Diesel Mustang?

BruceinFL said:

Hello everyone.
Has anyone ever tried putting either a 6.9L or 7.3L diesel in a Mustang?
I think that would be cool! You would still be getting reasonable fuel economy(at least with the 7.3), and fairly good horsepower (again with the 7.3). I saw a post on here about a 6.8 V10, so I thought how 'bout a diesel?

Click to expand...

View: https://youtu.be/XsXkRn5rNWYWestin
Champlin YouTube channel. He put a Cummins in a 2017

for the life of me I cannot undertsand why any sane person would go through the painstaking effort of installing a big heavy slow lumbering smoky clattery DIESEL into a Mustang, of any vintage.

Cummins? LOL. Yeah u can make a ton of power, but you're also going to be adding about 500 lbs over the nose of the car. A 302 dressed is what 465 lbs? A 6BT and ISB both, is going to be close to triple that weight...somewhere around 1100 lbs (just for the engine), plus 30 lbs of oil (15 quarts total), plus what? 7 gallons of coolant?

Then no matter what engine you choose, you're disadvantaged by the weight, and now consider that diesels are meant to run about 3500 max rpm in "most" cases, so you end up with a bunch of torque from 1200-3000 rpm, and then it completely peters out. Plus, most of the popular diesels are physically huge, they really don't fit well in a Mustang engine bay without surgery. A 6.9/7.3 Ford MIGHT fit, I haven't tried and I have a car to play with and a few 6.9's as well. The turbocharged 7.3 certainly won't fit under the hood, it's way too tall, and seriously doubt that the pan would fit the crossmember. So yes they'll make 1000 lb-ft of torque. So what? Still slow, in comparison to the same amount of money you'd pour into a 5.0, the 5.0 will walk all over it in almost every aspect. MPG included!

The only reason I can think of that I'd ever try it...is to be "different" and if different in this case was a good thing, it would have been done many times over and probably lost it's popularity by now. They weren't popular to begin with, and they aren't now. For good reason!

Now maybe for saving a lot of fuel, maybe if you can find a diesel Ranger 4 cylinder (2.3L I believe it was) and swap that in, might see 40-45 mpg, but it'll be a sub 100hp slug that vibrates horribly. I had a diesel ranger for a little while and it did get good mpg, but it wouldn't even pull my flat bottom boat up any kind of hill, and at idle, anything in the mirrors disappears as a blur from engine vibration.

I wish I had a Detroit 53 series that I could try to play with, freebies, but I don't and I'm not about to go buy one to try either. Like a 4V53T (which is rare). Funny thing about those old Detroits. If they didn't leak, they didn't have any oil left in them. They were heavy, they were kinda slow, but they sounded super cool. Youtube them. Any of the Detroit 53, 71, 92 series, I'm partial to the 4 cylinder versions and the I6 and V6 models. The V8's sounded nice too but I just prefer the smaller ones. I once bought a 1979 MCI 9 bus on a whim, knew nothign about it figured it would be worth what I paid in parts. Drove it home, all 40 foot of it. Parked it and opened up the engine compartment to find a 6V92TA. Good engine, had lots of power down low and sounded really good with a straight exhaust. I gave $800 for it, put it back on the market after I got home and before the engine had enough time to cool off, I had offers of up around 10 grand. It was gone that day. Apparently people like to convert the MCI's into campers, and some of them are super nice based on the small amount of research I did.

If you are going to do diesel, you have got to do the stacks ...

I've seen it written a few times that the BMW M21 is meant to be a dead easy swap into a Fox..

It's just a shame it's almost entirely anaemic and there doesn't seem to be any floating around any-who!

after looking around the web i saw a ranger with a 2.3 turbo diesel... how hard would that be to swap into an existing 2.3 foxbody? just for chits n giggles?

'84 Stinkin Lincoln Continental MK VII LSC had a BMW turblo diesel plant that was a dream?
2.4l six that made 115 hp and 155 torque
Very few made most still around

Piranahbite said:

after looking around the web i saw a ranger with a 2.3 turbo diesel... how hard would that be to swap into an existing 2.3 foxbody? just for chits n giggles?

Click to expand...

But why? Fuel economy for the Ranger was almost the same as a 88 2.3 5 spd.

Torque?
Longevity?
No tune ups
That is the diesel reasoning

Don't forget over $6 per gallon!!!

That's what regular gas costs here. Diesel is about 10% more.

A Mustang is more aero and the diesel would likely get better economy in one than the Ranger. 9.8L/100km is about 23.5mpg. However, the diesel would have to deliver at least 26mpg (+10%) for it to just break even on fuel cost and a lot more than that for it to have a chance of paying for itself.

manicmechanic007 said:

Torque?
Longevity?
No tune ups
That is the diesel reasoning

Click to expand...

Not that diesel