It was a nice stay in South Africa, but it's time to go back to the Philippines. I might come back again, just not sure about when I'm gonna do it.

Big Cam, the engine, the legend

Today was a busy day, but working on a Cummins NTC350 is always a pleasure. It was mounted on a Ford Louisville bobtail with a 10-speed Eaton transmission. I'm not really skilled on how to shift gears in a big rig, but also maneuvered it in the lot. Had to replace its filters (air, oil and fuel) and to patch a leaky oil pan, which were the only items needing a major attention.

Just pulled a 5-cylinder VM Motori 3.1L engine out of a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Gotta be replaced with a freshly overhauled Isuzu 4BC2 for enhanced reliability. Altough lacks a turbocharger, one pulled out of a Komatsu engine is gonna be retrofitted into the Isuzu.

That was a busy week, the owner of that Lumina was really tired of feeding that V8 on petrol. Fuel efficiency increased with the 2.7L J2 replacing the 6.0L Chevy V8. If it couldn't keep 9kmpl on road traffic, now it does 12kmpl in city and around 14 on road. It was positively possible to keep the stock gauges and passive theft deterrent by converting mechanical input signal from the alternator pulley into electronic signal with emulators attached to the stock ECM so all the electronics work as they were supposed to do. Just the anti-lock brakes required some major work to get rid of the vacuum boost.

After disassembling a wrecked Kia Pregio yesterday, today is going to be a busy day. Even though I'm not really sure about the owner of a Chevrolet Lumina ute who claimed to be interested in the engine for a swap into his pickup, there's always a good demand for a recently-overhauled J2 engine anyway.

Isuzu C223 engines are nowadays pretty rare, altough a few ones can be still found in operating conditions. Well, now it's time to replace a timing belt, tensioner and pulleys of a C223 from a mobile electric power generator.

There was a long time since I messed with a petrol engine before. Replacing an ignition coil, spark cables and fitting a stator to replace the archaic distributor into a Ford 302W, but the good old 4-barrel carburator is going to be retained. The engine lays into the bay of a Mazda ambulance.

It's a very strange feeling to build a petrol engine for a bakkie originally diesel-powered, but that's what I'm gonna do right now. Just a few people can wholeheartedly tell they enjoy a Mazda R2 with its 64hp rating into a B2200, and even less ones would be confident to boost it when they want more power instead of trading it for something more powerful. Well, it was about time to get the tired unit out of a '93 Mazda overhauled after 20 years and some 600,000km of good services, but the owner turned out with a quite surprisingly idea to drop a Ford Cologne V6 with a freshly re-sleeved block, a pair of Weber 450cfm 2-bbl carburators with spring-activated 2nd stage instead of the vacuum-activated setup, and a distributorless electronic ignition. Crankcase breathers might be open instead of PCV-ported. I was expecting to just refurbish the old R2, but sometimes things go another way.

best engines for a vintage Ford full-size pickup repowering

American trucks have an unique style that is beloved by much people, but the engines are not the most fuel-saver ones. Having the engine replaced by a diesel unit may solve that matter, but finding the right engine for the vehicle is not so simple. Many options available, from 3-cylinder agricultural engines to V8 turbochargeds often larger than the petrol engine intended to be replaced.

Deutz 912w (indirect injection), 912 and 913 (direct injection) can be found in versions with 3, 4, 5 or 6 cylinders, with turbo available for the 4 and 6-cylinder units. These are still enjoyed because of the air cooling, saving space and weight from a radiator setup.

Perkins 4.203, 4.236 and 6.357 are old-school powerplants, but still well-known for a legendary reliability. On a sidenote, the 6.357 was designed to fit easily into the engine bay of any vehicle fitted with a stereotypical American V8 from the 50s, including passenger cars in spite of their tighter engine bays.

Mercedes-Benz has a wide variety, from the die-hard OM616 and its 5-cylinder OM617 version, which are still reasonable for the F-100/150, to many low-speed units which are still no overkill to the frame. OM904 is a good option for the F-250, still able to retain a honorable towing capacity.

From Nissan, TD-series and ZD-series are other options to consider. TD27 for the F-100/150, with the TD42 still able to move the F-250, benefitted from its size comparable to the MWM, a Brazilian engine which had been available for the '98-'05 RHD F-250 in Australia and Southern Africa. ZD30 can be found in naturally-aspirated and turbocharged versions, and in spite of its DOHC head it can fit easily even into tight spaces, making it easier to retain some comfort features such as a high-capacity aircon.

Isuzu is another strong player in the diesel field. Nearly any engine which was available for the NKR and NPR can be used in a Ford full-size pickup. Even the slow 4BA1, once the standard for jeepneys, or the 4JB1, are enought for the F-100/150, providing a satisfactory performance even for a brand-new F-150, and altough it's quite risky they also work into the F-250. If it can move an overloaded jeepney, might not be that hard to move the F-250 actually. Anyway, I would not recommend anything smaller than the 4BC2 for the F-250. 4HF1 is another great powerplant for a full-size Ford.

The Ford Fiera used an older carburator-fed version of the Endura-E 1.3 petrol engine that was used in the Ford Bantam bakkie, that also had the option for the Endura-D 1.8 diesel while the Fiera had an outsourced Isuzu C-240. Ford didn't invest so much on light diesel engines before as it does now. But a truck without a diesel engine can be at last a half-truck, not a real truck. Even an ego-hauler F-350 with a petrol V8 or that boat-anchor V10 that has less torque than nearly any 4-cylinder heavy-duty turbodiesels above 4-litre is less worth than a non-turboed Toyota Dyna.