I recently bought a 1999 Dodge Ram 1500 Pickup Truck. The guy who sold it to me said that he replaced the engine with a 2000 Ram Van engine. The problem is that the PCM unit is for the 1999 Truck with Federal Emmisions and can't communicate properly with the 2000 Ram Van Engine with California Emmissions. Most of the dash lights are on, the truck won't shift gears properly and the speedometer won't work right until about 60 mph. My question is can a 2000 Ram Van PCM unit be compatible with the 1999 Truck wireing? I'd prefer to find that out before I throw down a ton of cash one one and have it blow up on me. If anyone can help me, I'd be especially grateful. I gotta get this thing working, its about my last vehicle at the moment.

Thanks.

 

You have to use the PCM from the truck and make the new engine work with it. What should've been done is all of the sensors, fuel injectors, etc.,from the old engine should've been transfered to the new engine. The block is the same, the components are what separates the different models/years and make the engine compatible with the existing PCM. You'll never make the 2000 van PCM work in the 1999 truck without completely rewiring the truck.

 

The Ram Van that the engine came from was sent to the junkyard and crushed by this idiot who replaced the engine, so I won't be able to get any parts from the Van. The local Dodge house said that we need a new PCM/TCM computer and that they would reprogram it to work with the truck's current sensors. So is the Dodge place wrong? I'm willing to try just swapping out the PCM/TCM with a 2000 Van version, but I'm needing to know if the wireing is the same.

 

Well if they say they can reprogram it to accommodate the hybrid setup, who am I to doubt them.
You cannot plug the 2000 van PCM into the 1999 pickup truck. The wiring (and PCM pin-out) are not the same.

 

If you can get the old "truck" engine sensors and stuff like Alloro mentioned, then you should be fine. So what if the Ram Van got taken to the wrecking yard. You need the "truck" engine parts from the engine that was taken out of the truck prior to the Ram Van engine going in it.

OK, let's say you can't get that old "truck" engine. Can you get 1999 truck sensors and other stuff to replace out the ones in this retro Ram Van engine in your truck?

There shouldn't be too many things different with a Ram Truck engine and a Ram Van engine other than emmisions. If you can get a book to look up the 2000 Ram Van engine sensor numbers to the 1999 Ram Truck engine sensor numbers, you would then know what is common betwix the two or what is different.

There have been many Ram Truck engines dropped into Ram Vans without much hassel. I've never heard of it going the other way from a van to the truck before.

As for the PCM in the Ram Vans, the 1998 and 1999 are swapable with one another that matches the engine size/type. Starting in 2000, things slightly changed with the emmisions and sensors to the tranny that I'm aware of.

For the TB make sure the TPS, MAP and IAC parts use the same numbers betwix the two engines. The temp, speed, and other sensors need to be looked into as well.

The Magnum engines internally really didn't change much after 1998 and newer. You may have one or two small items to replace to get things running good again.

Keep us posted what your findings are and how you went about getting a solution. It will help others down the road too.

Thanks!

Stev