Traded my 97 F350 7.3 with 350k miles on it for a 2002 dodge quadcab with the 5.9 L cummins 280k miles, automatic tranny. only thing that has been done is air dog fuel pump with water seperator that is mounted right under drivers side seat on the frame. I drove it for last 2 days .. hooked it to my 9k lb camper and towed it around . Everything seems great. Just wondering what kinda of problems are known with the cummings high milage. I know the first 200k where highway miles non towing. just used as a travel vehical. rest of it was on a farm. and used daily around town. Thanks for any information

 

well sounds like the most important issue has been addressed...

factory lift pumps were junk and starved the injection pump for fuel causing pre-mature failures. airdog is a good lift pump and should help prevent that and also give you plenty of room to safely mod.

now the other weak point on your truck is that auto transmission...

dodge automatic transmissions are junk. you can beef it up a bit by getting a good torque converter and valve body, or just do it right the first time and buy a built trans from suncoast or DTT or goerend...

other than that, a little ashless 2-stroke oil from wally world with every tank will actually help quiet down the motor and keep the injection pump lubricated.

you will probably want to put a 0-30psi fuel pressure gauge on it if it doesn't already have one, and get other gauges as well...trans temp, egt, boost..

as far as mileage is concerned, 280k is nothing for the engine. for the rest of the truck is a different story...

 

The valve body isn't really an issue, the torque converter is though. Run the trans until it needs to be rebuilt, then find someone to build you one and use a billet multi-disc converter, red clutches, kolene steels, and swap out the plastic piston for a metal one, and get an old style band. It'll cost you maybe 1800 and unless you're knocking on the door of 600+ hp, it'll do you just fine.

 

For sure get the HD torque converter and the fuel psi gage

 

apparently you haven't seen what a 24v can do to a 47re....

I've seen vp44 trucks rip through built auto's...

if you want far more info on it, get on cumminsforum.com and do some searches in the 24v section. plenty of info there and dodge cummins trucks is all that forum does. they also get 10x the traffic that this site does.

 

What part of what I said would lead you to make that assumption?

You don't need to drop a $10k+ full billet transmission into these things unless you're making a serious amount of power OR you're a serious idiot behind the wheel. A good torque converter and a few internal tweaks with some decent clutches and steels will go a long way behind any Cummins - 12v, 24v, HPCR, or even the 6.7.

My last truck was a 13-second 6.7 truck. My current truck doesn't make quite that kind of power but it's got a fair bit over stock and I yanked a ~14k pound trailer over a 5000 mile trip without blowing it up, and I've got about $800 into parts in the trans.

 

the knocking on the door of 600+hp part...

400 hp on a vp truck is enough to made a dana 70 rear end explode and do a number on the auto trans. just over 500hp was enough to rip teeth off the gears inside my NV5600 6-spd and break the intermediate shaft inside the trans causing both 5th and 6th gear to be out. and that was just from pushing the pedal to the floor from a 55mph rolling start not touching the clutch or shifter at all, and no weight in the truck and no trailer behind it.

vp44 trucks are known to make some serious low end torque with minimal mods.

I made 889tq at the rears with stock turbo, stock injectors, a slipping stock clutch, and the adrenaline fueling box.

so IF he plans on building any kind of power, full built is the way to go. especially on a trans with 280k miles on it. If he plans on keeping it close to stock, converter and maybe valve body will be all he needs.

 

I will agree to disagree. Yes, you can blow up a trans even at stock power levels, however I don't agree that you need to go full billet unless as I said earlier you're going for big power or you're an idiot with the go pedal.

400hp is enough to destroy a trans, but so is 200hp with the right driver. It really depends on what he's going to do with it and how he's going to drive it.