Ok, I have a quick question for you guys. i have a 3.1L with the cast iron heads and what as the title says i was thinking about making it into a diesel, if it is possible and from my searches the 5.9L cummins parts are fairly cheap. Now before you say no or you can't do this please read on.

Now how i was thinking about doing this was using the Cummins 5.9L fuel pump and turning the fuel rate down and into shorter burst's because of the shorter stroke and much much smaller bore. now for these engines there are harder pistons that i can use for the higher compression and with a little bit of machining i can use a connecting rod from a GM 350. The connecting rod would really need to be thinned up where connects to the crank shaft and a shim for the wrist pin and we're golden.

For the injectors I was thinking of using the spark plug holes and for the glow plugs i'm still trying to figure out. i was thinking about doing something like this. they would be in a steel couplers shaped in almost a Y. But i'm just hoping that the glow plug would be deep enough to have an effect but not to deep to where it obstructs the jet of fuel.

Inj. GP
| /
| /
|

Inj.-injector
GP-Glow Plug

In my mind this is feasible but my biggest concern would be the crank, the block, and the heads. now I do have the cast heads to they are the stronger type but i don't know if they would be strong enough for the 15:1+ compression and the crank and block strong enough for the torque. I've seen where some people are pushing 300+ horse out of these things so i know that they can handle some of what this could potentially dish out.

What do you think. and i do have access to a shop.

P.S.-if i go with the older 5.9L those engines are mostly mechanical so i can do away with the ECU.

 

to me it would sound easier to just drop a cummins engine in the car instead of converting your V6

 

Sorry forgot to mention, ease time and money are not of my concerns

 

Look back to the 70s when GM converted some V8s and V6s to diesel. As it turned out these engines were pretty much a POS, making little power, falling apart, and hard to start in the winter. You can go ahead and have fun, but don't expect anything exciting.
http://www.autosafety.org/8-engines-missed

 

Yea I heard and from what I know they didn't use very good internal parts. But what I am proposing is using high performance internals, something that will stand up to the stress. I was mainly wondering if the crank, block, and iron heads with stronger bolts would be up for the challenge.

 

get ur self a 4BT cummins out of a bread truck or delivery van and stick it in there they make adapter to mount to gm trannys and the 4BT is about as heavy as a small block i think just a lil bit heaver if i remember correctly dont was ur time converting thats dumb talk if u ask me if it wasnt born a diesel it isnt going to be a good one lol

 

thats what i was saying not necessarily that it cant be done but odds are its not going to be what you want best bet is the cummins with the trans adaptor

 

Well not really looking into doing a 4bt swap but luckily I can get my hands on a free 3.1L and cheap parts. After I get the motor that's about when i think I'm going to get started on this. One thing I did find is I can get connecting rods are stronger than stock on diesels so thats a good find.

 

It will not work. The 3.1 is a weak motor and heads are no where near strong enough to handle 22-1 compression. I have torn a part a lot I mean a lot of GM 350 diesels and those heads where beefed up 350 heads and they failed all the time. 3.1 does not have 1/5 the strenght of those over cast 350 heads. The 3.1 block itself would not handle the torque of a diesel and the cranks where junk and barely held up to the low torgue the gas version had.

As stated, converting Gas motors to diesel does not work well with engineers and thousands of hours of testing but if you asked me to make a list of GM engines I would try to convert the 3.1/2.8 would be at the bottom of the list one notch below the 305. The only motor I can think would be worse was that old Vega alumi block 4 banger.

 

the castings and hardware of the v6 are no where near capable of handling the pressure required to burn diesel. minimum compression ratio would need to be 16:1, and the block and heads are simply too thin to handle that. not to mention no one makes forged pistons for the 3.1 because you will not get that compression with stockers, and they will melt at anything higher than 10:1. if you want to **** away time and money, buy a honda and turbo it. at least you can sell it when youre disappointed