Diesel Conversion

Any decent GM garage can do for you.

Out with the old gasoline engine and trans, in with a new diesel.

The gas engine in there now is the GM LQ4. I don't think there is a lot of hope converting the engine to diesel, if this is what you are thinking.

A bad history of using gas engines for diesel. I remember that Oldsmobile had a series of diesel cars in Europe. I had one Cutlass Brougham Deluxe and a lot of hope that it was a good alternative for the popular Mercedes S- class.

A V- engine had been modified: in the holes of the spark plugs was a long small injector fitted and the distributor replaced by a rotary injection pump. The pistons had one more ring compared to the gas version. Compression has been the main issue all the time.

The engine had a 220V electrical heater for temperatures outside below O Celsius.

I have been moderately happy for 50.000 miles. Then the engine needed a complete overhaul.

I learned diesels have to be designed as diesels in the first place. A very expensive lesson.

Oldsmobile sold the Delta 88 for years in the US as a diesel. I am not sure of the development of the actual engine for it, but I always assumed it was a true diesel. All of the cheap old maids in town drove them.

I'm off to Google!

...back in time to edit this post. The Wikipedia page has some history on the GM V-8 diesel...reportedly it was originally a diesel but was believed to be a modified gas burner. I am not saying that was the case in Europe, but it leads me to more questions.

The Oldsmobile diesel engines were offered in 350, and 260 sizes. They were indeed derived from gasoline engines but, there was a very big development involved. The start was the cylinder block casting. If you compare the gas to diesel block. all of the bearing support areas were thickened up dramatically. Rods were heavier. The crank was stiffer also. But the problem seemed to be the crankshafts. Seemed that at times they would just snap in two. In retrospect, it was just a little short on testing when it was shoved into production. They were the most powerful diesels in automobiles at the time they were released. But they were just sooo sluggish compared to the same displacement gasoline engines. And, not any cheaper to run.

Here your answer H-Line Conversion.

Or Google search here for other places. One may be closer to you.

And this is for the other post posted on the subject.

All this You could have done yourself.

If your planing on doing the conversion, good. Diesel is the New hotrod, gives you both Horsepower and/or Mileage over Gas. Also you can run Bio-diesel without any modification other than just checking fuel lines and gaskets for compatibility. Though most modern system should not have any problems. Just let your conversion people know they will know what to check.