With all the threads about getting better fuel economy, my wife, bless her heart, came up with an interesting idea. Jeep, a product of Mopar, has a diesel engine. It's a 3.0 litre CRD. I can't tell if it's a V-6 or inline cuz the website won't tell me.

I did notice that it has a higher torque than our wonderful 4.7 V-8 AND gets about 3 mpg better too. What do you all think about squeezing one of these in a Dakota? Or should it be, why hasn't Dodge thought about this already?

Granted, I don't know if the 3.0 can truely be a truck engine, but...

So, what do y'all think?

 

that sounds good, but i think if i was going to go through the trouble, i would drop the 3.9 4bt cummins in there, my 75 gets 25mpg's or better, and the 4bt will get even more, and has a lot of power potential, they have already got over 800hp out of one, and i did a read up on the jeep diesel where they tried to tune it with cai, exhaust, programer, and actually hurt the power out put

 

ya i have heard the same with adding power but it lost power

 

It's a V-6 engine, a Mercedes Blu-Tec I believe.

Could it work? Probably. Almost anything can be made to fit under the hood.

Can it be justified in fuel cost savings? Of course not.

Will it be legal or pass emissions? Highly unlikely.

 

both of my diesels were gasers originally, a quick look from the local smog ref and everything was signed off and taken completely off the smog data base, and for free... if it can be done that easy in cali, i would have to imagine it would be real easy to pass in just about anyother state

 

However, you converted a '98 HD Ram, which was offered with a factory option diesel, and a 1975 model year, which is probably exempt from any meaningful restrictions.

A late model truck, like a Dakota, which only came from the factory with gas motors, is harder to pass. I'm not sure it's even possible in New York.

Say my truck blew its 3.7L tomorrow. I could legally swap in another 3.7L, a 230 HP 4.7L, or a 4.7L HO. A real hardass shop may not even let me swap in a 320 HP 4.7L from a 2008 year.

Not impossible...but you have to do your homework before you end up with an non-road legal vehicle.

 

well in cali anyway, they will let you put a diesel in anything and get away with smog, i put a 5.9 cummins in my cousins 85 chevy and it was the same story, i was just saying that because of the crap that goes on in this wonderfull state, i thought we were the worse

 

Yes it can be done. Cost effective, no. A guy on the Jeep forum I used to go on all the time did that swap with the same motor into a Cherokee. Problem is they only made that motor for i think 1 year in the Jeep KJ. Pretty rare to find one in a junkyard. I'm praying for a smaller factory cummings to come out in ANY dodge truck, i'd buy it in a heartbeat. I'm sure they wont though

 

i heard a rumor bout a year ago that 2010 was posed to see a diesel powered dakota. the merceades 3.? from the cherokee haven't seen it yet though. nor heard any mpre on it. maybe some one else has heard or maybe even seen it?

 

I'll believe it when I see it. As it stands now, Chrysler is replacing the Dakota with something very different from the body-on-frame pickup truck it's always been.

The diesel trend seems to be losing some ground to the new crop of high-efficiency small displacement turbo gassers. The "New" Ford Ranger may be a low-feature F-150 with an EcoBoost.

Who knows what Fiat-Chrysler has planned. Based on their showing at the Detriot Auto Show, a whole lot of nothing...