Turbo 616 powered Astro Van build

JB3

Superturbo

1,795

12-23-2010, 12:06 PM #33

(12-21-2010, 02:53 PM)Diesel-Wiking awesome project!

thanks!

(12-21-2010, 02:58 PM)ben2go The wife wants a van and I found a pristine 1990-92 Astro conversion van for $1100.I should consider buying it and doing a swap in it.The guy can't sell the van because it's a 4 cylinder and it's a brownish gold color.My Cavalier is the same color so I can over look that,but that shitty 2.5L gasser has gotta go.If it had a factory 2.8 or 4.3 conversion,it would have been gone.

you should! We'd both get done faster if we were racing eachother! Big Grin

I ran into the 20 year DOT/EPA issues though, at least in this area, I ended up selling the 94 to a junkyard and grabbing another one, an 89, which got me around any potential issues with that. You should see if there are any state or federal issues in your area with passing emissions. For instance, the 94 would have had to go through an emissions test in CT, a possible registry state for it, and I was going to have serious problems with a diesel in it actually legally driving around. Just a potential PITA I decided was not worth dealing with, so found the 89, which is actually in much better condition.

got the adapter clutch and starter and here are some comparison pics-

It will be using an 11 inch Chevy K1500 clutch, and a 99 Ford 5.0 starter. Starter is WAY smaller, ill be interested to see how it performs-
starters-

clutch and flywheel comparisons, obviously the K1500 clutch is much larger, although overall weights between the two seem to be pretty close-

also test fitted the custom manifolds, Rudolf_Diesel did an awesome job on this exhaust, only a little filing on the stud holes on both manifolds is needed to make it fit almost perfectly. As it stands, all bolts go in with the exception of one and another being a hair tight-
They will come off and be painted with the adapter plate on final assembly-

The feared heat interference with the starter solenoid being too close to the turbo is a non issue with this ford starter being so small and pointing in the other direction. Unfortunately, the turbo is rusted fast to its original manifold, so I could not test fit it on the custom manifolds at the moment, but I put it on on the original manifold and its not going to be a problem-

Heres where the plate for the remote oil filter will need to fit-

This post was last modified: 12-23-2010, 12:22 PM by JB3.

1974 240D 617 turbo swap, W201 5-speed, in the works project
1983 240D 616 stock, DD
1989 Chevy Astro, 617 turbo swap, T5 5-speed, 4.56 diff, work van