Theme Tuesdays: Diesel Motors In Everything

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There was a time when the words ‘diesel’ and ‘performance’ were seemingly at odds with one another. Those days are quickly becoming a thing of the past as diesel tuning progresses at an alarming rate year after year.

As a result diesel motors are starting to appear as a performance alternative to gas motors in all sorts of different applications.

Depending on where you source the motors these swaps can range from straight forward and low/modest budget (Cummins 4bt) to expensive and complicated (common rail Cummins), but when you consider that at their core diesel motors are quite simple I imagine even more vehicles will be ‘rolling coal’ in the years to come.

Bob Ward found the 7.3 International diesel motor for his truck from a Ford E series van, he then strapped a large Holset to it for some more power
If you have not read the feature on this truck it’s up here
This truck has since undergone a bit of an overhaul since these photos, but the swap remains
It looks a little utilitarian here, but has since been cleaned up quite a bit as seen below

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After 6 hours of driving in the rain… she clean

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What in tarnation, Is that a Cummins in a Power Wagon?
Why yes, yes it is. This cool truck was spotted at Berlin Klassik in 2014, and if I recall correctly was built in Ottawa Ontario
Welderup made diesel swaps incredibly popular with this photo of their diesel rod
This ’28 Dodge has a 12V Cummins in it, the motors been worked over to put out 1270 ft.-lbs of torque and 693 rwhp
This Cummins powered C10 is known as the ‘Diezl Rat’

It’s a pretty gnarly looking truck, impossible to miss and I post it often
I don’t have a photo of the motor in this, unfortunately, but it’s actually a chassis swap

The underpinnings of the truck are Dodge, and the motor is a Cummins, obviously
Nearing the end of the local swaps with this 4bt swapped Miata – Photo: Engineswapdepot.com
Packaging is one of the hardest parts of diesel swaps, as you can tell with how well this motor ‘fits’ – Photo: Engineswapdepot.com

Not to be outdone by the Miata, Arugs Auto put 6.0L Power Stroke Diesel V8 into a skyline with two BorgWarner turbos hanging off it. Argus is hoping the car will eventually put down 650 hp to the wheels and 1200 foot pounds of torque – Photo: engineswapdepot.com

The 240 below is one of the first 4bt imports I came across. It might be the first, but I don’t have records to prove or disprove that

Switch things up and keep it classy with a Cummins powered Bentley
No engine bay shots of this one sadly

Here’s another diesel swapped B machine, this one with a motor 3.0 VW TDI motor

This semi truck themed Nova is from a previous WTF Friday post

For those who might like their Diesel (Durmax in this case) cars to be a little bit more traditional looking, Mike Racke built this back in 2009 – Photo: Truck Trend
Pacific Performance Engineering is a big name in diesel performance and they had a hand in this gorgeous twin turbo engine bay
SEMA is just around the corner, and this 1950 Cadillac was the topic of much discussion last year – Photo: Lowrider Magazine
That’s a 5.9L cummins under the hood. – Photo: Lowrider Magazine

Got a favorite diesel swap of your own that I missed? Let me know so I can pull together a part II of this post!

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