loooong swap I've been doing over the years and go back to the 5.4 and get some gears. I would just really hate to put all this work into my truck to only be able to use if off road. I may even have to remove my lift and tires for my yearly inspection now to pass... I read there is a new tire size law as well so i cant even get away with just removing the leveling kit for a few weeks and swapping out to my stock rear leafs. Luckily the only permanent mod I have made throughout this process is removing my rear spare tire mount and installing the Ex tank which i can put the gas fuel pump back in for.

My wife and I have been talking on and off about eventually building a 4x4 camper and since I have put a decent amount of time and effort into this Cummins and Allison swap I am thinking that my best option is to buy an old blown 7.3 F450-550 and swap that stuff in to it since I already bought most of the conversion parts minus the ones specific to the motor type from destroked. I am thinking this will be my course of action as i move forward with this and I will just live with the 5.4l. There was nothing wrong with my drive train so I should have no issues I am just thankful I decided to make this whole swap completely reversible. I usually try and make everything I o reversible just in case...came in handy this time I guess.

 

It might be easier to just move somewhere else

 

That sucks man, especially with everything you have done so far to get to this point. With the options you have outlined the only other one I could think of is if you finished it and sold the truck with the Cummins in it to someone out of state, and that would still suck considering everything you have done so far.

Got to love emissions testing, lot of worse things that contribute to emissions than pick up trucks.

 

Maybe it should be registered in Michigan......

 

X2 No restrictions in Michigan!! Sorry to hear it, you put a lot of work into it and you would think they couldn't just do that. I wonder if there is like a special custom vehicle type way to register it?

 

I've seen cars and trucks in Michigan that scare the heck out me. I saw a Ford Ranger on 75 that had holes in the door and the bed was ratchet strapped on and rocking back and forth over the bumps. It was the swiss cheese mobile lol

 

Or you just "move" to michigan and live with a friend for a little while. You can have a magazine subscription go to their house with your name on it and you register your truck there.

 

Aw c'mon now that Ranger was a customized to have a dump bed on it, rather than have hydraulic that could fail over time that ratchet strap was totally spec'd out by some engineering firms stringent testing and decided to be the best for operating performance.

I think that Ranger is up for ride of the week if I am not mistaken

 

Already regretting buying a house in Mass for this one reason lol. There's pro's and con's to this, I dont see it as a bad thing per say because now i technically dont need any parts so i have no more money to put into the truck to get it running again. I changed gears and started working on the charger only about 3-4 months ago because rumors of this new inspection process were just surfacing and I wanted to wait until they were in place before making any major progress. I definitely dont want to build the truck and finish after all this time then have to sell it or go through all this extra effort just to make it so I can drive it. I am still going to move forward with most of my mods, luckily i made it all reversible and tailored towards either engine aside form the direct engine mods.

Guess the truck will be on the road this spring/summer then! God i cant wait to drive it again lol. I'm probably going to freshen up the drive train while its out of the truck since it will likely never be out again unless it blows up lol. Kinda bummed about it but at teh same time the 5.4l wasn't bad and if i get a camper and throw the cummins in it it would be a sweet camper lol.

Any suggestions to spruce up the 5.4l while its out and the 4r100/Tcase? mostly looking at doing gaskets and seals while its out, it only has 104k on it.

....damn...it needs spark plugs...

 

Come to NH... we have cookies...and guns, and no emissions for over 8500gvw, basically a safety check... move away from the commie-wealth...

 

Haha if I didn’t just buy my house I would have most of the places we originally looked at were in Nashua.

Does anyone have a recommendation on where to get parts for the 5.4l? I wanted to get some better looking valve covers and some trim pieces to make it look nicer.

 

No idea on the parts, I'd think just freshen it up with new gaskets and seals depending how deep you want to go.

I know a lot of people who have their cars in the lower 48 registered to friends businesses here in AK, with that address listed as their residence haha! talking people who have not lived in this state over 10 years. Simply pay your $170 every two years and your golden since we have zero inspections. Period.

 

Cam covers are kind of hard to get to look good because there arent very many options. Look at the 96-04 mustang covers, they will all fit your truck. How far are you wanting to go with this engine build?

 

Take a look at Ametzker's build here. It was a budget build he did but he freshened up the valve train while he had good access to the engine. There was something that is spring loaded that collapses, I just don't remember what they are.... it lead to a valve job and the truck ran smooth as it did new.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...st-repair.html