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Anyone runnin a GM 6.5 Turbo diesel?

B

bellofello

Free Member
Just wonderin how many people on here run a truck with the older GM 6.5 turbo diesel, and who of which have tried to hop it up at all.

I have a '92 GMC sierra 1500, short box, reg cab (originally a 2wd) put on a 2500 frame (and 4x4 added, 4L80E trans, NP 241 t-case, 4x4 posi loc front axle actuator) with the 6.5T in it. It runs pretty damn decent considering it has 285,000 k's on it.

Anyways I've been considering doing a few things to it to make it perform a little better. I already have a homemade intake on it, and exhaust (well if the original exhaust rotting off right before the cat counts as a redneck exhaust kit :devil:). Was thinking about putting some bigger injectors and a boost controller kit w/meth injection.

BUT I'm also looking for a 12V cummins to put in it (much more worth while to modify). So just lookin for some advide to weather or not it's worth doing anything to the 6.5 in the meantime...

thanks,
Dan
:beer;
 
The 6.5 aint a bad motor, there's good power in them, just from the factory they were turds and got a bad rep.

The turbos on them sucked, they just aren't made to push much boost. just with injectors and turbo it makes it a whole new motor. There's a ton of other stuff you can do to get em running good,and costs a lot less to fix and tune.

I had a 6.5 while in college and one of my instructors was a guru on those motors. Funny thing was he started out a cummins fan, but was impressed by what these things will do.

The one I had ran hard, it pissed off my buddies with powersmokes and cummins since it wasn't supposed to keep up with them. I'm not saying that this is the best motor out there in any strech of the imagination, but the motor was really overlooked.

I probably would have a cummins but I hate the dodge around it. The 6.5 is easy to get power from but from the sounds of it your going to go cummins anyways, so I would save your money for the converision.

But I am going to have another dmax before too long, so no conversion for me.
 
Here is my 6.5TD . It has a little over 260K miles on it. It was sitting behind my dads shop and didn't run. Fixed it up and turned it into a mud truck in 6 days! As you can tell I didn't have time to route the exhaust...

mudboggs07-09169.jpg


mudboggs07-09170.jpg


mudboggs07-09184.jpg


mudboggs07-09185.jpg


mudboggs07-09186.jpg
 
Snorider said:
The 6.5 aint a bad motor, there's good power in them, just from the factory they were turds and got a bad rep.

The turbos on them sucked, they just aren't made to push much boost. just with injectors and turbo it makes it a whole new motor. There's a ton of other stuff you can do to get em running good,and costs a lot less to fix and tune.

I had a 6.5 while in college and one of my instructors was a guru on those motors. Funny thing was he started out a cummins fan, but was impressed by what these things will do.

The one I had ran hard, it pissed off my buddies with powersmokes and cummins since it wasn't supposed to keep up with them. I'm not saying that this is the best motor out there in any strech of the imagination, but the motor was really overlooked.

I probably would have a cummins but I hate the dodge around it. The 6.5 is easy to get power from but from the sounds of it your going to go cummins anyways, so I would save your money for the converision.

But I am going to have another dmax before too long, so no conversion for me.
Click to expand...


back in the day the were popular because they were one of the first diesels that could have a chip added and make some decent power.about 300-350 hp is all they are really good for but back in 94 or so that was impressive. but when people found out what the p7100 was capable of and could triple the power output over a 6.5.the dodge was the way to go ,if you could tune it. not to mention the 6.5 has been plauged with pmd failures and pump failures.lucky now they finally have fixes for them.check out ssdiesel and huckstorf diesel. they both offer some parts for them.
 
pmd module gave some trouble, glow plug system and thats about it, great mileage, overheated if you pulled the crap out of em, but cruisin they were the best in their day
 
nmmiles, nice truck! that suspension looks pretty wicked.

snorider- nice, glad to hear there's some potential in the ol 6.5 yet! and yea the only good thing about a dodge is the cummins, that's why I want one in my GM :) but the swap is only if I find a decent one lying around for a decent price, so I'm not trying to get on it any time soon. I will probably go about doin some research on the 6.5 and do some mild stuff to it.

Skidooer1- chip? I haven't been able to find a chip for it yet, just a boost controller with methanol injection... what company makes a chip? I'll check out ssdiesel(think I've been on there maybe) and huckstorf for sure, thanks!

and hilinerider- yea my glow plugs don't work the greatest lol. And mileage... maybe once I get it running better, I usually get around 450-550 km's (350 ish miles) out of a 100L (25 gallon) tank.
 
yea a bought a big jug of deisel fuel treatment, and have fun some injector cleaner through it a bit ago, saw a good increase of about 100km's per tank, so all in all not to bad.
 
also from what I can gather off the ssdiesel site(my new favorite company till I get my sled!) is that my year range doesn't have PMD problems because it has a mechanical injection pump. That makes me feel a little better lol. But I will be ordering a bunch of stuff from them in the near future to make this truck rock quite a bit harder! thanks everyone, and I'll post up a few pictures of the beauty soon
 
i've researched this before when i was thinking of throwin a 6.5 in my old '71 chev i used to have. there is power to be had there especially if you have some green to spend. from what i read in my research the biggest limiting factor for the 6.5 or 6.2 diesels was to high of compression, like 22:1 versus the rest of the turbo diesels are around 17 or 18:1. this is why the 6.5s werent capable of any real big boost. one website i found back then talked about getting lower comp. pistons and better injectors and pump and the 6.5 would compete with the early 2000s diesels. so it would be spendy but if the time and money was there i think it would be a fun project to build one to run with the newer stuff.
 
Skidooer1- chip? I haven't been able to find a chip for it yet, just a boost controller with methanol injection... what company makes a chip? I'll check out ssdiesel(think I've been on there maybe) and huckstorf for sure, thanks!

no chip for the 92. requires physical changes to the pump, injectors.I would give ss diesel a call and see what they can do for you.
 
6.5

I had a 94 i put 6.2 heads and injectors on it , ran really good and got great mileage, i had plans on changing the injector tips to the marine ones but i gave it to my dad and got a powerstroke, if any one has a 1/2 ton 95 up they want to sell let me know.
 
If I remeber isnt this the same motor based on a big block gas engine. They build up the block put Hi comp heads on it and called a diesel ?

I remember they used to come in all the time to the dealer I worked at. Injection pumps, injecters, glow plugs, ecu's, turbo's....................
 
skidooer1 said:
Skidooer1- chip? I haven't been able to find a chip for it yet, just a boost controller with methanol injection... what company makes a chip? I'll check out ssdiesel(think I've been on there maybe) and huckstorf for sure, thanks!

no chip for the 92. requires physical changes to the pump, injectors.I would give ss diesel a call and see what they can do for you.
Click to expand...

yep, ss diesel is where it's at for this engine. I already ordered there full dual stack kit. Going to order the marine injectors, wastegate actuator, triple guage kit, and all their cooling system upgrades.

Their really respectable price wise, I'm very impressed with ss diesel!

but anyways, here are a few pictures from wheelin this weekend:





 
had that motor in my H1 hummer. Had a company in canada reflash the computer box and got 35 hp and over 100lbs of torque. used American Hummer's resonator( no muffler) and the Turb whistler could wake you up.
with intake done, it was amazing compared to stock. there was no chip option for the hummer at the time- no exposed port
 
I think my screenname can tell where im at on this subject. I say drive it then go cummins. Thats really the only reason I bought my 92 dodge, I couldnt care less what body it was in. Plus I don't hear about as many 'million mile' 6.5's out there as the 5.9
 
FirstGenCTD said:
I think my screenname can tell where im at on this subject. I say drive it then go cummins. Thats really the only reason I bought my 92 dodge, I couldnt care less what body it was in. Plus I don't hear about as many 'million mile' 6.5's out there as the 5.9
Click to expand...


haha yea, I doubt mine will last another 100,000 miles, but ya never know. It's got 285,000 km's on it now, so about 160,000 miles.

The only reason I want to go with the cummins is because, like you said the durability, and the moddability. I don't think my 6.5 will ever see close to 4-500 horse lol.

I'm just glad I have the 92 with mechanical injection pump and no PMD to fail.
 
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