Huge Mistake!

Next she'll get one of those "Silly Boys, Trucks are for Girls" stickers.

 

Yea, not going to happen but she did drive it again today, and liked it. I think I'm going to have to move the rod back into the stock location. ;>)

 

EVguy, Sorry i'm so late with this but I just found your thread on 4bt swaps recently and it was linked here. Your truck turned out absolutely beautiful! I am going to put a mech 4bt in an 03 1500 2wd ram and found your conversion exceptionally helpful! It was a v6/at but I am going to change it to nv4500. You talked about reprogramming the pcm & fcm but didn't say what the company name was in Florida. Who is it & would you recommend/use them again? I don't plan to use it for much towing but i'm building it for fuel mileage. Thanks, Roy

 

The guys in Florida were a total rip off.
I sent the FCM back three times and they never did manage to get the VIN correct.
I'm on a bit of a road trip right now down to California, Grand Canyon and Vegas. On the way through Portland I stopped at SOS diagnostics and Chad was a big help.
I would recommend them.
I turns out the FCM does not need reprogramming just the ECM.
Just before leaving home I got my tach working, sort of. I mounted the crank and cam sensors to read the crank sensor ring on the front of the 170. Its a 64? skip tooth wheel so it reads twice the RPM but its a beginning.
I will play with it when I get home and try a Digital Dakota box to get the correct signal to the ECM.
The mechanical 4BT engines are much more user friendly when you want to build some serious power.
The NV4500 is a bit clunky compared to the more modern transmissions.
You should have more tunnel room and maybe look at a 6 speed?
I find 1st almost useless, gets you half way across the intersection before shifting into second and then into third by the time you get to the other side of the intersection. OK if your towing or have much taller tires and gearing in the low 3's.

BFN
Randy

 

Thanks for the info about the ECM's. I had kinda wondered if the FCM needed reprogrammed, glad to hear it doesn't. Originally I was going to use an nv3500 but was afraid it wouldn't be strong enough. Not sure now which one I will use, 6spds are pretty pricey around here. Again, I don't plan to do any heavy hauling/trailering with it, I have a 2500 hemi for that. Thanks again for the info and the post of your conversion and have a safe trip! Roy

 

During the Christmas holiday I picked up a set of rock rails and did a little mod to allow me a step up into the box.
Lower one has the step added.
Hope to install them next week and will get more pic's.

DSCF2477

 

EV, i dont know if this will be of any help but i figured i would let you know my expirence...

i got my 4bt in a ram with the gas computer and did that hole crank/cam sensor mess also... the cam sensor was a disaster, after about a 100 different trys, i ended up with a electronic flasher unit in combo with a relay, to trigger the cam sensor, and now it works flawless, for the crank sensor, i used the cummins sensor wired into the gas harness, then pulled the damper and chucked it up in the mill and machined it for the correct amount of tone slots

 

Thanks DT.

On my Grand Cherokee diesel swap I also used a relay on the cam sensor. It worked fine without the added pulse from a flasher. Just the single pulse from the relay did the trick.
I'm just starting a 2000 Jeep Cherokee / VW TDI swap and will keep your trick in mind if the relay alone does not do it.
The newer the vehicle the harder they are to fool.
I hate it when vehicles are smarter than I am and I'm getting to be in the minority.

 

right on, i love these swaps except for these little gremlins

a lot of people have had luck with the relay/cam sensor trick on chrysler stuff, but i wired mine up every was possible and the best was about 75% of the time it would work and that irritated me bad, the flasher hasnt missed a single startup since install, idk why mine decided it didnt like the relay trick but there always some strange stuff when messing with this stuff

 

Here they are installed. Two people can jump on them and they dont budge.

DSCF2624 by evguy, on Flickr