Wonder if anyone ever converted a 6.2 to a gas engine..

[diesel4me]

I was reading on the web the other night,how some drag racers took the "junk" Olds 5.7 V8 diesels and converted them back into a gas engine,and how it was not that difficult--they had to add a distributor ,it slid right in place of the vacuum pump,and since the Olds based diesel shared many of the castings as their gas V8's,a 4 bbl manifold was easy to bolt on...

I didn't see much mention of the pistons though--I assume the stock "diesel" compression ratio would be way too high to run gasoline ,even if you had race fuel...maybe they used spacers under the heads to lower the compression..

After reading that,I was thinking...the 6.2 has a roller camshaft,4 bolt mains,and if they will last 100+K as a diesel,I bet one converted to run on gasoline would be a pretty ballsy and torquey engine that would last a long time--you would have to use some type of "crank fire" igntition seeing there is no place for a distributor,and a carb would not be that hard to adapt to a J code intake.........pipe dream yes,but it would be interesting to see how one panned out..

 

[tRustyK5]

I don't think it'd be impossible. A distributor could be dropped into the vac pump hole just like the Olds. The only thing I'd say is it's too much bother and cost for any gains...

At the time the Olds diesel was easily available, big inch blocks were uncommon, and the Olds diesel block could be safely punched out to 440 cubes. Tons of Olds gas parts available then too.

 

[79HeavyChevy]

I had always heard part of the olds swaps were because they had a stronger block, I'm assuming the webbing around the mains, than a standard small block.

 

[Csm Davis]

The 5.7 was supposed to be a racing block that got repurposed to be a diesel.