Posted by David N. Lundstrom on Friday, May 03, 2002 at 2:43PM :
In Reply to: Re: Totally off topic-----GM diesel swap to GM gasoline posted by Jonas on Friday, May 03, 2002 at 12:50PM :
The engine is pressurizing the cooling system and using a lot of coolant, producing white smoke out the left exhaust. Best case scenario it is a bad head gasket and more likely, it is a cracked head. I am going with the 350 because I am familiar with it and can work on it easily. The diesel gets pretty good milage 15-18, but is pretty underpowered.
I drove a 3/4 ton extended cab 4x4 with a 6.5L turbo for awhile and unloaded it was awesome, tons of power and easy to drive. Hook a 16 ft. stock trailer on it, filled with cows, and it would fall flat on it's face. No power, constant shifting on hills, no better than the 350 powered truck it replaced. If I were you, if you replace your 350 with anything, go big block gasoline. Preferabley Vortec, drove one of those in a 1 ton for a while, awesome power, the 5-7 mpg got a bit old, however.
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