What's up Y'all,
First, thanks to the DIY Hemi guys for putting this site together and sharing information for us weirdo's who dare to be different ( ya know, NOT LS swapping the world, lol )
I wanted to start a thread on my build for two reasons. One being to document my progress and hopefully help keep me motivated and maybe make me feel obligated to finish this thing. Second is to hopefully expand the available information, options, challenges, etc on doing a hemi swap. Honestly, this is also probably more for my benefit to just keep all the information organized and applicable to my build in one spot, but hopefully it will help others out as well.
So let's lay out the foundation of this build. Starting with a fairly clean 1985 D150 short bed with a factory 318 and auto trans. My goals for this truck are to have a nice cruiser, street truck, and eventually run 10's in the quarter. I want to share an epiphany I had when setting my goals for the truck and I hope it helps others be honest with themselves if they find themselves in a similar situation with a project.
Ready for that epiphany? Simply put - don't get so wrapped up in your end goal that you can't get your project started and at least "operational". In my case, I went deep down the path of building a 10 second turbo truck. Picked up a BGE 6.4 long block with some issues for a great price, was "ready" to drop about $7-8K just to make the engine run and have forged internals, cam, blah blah blah. It would have been bada$$! Problem was, this would far exceed what I had originally intended to spend on this project as a whole, and would have only got me an engine that had the potential to run ( no engine management figured into the above prices ). Thankfully, I was able to sell the engine within 12 hours of posting it for what I paid for it and could start fresh with which direction I was going with this thing. That second chance led me to the realization that I already have enough expensive ( to me anyway ) hobbies and being a full time drag racer is just not an option due to time and money so reaching that goal of 10's would just have to come later down the road.
Bringing her home!
I'll add pics shortly and carry on with the thread in separate posts below.
Now we've mostly got a plan, and parts and pieces are starting to show up to get this thing together. I have yet to do anything at this point because I am still not sure on one thing. Engine management.
From what I can tell, we have a few options with varying costs and difficulties implementing.
1) Aftermarket standalone ECM. From what I can tell, Holley Terminator X would be, from my perspective, the "easiest" solution. Megasquirt also has an option as well. Problem is we're talking roughly $2K, give or take, for one of these.
2) Hemi Crate ECM Kit. Also relatively easy. Includes harness just like the aftermarket options above. Also $1,600 to $1,700 for the entire kit.
3) Use a factory ECM from a donor vehicle and utilize the factory harness. This should, in theory, be the cheapest option.
Here's where I'm looking for help from y'all. I would really like to keep the costs down in this area since I've spent a bit in other aspects of this build. I also like the idea of a "factory" tune for what will initially be a "factory" engine. My problem is, wrapping my head around what is actually going to be needed and will work in the later model, in my case 2017, engines and ECM's is getting me cross eyed. Can I simply purchase DIYHemi's crate ECM kit, do a little DIY wiring to the factory engine harness, and get this thing running? Remember, I'm running a truck engine, and the DIYHemi quickcrate ECM specifically calls out cars only on the options menu? Do I purchase an ECM from a wrecking yard or Ebay from the same type vehicle my engine came out of and send it to DIYHemi for unlock? Does this unlock also include a SKIM delete or is that an additional cost?
Any and all opinions on engine management would be appreciated. Looking forward to hearing others thoughts on this.
So now that we're back to square one, what to do? After spending far too many hours overthinking 5.7 vs 6.4 and trying to find the cheapest options for an eagle 5.7 or truck 6.4, I finally said screw it and picked up a 2017 Ram 1500 5.7 off Ebay ( currently waiting for it to show up ). I paid $2,650 for this with what I believe will be a complete engine harness attached as well as the alternator. Was this the cheapest option for a hemi swap? No, not at all. If you want to go cheap, find a complete running wrecked vehicle with a 5.7, pull the parts you want, sell off what you don't need, and you could end up with a free Hemi. I do not have the time, patience, or space for that. Additionally, I was adamant on an eagle Hemi. finding a fairly priced wrecked later model hemi powered vehicle was somewhat challenging which also led to my decision for just purchasing an engine that was as close to complete as possible and had the appropriate oil pan and timing cover for my needs. ( again, like mentioned above, do not get so wrapped up in doing things a specific way that you don't make progress on your project! )