Military to Civilian Engine Swap Questions

[Crig]

My 6.2 has a blown head gasket which I’m gonna use as motivation to swap to a 1996 6.5T someone local to me is selling for $1,000 but I’m curious what exactly I have to do to make that work?

 

[Retiredwarhorses]

You will need a nice balance in your checking account and you will need to start with just the “long block” off the civilian 6.5TD motor and go from there, nothing on the civilian motor works on the military application.

 

[NDT]

Need to know what the 6.5 is out of, pickup or van/bus? The pickup 6.5 has the side mount turbocharger and that won’t fit in a HMMWV. Electronic injection pump has to be replaced with mechanical.

 

[Crig]

Need to know what the 6.5 is out of, pickup or van/bus? The pickup 6.5 has the side mount turbocharger and that won’t fit in a HMMWV. Electronic injection pump has to be replaced with mechanical.

It’s out of a Chevy pickup

 

[spankybear]

Injector lines are not the same between the 2 engines. If you force the 6.2 on a 6.5 they will break after awhile.

 

[NDT]

You can use the pickup truck longblock but you have to ditch the turbocharger setup and reuse all the 6.2 exhaust and intake manifolds.

 

[Crig]

You can use the pickup truck longblock but you have to ditch the turbocharger setup and reuse all the 6.2 exhaust and intake manifolds.

Is it possible to reconfigure it to the proper turbo set up or is the pickup 6.5 that different from the military 6.5?

 

[NDT]

Is it possible to reconfigure it to the proper turbo set up or is the pickup 6.5 that different from the military 6.5?

The heads on the pickup version of the 6.5 are different than the van/bus/H1/HMMWV version, the intake ports are at a different angle. You can use the pickup SHORT block but that is getting you into a lot of work.

 

[Mogman]

The heads on the pickup version of the 6.5 are different than the van/bus/H1/HMMWV version, the intake ports are at a different angle. You can use the pickup SHORT block but that is getting you into a lot of work.

But you also must build it as a NA as the pickup block does not have the pedestal for the center mount turbo fully machined.
Now since you have a basic or A1 machine and if you do not care about future A/C etc, I believe some have managed to install the truck motor basically as is with some compromises as to exhaust clearance and some others.

If you want to explore that route I can move this to the appropriate forum.