Convert Petrol to Diesel

[muzila]

How hard is it to convert a petrol chev 350 to diesel???

[geeves]

it will make the nose of the Mu a bit heavy
There is a variant of the 350 that was diesel but its not the worlds most reliable engine.
(it makes the toy 2lt and isuzu 4jx1 seem like the pinnacle of engineering) I dont belive any parts are interchangeable. If you must have a chev diesel v8 get the 6.7 litre. A far better diesel and almost as good as the 2.3 mitsi diesel

[wbski007]

You can't take a 350 Chevy gas motor and make a diesel out of it, when GM did it in 81 they used a Olds 350 block and modifided it to diesel, which like Geeves said was far from being a reliable diesel motor, head gaskets were their biggest problem, they ran great for the first 100,000 miles, but after that you could garauntee the head gasket would go, I had a bunch of them and the best I could get was 150,000 miles out of one , they did make a 4.3 V6 diesel and that did better, head gaskets seemed to hold up ok on them, of course the 5.7 and 4.3's are pretty much part of history now, every once in a while I see one pop up on ebay tho.

[muzila]

My other thought was maybe A 6.5 ltr. (400 CI) but the only one I know of is a big block 400. I don't know if the small block 400 is diesel. I don't think the 6.7 will fit in the enginebay.

I really dont like the idea of using a petrol V8 as I know I will probably kill it the first time I do a river crossing .

As for the front doing a nose dive with the weight, I am doing the S.A.S at the same time so I will be compensating for the extra weight.

[geeves]

Use a double lip front seal and it will be ok. Look how many are in cruisers