Forgive me if it's been said, but the reason they look so similar is GM designed it to use the same tooling and fixturing that they already had in place.
>From personal experience, I can tell you that if you can, and have the power/blessing to, design something to use existing tooling/fixturing, you do it. The "newer" V8 olds engines running a Stanadyne(sp?) pump, right? Walt On Nov 28, 2011 5:24 PM, "Curt Raymond" <curtlud...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >Call it what you want. Compared to even an old OM621 or an OM636, or > >a JD, IH, Cummins, Detroit, Cat, Perkins, or even a petter, it is a > >crappy engine. > > GM's diesels didn't make much power for the size (90hp in the 4.3l v6, > ~125hp for the 5.7l v8) but neither did the emission strangled gassers of > the era and got much better fuel economy. They weren't stump pulling big > truck. IH used a 3l I6 Nissan engine in the Scout that only made ~101hp > with a turbo. I'd posit that MB was making the best power/displacement > diesels for consumer use. > > > >I was wrenching in tech school when these came out. ?I can assure you > >that they were built on the small block 350 platform, with a different > >crank and pistons, I believe. > A different crank, pistons, rods, heads, rockers, cam, pushrods, valves, > valve springs, and intake. They used the same SHAPE block so it would drop > in where a 350 gasser would go, that doesn't make it the same engine. It is > unfortunately why they had head bolt problems, they reused the bolt pattern > to save on tooling and used bolts that weren't strong enough, a fatal > combination. > > >The Olds 350 was a gasoline engine re-designed to be a diesel. This > >is common knowledge, I think. > > I find common knowledge to almost always be wrong... > > That said I could only find a few references that definitively say it > isn't the same as the gas engine and none that say it is. > > http://a350diesel.tripod.com/faqs.html > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_V8_engine > http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/02/oldsmobile-350-diesel.html > > The only pages I could find that say the GM 5.7l diesel was a converted > gasser are forums or people saying "everybody knows" which is not the same > thing as saying "well the part numbers are the same". > > If somebody has proof that they're the same I'd like to see it. The most > damming evidence is that the 5.7 diesel's casting has a space for an > injection pump. That tells me its a special casting and not just a small > block gasser with an injection pump bolted on. > > What amazes me in researching this (again, we had this argument this maybe > 2 years ago) is how GM almost made a decent engine. Not a good engine mind > you, it was never going to be a super powerhouse but then they cheaped out > in 2 important aspects, the head bolts weren't strong or numerous enough > (though stronger bolts could make up for the too small number) and the main > bearing bolts were too short. Both were largely rectified on later > versions. Oh and the lack of a water collector which ruined the IP. Typical > tactics for that era of Detroit iron. > > -Curt > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
