1986 Dodge Ram 50 360 swap

[travhous]

I was asked to post a page on my build. I will do my best, but I'm better at wrenching in the garage than I am at taking pictures, posting and giving descriptions. Actually I have never really ever posted in any forum, so please bear with me.

My dad bought this truck brand new in '86 and it's was I learned to drive when I turned 16 in 1991. I have kept the truck all this time although it has been in storage for the past two and a half decades.

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This is the garge where the swap is taking place, it's small and generally a mess as you can see, but it's heated and fits everything I need.

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The first test fit I set the engine by aligning the 904 with the stock automatic transmission mount as I've seen most other people have.

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Although this approach would make things easier as far as shift linkage, drive shaft and etc.... I felt better getting the engine to sit back as far as possible without serious firewall modifications. What I found was if I used the original D-50's automatic transmission mount (the soild block that bolts to the trans) 180° it moved the engine back two inches. Sorry no good pictures of this, but if someone is doing this you might get what I'm talking about.
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I had to use button head bolts for this to work. They we're a bit difficult to find, but I did get them from http://mmsacc-stainless.com/.
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Since these bolts are no longer accessable I drilled holes in the cross member to access the two regular bolts that go in from the bottom.
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[BradMph]

Thanks Travhous. In the future I plan on doing a mopar update also. Great to have the info

[travhous]

Next was on to the motor mounts. I wanted to incorporate the stock mounts, as I want to go with a oem look, but could figure out a way to do it and keep it structurally sound. This is what I came up with. I'm not positive if this will be the final set, but I do like how it spreads out the the support of the engine to multiple points and hopefully aid in twisting the frame if the truck desides to hook up.
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After the engine and transmission we're mocked up in place it was time to get a drive shaft built. I wanted something beefier than the stock shaft, but also wanted to keep it a two peice shaft. The truck will be kept lowered and if I end up getting serious about taking it to the strip, I have concerns about a one piece drive shaft would hit the fuel take cross member mount if the rear would squat. I know there will be weak links in my setup, but I'm not for sure if I'm just going to be crusing the streets or possibly more. You're welcome to point them out but I'm aware. For one I will be running the stock rear end for now. I did get a LSD off of Amazon (Precision Gear LOM83 Power Brute Limited Slip Differential) which fit perfectly. I believe it's a bit cheaper on eBay, but I wanted to make sure I would not have any issues if I had to return it.

Stock Mitsubishi carrier with 1330 Series Toyota Midship for 1.181" center bearing.
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https://www.driveshaftparts.com/inde...yota%20midship

The flange comes from a Suzuki, I had to elongate the bolt holes but the center bore was dead on.
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https://www.powertrainindustries.com...p_flange_yokes

[travhous]

The stock transmission cross member was notched to support dual exhaust. I notched it out and filled it in with a 4" pipe one half in the cut out and the other half above to keep it structurally sound. This may interfere with the stock shift linkage, but I will tackle that when it comes up. It will need to be modified anyway since the trans sits back 2" for the stock location.
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[travhous]

The starter is a bit of concern, this is the biggest issue I've had with sliding the motor/trans back torwads the firewall. The stock magnum 5.9 starter hit the steering box. I picked up Powemaster XS that is clockable and it does clear the box and idler. It's close and I believe I won't have any issues when the engine torques. Worst case scenario I do have wiggle room to move the engine to to right of center.
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Powermaster XS Torque Starters 9513

I did massage the firewall a bit where the transmission/engine bolts go. Everything cleaned just fine but I wanted some extra room to get fingers and and a wrench in there. I will smooth it out when body work starts.
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[travhous]

I did purchase a LA timing cover and water pump, but the snout of the pump was to long for my liking. I lost the ability to run a mechanical fuel pump by going with the Magnum set up, but it gave me another inch or so clearance for the radiator. The radiator I found would fit behind the support.(Griffin Universal Fit Radiators 1-55201-TS) I do want to cruise the truck and have a fairly decent built engine, cooling is going to be important. I went ahead and cut the front support out to the size of the radiator and will shroud it with two 10" fans pulling air. From what I understand pulling air if more efficient than pushing it, hencs putting the radiator in front of the fans. I will also be running a fan on a oil cooler I plan on running under the bed of the truck. Like I said I don't want any issues with cooling. Trying to keep away from the hacked up look I drilled out all the spot welds and cut the least amount of sheet metal as I couldn't. Once the radiator has found it's permit home I will take the remove metal and patch in back in, trying to keep that OEM look. This I'd the current project so, more pics will be coming.
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[travhous]

I haven't figured out how to edit my post yet, please disregard my typos.

[travhous]

A little about the engine, It's a 5.9 magnum out of a '98 truck. It has a balanced bottom end, flat top standard bore pistons. Fairly large street/strip cam from Hughes, aluminum heads running 10.7 to 1 compression. On paper it should produce 450hp/450torque. If anyone wants more specs I can provide more details.
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Trans is built 904 with 3500 stall.

As I mentioned before, I decided to keep the Magnum components on the front of the engine, mainly because of the shorter water pump. Originally I wanted to do a LA conversion, but this set up gives me that extra room and saved a few dollars as I bought a complete engine.

I did modified the serpintine belt configuration as I deleted the A/C and power steering from the donor. I couldn't find any delete kits online so here is what I came up with.
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First thing I did and for those who know the magnums was to cut the huge accessory bracket in half and get rid of the a/c mount. I used a sawzall and leveled it off with some heavy grit sandpaper. After running down to finer grits the final polishing of the aluminum was done with a headlight restoration kit.
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I had to add an additional idler pulley to get sufficient surface area on the water pump pulley. The mount comes from 03 to 07 Ford f-350, but needs to be machined down 10mm. I picked mine up off eBay (Continental Elite 500008).
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I also had to down size the stock idler and used an ACDelco 38006 to make room for the belt circling back. By mistake I ordered 6 rib idler pullies and just went ahead and used them. The OEM belt is 7 rib. The belt that worked for me was a Bando 6PK1765

This was a spacer I had laying around to mount the return line to the water pump.
ATTACH=CONFIG]21322[/ATTACH]

[geezer101]

You're doing a great job of the engine layout and fabrication. If you want to edit your posts, donate to the site. Everybody wins

[travhous]

Radiator is in place.
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Had to trim out the lower support to get it to fit. Radiator is from Griffin and measured 24" wide 16" tall and 3" deep.
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The center support is still be needed to support the hood latch and the spoiler, fabricated a new lower mount.
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The radiator cap will be unaccessible, so I will run a higher PSI cap on the radiator and add a inline filler to the top hose with the appropriate cap. I'm going to place a rubber strip ( old mud flap or something similar) under the radiator for a lower support. There are two upper supports that bolt into the upper support. I will line these with some adhesive back rubber for further cushioning.
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There is a aluminum shroud holding two 10" fans pulling air through the radiator. Power is coming in from a relay/fuse box I placed in the engine compartment. It also supplies power for the fuel pump, oil cooler fan and wire ran into the cabin for future use.
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It's a tight, but it all fits. I really wanted to run a fan shroud and keep the stock hood latch. Luckily I was able to accomplish that.

Here are a couple more pictures of the engine bay. Almost there, still need to build the exhaust, hook up the fuel lines and make up a throttle cable and set up the kick down. The plan as of now, if all goes well with breaking in the engine, I will be taking down to speedway. After that the truck will be disassembled all the way down to the frame and body work will start.
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[claych]

Rep added !!!
Excellent work, THX for taking the time to post & pic.

[geezer101]

Like it was meant to be in there from day 1. If you didn't know any better you'd think you were looking at the engine bay of a full size truck

[travhous]

Not much to update on the build. I pulled the engine to finish up welding the motor mounts and radiator support. I then decided to start rebuilding the front suspension so when I drop the engine back in I can get a feel for ride height. Im just about ready to reassemble the left side. Something I was taught back when I sixteen on doing drum brakes always do one side at a time so you can use the other for reference. This is how I've taken the approach here. I have the service manual and my 84 mighty max also, but it's much simpler to just glance at the other side of the truck if I'm questioning fitment.

All bushing, joints and tie rods are being replaced with Moog components, always had good luck with them. I wanted to stay with rubber bushings up front to keep decent ride quality, the rear will be energy suspension in hopes of controlling wheel hop amongst other things.

I am replacing the stock coil springs with Moog's heavy duty 2278s they have one more additional coil and the coil diameter is around 1/16 larger. Spring height and diameter look to be the exact same. My stock coils have had a 1/2 coil removed but, here's a picture for comparison, they arrived black and I added some blue paint.
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I will be changing thing up down the road with drop spindles and gen 2 brakes. Does anyone know if the upper control arms from gen 1 and 2 are interchangeable? I like the idea of having rubber bushing in the upper control arm. So, as things are now this is what it looks like.

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[geezer101]

AFAIK the geometry of the Gen 2 control arms are identical to Gen 1's as you can swap steering hubs and brake assemblies without screwing anything up. The UCA pivot shafts may be different in design but that's about it (there are different part numbers and some members have run into a situation where they've bought them and they didn't fit)

[travhous]

The UCA pivot shafts may be different in design but that's about it

For some reason I was thinking the 2nd gen pivot shafts road inside rubber bushings. I just looked up the schematics and they appear to be the same as the first gen. Don't know why I thought that. Hmmm

[pennyman1]

as Geezer said there are 2 types of ucas - 1 with metal bushings and one with rubber. Never figured out which ones had which arms. To save you the hassle of repeatedly replacing lca bushings, use urethane - rubber will egg shape in 5 - 10K miles, and the ride is not different with the urethane bushings

[geezer101]

as Geezer said there are 2 types of ucas - 1 with metal bushings and one with rubber. Never figured out which ones had which arms. To save you the hassle of repeatedly replacing lca bushings, use urethane - rubber will egg shape in 5 - 10K miles, and the ride is not different with the urethane bushings

And the front end/steering will feel like it has a more positive feedback. The rubber squishes around and the older the bushes are, the more it'll feel like a boat. Replacing as many of the suspension bushes with urethane is the way to go

[travhous]

I totally understand the benefits that come with urethane bushings, but my preference is the rubber as these trucks tide rough enough for me already. I've gotten 50,000 out of Moog rubber LCA bushings on 1st gens, the stock ones are another story. LCA bushings aren't bad to change is you have access to a interal spring compressor. Just drop the shock out compress the coil spring unbolt the LCA from the cross member and slide everything out the back hole. A little bit of silicone to install the new ones.

One side pretty much done.

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Not off to the right side.

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[geezer101]

Nice work. And thanks for posting all of these pics of your progress. Might motivate me somewhat once I've finished rebuilding the Hung Dog...

[travhous]

Slowly but surely, the little ram is coming along. Front suspension is fully rebuilt and done. The new heavy duty Moog springs seem to be supporting the extra weight of the 360. I just set the fully dressed engine and transmission with torque converter this morning so have to wait and see how the springs settle, but it looks to be at stock height.

Anyone know what the original 2.0 or 2.6 weighed? I weighed the full dressed 360 with 5.5 quarts of oil and it was 488 lbs. Pictured below.
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Engine bay is all cleaned up waiting for the final insulation of it brand new 360.
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And finally and hopefully the final install.
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I brought this up earlier and thought I would talk about it again being it was one of my biggest struggles. Most of the V8 swaps I've seen they install a 904 transmission in the stock location and start building from there as I did also to start off with. It just bugged me look at the space behind the engine to the firewall and figured adding a few hundred pounds to the front I wanted that weight to be as far back as I could get it. Getting the starter to clear the steering box was the biggest obstacle. After moving the transmission back 2" from the stock location I ended up offsetting the engine and transmission towards the passengers side a half inch from center. I figured this should help balance the truck as the fuel tank and battery are on the driver's side. Heres a picture of the clearance I have in the final install.
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If all goes well next post could be a start up video.

[geezer101]

Oh man that is a tight fit. Left hand drive vehicles have all kinds of different obstacles when doing a project build. I could easily bang a turbo'd 4G63 in my truck and not have to worry about an intake manifold hitting a brake booster or going V8 and not even think about the steering fouling something, but there's a bit of an art to planning around steering boxes and brakes etc working on a left hook. Top marks to you

[travhous]

Got everything bolted back on and the suspension is still holding the extra weight which is great. Will be installing 2" drop spindles and 2nd gen brakes, blocks in the rear for now. At some point I will be getting a custom built rear axle and building custom suspension.

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Radiator with trans cooler from the donor truck that provided the 360.

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Everything fits!!! The hood even closed with a 1/4" clearance from the air cleaner. Building the exhaust is next.

[xboxrox]

You're doing the kinds of things I would do if I had time, money & a garage; I really enjoy seeing your work perfection... Will your truck be a racer, trailer queen or daily driver..? If it smokes modern vehicles, will it be called a sleeper..? he, he, he...

travhous, when your truck build is finished; I hope you might get featured on an episode of Jay Leno's Garage... He seems to have a special liking for Japanese vehicles too...

[travhous]

She's alive, things are about to get rowdy!!!https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0HHkT2yOk9M
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kltk1Uq_ZJ0

[geezer101]

Ah niiiice. Audible and visual art combined - geezer approves So, how does it roll?