i found a place that sells rebuilt powerstroke diesels for around $2000, ya'll think it'd fight in my f-150 engine bay, i know id have to beef up the front suspension b/c the engine would weigh so much more than my I6, and change the tranny, and probobly get a custom drive shaft made, but it would be so bad with all that power...... probobly just dreamin tho

 

i'd like to be able to do something like that, as you can tell from my sig

if you had a 250 you probably could, but with a 150 you probably can't

 

yea, but it'd be bad tho with that huge amounts of power in a light truck! just thought it'd be fun.

 

I don't see why it wouldn't fit. The engine bay is the same, and as long as it was still used as a half ton truck, it'd be fine, just an overkill engine for half ton duy. I like overkill. Overkill is good.

 

Overkill good, overload bad.

Springs, sure swap those babies out. How about the rest of the front end, the brakes etc that will carry the load?

With the demise of the I6 from the factory, I would think there would be a modest demand for used I6 trucks, as they have a following.

Perhaps you could trade up to a proper oil burner with the $2000 and all the other funds needed to perfect this swap?

Just my jaded opinion.

 

If the weight difference between the two engines were taken into account and subtracted from the available payload, it wouldn't be an overload problem, I would think. After all,they do hang snow plowsoff the front of these things. I understand what you mean, don't get me wrong. Just saying that I think that the weight difference, although a substantial factor to consider, still is not prohibitive of this idea. If I were to do a diesel swap, it would be to a lightweight I-6 oil burner with similar performance to the 300 (maybe 180 HP).

 

I agree with Argo on that. It would be better to have an I6 diesel, you could still get easy power and economy from it too.

It would be hard to go from the easy to work on, simple 300 to a v8 PSD. I was going to say it would be hard to change the spark plugs but uh...

 

heck with an I6 diesiel swap, if i went through all that trouble i'd be expectin 500lb/ft of torque and 300hp ya know

 

These trucks already handle like a dart with too much weight in the nose. Even if you beef up the suspension to support it, you might not like driving it that much after the conversion.

 

wherein lies the actual difference in a 1/2 and 1 ton??? the payload, which comes from the axles and springs, correct??? just a thought...correct me if my assumption is wrong...

MontanaFord

 

There is no doubt in my mind that your half ton frame would hold up to the weight and power of the PSD. Your front suspension on the other hand would be a different story, a fully dressed PSD weighs around 800 lbs! Your 300 six weighs half that much! You could probably do it if you used a set of front coil springs from a 2wd 3/4 or 1 ton Ford truck. Even with that you only have a half ton truck. I am leaning more towards trying to find a smaller diesel, that is if you absolutely must have a diesel powered pickup.

 

use coil springs from a Diesel powered E350 cube van. They will hold up a diesel and bolt into a F150

 

The reason for my comment is this: as you go up with GVWRs everything gets heavier, the frame, the suspension, the brakes, the whole nine yards; you go grom semi-floating axles (light weight) to full floaters (pretty heavy). Everything gets heavier and weight is distributed around the truck and it is gets used like a truck. If you put a big diesel engine in the front of a half-ton, you'll have to beef up the front suspension without touching the rear. The engine alone adds 400lbs plus whatever the suspension mods add and the truck won't be any higher GVWR. I'm not saying it's impossible or even a bad idea, it just might be something that doesn't turn out as planned.

 

Absolutely. I feel that these are valid points to consider. However, I also feel that there are ways of dealing with these issues, and none of them are prohibitive. Once again, if you take into account the added weight and factor it in to the total capacity of the truck, then it just becomes an overpowered half-ton. It'dbe nice to effortlessly tow 7,000 lbs. behind the truck, instead of barely doing it because it's actually the limit of the driveline. Just as long as you remember to only load the truck to the chassis' limits, not the drivetrain's. Actually, the additional weight of the diesel will actually unload the rear axle somewhat and transfer that weight to the front of the truck, since the axle will act like a pendulum. I.E. an extra 400 lbs of engine might unload 150 lbs from the rear axle and reposition it at the front end, making the front axle weight 550 lbs heavier, and the rear axle 150 lbs lighter. This might actually allow a slight (emphasis on the word slight) increase to load capacity, since the load bearing end of the truck will be slightly lighter. This comes down to common sense. While this might be dangerous for the typical "weekend warrior" type of pseudo truck owner, this should work out ok for someone with operating experience and the ability to think. One thing I would do, is go to the scales and get the front and rear axles weighed before and after the swap, so you know what the changes have done to your overall weight distribution.

 

do it do it do it and put pics on here of it doing billowy white burnouts

Eric