Thought this might be of interest to the 6.2 owners here...General Motors / Detroit Diesel 6.2 Training - YouTube
CK5
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6.2 GM training infomercial/sales info video
- Thread starter diesel4me
- Start date
Interesting video. I thought it was kinda funny how the guy kept saying that the 6.2 has nothing to do with any previous engine, meaning the 5.7.
I saw an old (89) segment of motorweek on utube about a burb with a Banks turbo. over the counter $1200 and change...
Yeah,they wanted to emphasize it was in NO way built from any other engine design GM had...the 5.7 was a giant turd ,a big mistake,and GM knew it,and had to scramble to try and re-gain customer's confidence..
I'm not so sure the 6.2's were all that much better really though..
They gave it 4 bolt mains and a forged steel roller camshaft,but then decided to use cast cranks with tuftriding instead of fully forged ones,and made the blocks too weak at the main bearing webs..
It's like they started out to build a stout engine,but then decided to cut corners in places that were critical in ways too..
The rocker arm arrangement reminds me of an Olds or Caddilac style,kind of skimpy using nylon push fasteners to retain the rockers in place..the front cover/timing chain resembles a Buick or Olds design too,which I am not fond of...I like the simple 4 bolt gas small block water pump mounting--ones with backing plates usually have headaches with long bolts breaking off in the block and if the backing plate isn't removed you risk it leaking coolant into the crank case..
I find it interesting they bragged about having "5 head bolts surrounding each cylinder" for longer head gasket life--but in reality they blew head gaskets fairly often...I think the high compression is the reason,not so much lack of clamping force..
Having rebuilt a few a these engines I would agree that there was a lots of good ideas when the engine was designed. But then the bean counters probably got a hold of it and cut most of those corners. The newest versions of the 6.2/5 have tons of updates that make them very much improved engines. Just sad that it took 20 years for that stuff to happen.
My understanding is that one of the major contributors to the legacy of the Olds diesel engine is that GM did a horrible job explaining some key maintenance needs. I think that's why they hammer on fuel contamination (several times), and why they are so adamant that this engine should not be treated like a typical GM engine (I read that as "don't treat it like a gasser, this is different"). WIF sensors, double fuel filters, and extra head bolts are all reactions to specific issues that the Olds engine ran into. While they did deal out some overkill (the 2nd filter, fuel tank water siphon port, and WIF sensor were eventually eliminated), GM did fix a lot of problems that the 5.7 had, and the 6.x engines are a BIG step up in the longevity department. I'm pretty sure that there wouldn't be a GM diesel club if the 6.x engines had been as bad as the 5.7 engines. Looking at the warranty history, there really is no comparison.
Yeah. I sure wish I had some of the good ideas from the later engines. But I'm not gonna be too hard on the bean counters in this case. They are always looking for compromises to produce a balance between cost and awesomeness. An awesome engine will still be a total failure if it's not also affordable. And for some reason hindsight is only available after the fact.
Harsh words should be saved for things like Ford's 3.8L Essex engine that systematically love to eat head gaskets. That engine liked to fail often (with <100k miles) regardless of how it was treated (whereas a 6.2 won't often fail unless abused). Or, as mentioned before, the Olds 5.7 diesel had several systemic flaws (GM should have put more R&D hours into predicting and addressing longevity issues).
This pragmatism is probably due to being a former Fiero owner.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of these engines. So much so that I kept it over doing a Cummins swap. Once you learn it's quirks it's actually a good engine.
