Cummins Turbo Diesel: 1991 Dodge Ram 2500
Dodge rocked the truck market in 1989, partnering with big rig engine maker Cummins to fit a long-haul trucker style turbo diesel engine in its Dodge Ram pickups. This 1991 Dodge Ram 2500 in Logan, Utah presents as a highly original super-clean and “great” running specimen with the 12 valve Cummins engine, four-wheel drive, and five speed manual gearbox. If you want a first-generation Cummins Ram, don’t miss the auction here on eBay where one click of Buy It Now and $25,995 seals the deal, or tempt the seller with Make offer.
With an engine picture conspicuously absent from the otherwise decent photos of today’s feature truck, I borrowed this shot from a different ’91 Cummins Ram highlighted here on Barnfinds by our own Jeff Lavery. Popping the hood of a Cummins Ram in the George H. W. Bush era revealed this signature boxed valve cover arrangement. Motorheads immediately knew this 359 cid (5.9 L) Cummins 6BT inline 6 cylinder was no ordinary powerplant. While its 160 HP didn’t break any records, the 400 lb⋅ft of torque topped the charts in the pickup market, summoning cowboys and cowgirls to the dealership like the triangle on a chuckwagon. I first saw one at a convenience store in rural Pennsylvania. As what looked like a 20-something female farmer tossed a sack of necessaries on the seat and eased away on the two-lane, that turbo whistle told everyone Dodge built a game-changer. Check out the cool factory brochure touting the Cummins engine here on lov2xlr8.
At a claimed 156,000 miles, the Cummins engine is barely broken in and the interior looks great. Check out those power windows! The aftermarket trailer brake and gooseneck ball in the bed suggest farm use, but the well-preserved exterior precludes the “rode hard and put away wet” abuse that rapid-ages serious work trucks. The listing comes with no backstory, but this ride may have served horse owners trailering Trakehners or other fine beasts mostly on-road, plus the occasional light farm duties.
After putting itself on the map with the chart-topping Cummins turbo, Dodge went a step further with the polarizing big rig styling of its second generation Ram in model year 1994. Thanks to Wikipedia for some details. I’ve never driven a Cummins Ram, but I’ve pulled a fifth wheel and trailered cars behind a 2017 Ford King Ranch with the 900+ lb-ft 6.7 Powerstroke turbodiesel. After traversing the hills of West Virginia with the PSD almost idling in overdrive, I suspect this Ram’s 400 lb-ft of torque would do just fine for another 200,000 miles of trailering. How would you use this well-preserved first-gen Cummins Ram?
Comments
Another HUGE game changer in the pickup truck world. These came out during my hey-days as a big rigger. I knew a guy that bought one, and we all stood around the open hood muttering, “well shiver me timbers, a Cummings[sic] in a pickup?” No disrespect to Todd, but I’ve driven both PowerStroke and 5.9 Cummins, and the Cummins will eat the Ford for lunch.
The truck itself was nothing new, but the diesel was an instant hit, and everyone in an industrial or farm setting, had to have a Cummins, and Chrysler knew it. Pickup buyers found out what truckers knew for 50 years, Cummins was simply the best motor made. I know, a hefty claim, but of all the dozens and dozens of trucks I’ve driven commercially, I’d say conservatively, 90% were Cummins powered,( 9% Detroit, 1% Cat) and rarely, if ever, left me stranded. All 3 of my semis had Cummins motors and I swear by them. Great find, but with no bids, again, wishful thinking on the price. See what’s happening folks? The awesome LandCruiser, this, and no takers, perhaps the tide has begun change to more plausible prices. People that may be interested in trucks like this apparently just don’t have $25grand to pixx away on an older vehicle.
Hey Howard. You know trucks so I have to ask, in what way would a stock ’91 12v out-work the stock 440 HP 980 lb-ft 6.7 PSD? If I had to swap one of the two into a ’72 Electra, though, I’d pick the Cummins every time. That PSD takes up the whole F250 engine compartment. Kind of apples and oranges but last time I looked around you could get a plain Jane 6.7 PSD work truck for $15k or so, making this classic a tough sell. I’m only comparing the Ford because I know them better. Thanks for your comments as always! -Todd
Hi Todd, thanks for the shout. Geomechs is the “go-to” guy on that subject. My gripe with the 7.3 was it was a glorified 6.9 IH school bus motor, that was okay for a school bus or IH straight truck, but fell short in any commercial application. The PowerStroke turbo was a plus, but going back through history, “6 in a row, makes ‘er go”. All about torque.
6 in a row.. ready to tow 🪝🛻
12v will never out work 6.7 ps . Oh yeah, you can build it up but then do the same with the other. The 12v will get better mpg. I have friends that have both. They all have problems. My son is a diesel tech. (Much more than a mech). He trouble shoots for diesel mechanics all around the world. And his knowledge chooses the 7.3 to toy with and drive. I was falsely pushed into a in- line 6 “all about the torque “. Crap, had trouble pulling the hills with all my camping gear. V-8 has more even power on every revolution.
These diesels run for three to five hundred thousand miles, that’s a lot of shifting and down shifting!
Here here, Howard! Right on the nose all the way around. My kid brother had a big block GMC truck when we got our Cummins 6spd. We’d been out to a local reservoir and wer breaking camp when he asked if we could take his 5th wheelTitanium motorhome back to their place as his boy brought his boat out but had to leave suddenly. No problem! As we left, climbing a 4 mile 6% grade we passed him pulling his boat..
Being a Bowtie boy he’d had a Duramax the minute they came out.
Very nice truck here but with a stick it’ll most likely be a more select group (read:smaller) it appeals to.
I can respect the power needed on a farm or work truck, but it seems every suburban good ol’boy seems to think they need a deisel engine. For the rest of us on the road they often are loud and smelly. I swear, pick up types seem to go for illegal loud after market exhausts even more than Harley owners do. I wish the cops would enforce the noise laws as they should, as they once did. Also, the cost of deisel is much higher than gasoline. I would think that would make at least a few to reconsider buying one like this, but it does not appear to be the case.
I before e except after c!
25k for a ’91 Cummins powered Dodge. Not unreasonable as I’ve seen them elsewhere garnering the 29k asking price.
156k miles. Just broken in and will do easily another 250k before you will have to do what in the industry as an “Inframe”
Inframe is a term we use when we leave the entire engine in the frame of the truck and remove all it’s inner working parts. Pistons, sleeves,liners,oil pump, water jacket, intake manifold, rods,mains,bearings and so on and replace them giving the engine a new lease on life for another 500k miles or more.
25k is a bargain for this beautiful red and silver I’m guessing in “Prospector” trim.
If I had the green it would be in my driveway
No liners in these cylinders..bored iron block and pistons….I have 423,000 on my 96…doesn’t use a drop of oil or coolant!
sweet looker and a great work horse. the only thing i would change would be the 5spd, only ‘cuz if 5 is good,6 is better. and dodge did put the 6 spd in these as well. price is up there but inline with what i see these selling for. even if it’s too rich for my blood.
now howard A. this youngun’s gotta do it again lol
that 12 valve 6bt will surely drag the 7.3 powerstroke all around the yard after dragging the early duramax around. i think it might be a wee bit harder for it to drag that twin turbo 6.7 psd around the yard. i’m using an ’08 as a service truck right now and that 6.7 is almost scary impressive especially after 300k of hard miles by the boss.
I’m not a gearhead but I’m still trying to figure out how 160 HP can equate to 400 lb⋅ft of torque.
I also think it’s weird that diesels don’t need sparkplugs. I guess compression and heat will do wonders.
Diesels are crazy.
simplicity lothar. horse power is work over time, whereas torque is an actual measure of strength.
hp = moving 550lbs 1ft in 1second.
so little teenie motor that spin real fast can hit a higher hp number than a slow spinning high torque motor.
they aren’t in the end stronger, because they are actually doing less at each rev, but doing way more revs per minute. and yes there are applications where that is very good.
Excellent explanation, eric22t.
eric22t-
Thanks. Yep, I guess I DO understand it in the simplest terms.
I’m saying that 160 HP and 400 lb. feet are SO far apart, as compared to gas-engine numbers like 350 cubic inches and 350 HP for example, that it seems like magic to get so much torque from a diesel. Know what I mean?
I appreciate you weighing in.
Keep on truckin’… w/ a diesel, that is.
thanks nevada and lothar.
lothar get into say and older motors manual for trucks.
while you are looking at the hp and torque specs look closer at the bore vs stroke ratios too. some gas motors make the same kind of numbers as the diesels. old dodge 413 truck motors and some of the truck 440s come to mind. or for you gm people a 366. and not to leave out the blue oval crowd, most any fe block. you’ll see where it comes from.
What a truck! Good looking, too. As Howard and others have said these were a game changer. Guys would come in on the coldest winter mornings and ask to see it start. No glow plugs. The prewarmer never failed. Talk about wowing the troops. Others came in with big c.i.d. trucks wanting to trade because they were tired of being passed going uphill. Remember that these were governed and don’t turn high RPM.
The new car preview in 1992 was all Dodge truck (except for the Daytona IROC). Magnum EFI gas engines and the new Intercooled Cummins. They had us take turns pulling a transfer sled across the Silverdome parking lot for 300′. The Cummins pulled it every time against the Powerstroke.
Diesels make it’s torque at lower rpm’s than gas engines, my 04′ with a 6 speed can cruise at 65 doing maybe 1600rpm and get 20 mpg. When I go off road it will idle in 4th doing 20 mph.
I’ve never owned a diesel truck but I’ve owned several diesel passenger cars. Currently I have two Mercedes; one each daily drivers for me and my wife. Love them. Horsepower is for bragging but you drive torque. Diesels make torque at relatively low rpms. Better fuel efficiency than an equivalent gas engine. I already have an old Dodge gas pickup that I use occasionally for truck like things. So I really don’t need this one. But I’d like to have it. Getting harder to find these 12v Dodges in this good of condition and only 156000 miles. So I think that the asking price is in the ballpark in today’s market. I also like the manual transmission in this but to be honest the automatic would probably be more suitable in the long run considering my vintage. Another nice BF find. Thanks.
Lost track of the number of Dodge-Cummins trucks that were out west. These trucks rewrote the story on Dodge, which always played Second Fiddle to GM and Ford. Nothing wrong with the product; that just seemed to be the way it was. Then enter the Cummins engine and nothing would ever be the same again. And then came the age old competition: “Who’s going to arrive at the rodeo first?” Or “Who’s first at the campground?” Suddenly the owners wanted so much power that their horse trailer or 34 foot camper was flapping in the wind behind them.
That’s when working in the repair business was no longer fun. The trucks were supposed to pull Beartooth Pass with an 8 horse trailer, high gear, 80 mph. Of course they were also supposed to get 20 mpg in the process.
Unrealistic expectations was the new term for mechanics. And it caused a lot of good repairmen to lock up their toolboxes and drive taxis. Okay, some of us drove trucks while others took up hairdressing. Then there were some of us who couldn’t leave it alone.
We turned them up and turned them down. We endured insults and put up with guys accusing us of being left wing extremists (our kids can be so mean; we were right wing extremists).
But we dusted ourselves off and did it again. We swore we’d keep at it until we learned how to actually fix these things. Give me another ten years and I might actually learn it.
Oh yes, this truck. Nice survivor! Good for a lot of work yet. I would make sure that the updates were done to the injection pump. You can safely crank up the fuel to 180 hp. More than that will turn the inside of the pump into another jagged piece of modern sculpture. The engine itself will take 300 hp before #5 and #6 pistons all but evaporate.
You’re more than right about being second fiddle. Was still working at GMPG for light truck in 1990 when a friend brought his new Dodge-Cummins to the house for a test drive. This thing was mind blowing. Effortless power and acceleration feeling like a big block gasser and nothing like the 6.2 Detroit. Come Monday morning I saw a C/K development engineer in the hallway and began to ask when we would have something similar. Before I could finish my sentence he stopped me to assure me that in five years Dodge wouldn’t even be around any more. That was the attitude and this is now a Cinderella story.
I worked for GM back in the day. I liked the product but their light Diesel engine just wasn’t quite the standard of the world. I have no doubt that trucks like this made a few GM executives sweat…
I had a 1996 SLT with a 12 valve and auto. I really liked that truck until the warm weather came and my neighbors started gently commenting on the noise at idle. Driving it in the city was an issue because the engine noise would reflect off of buildings, making it hard to drive with the windows down. Besides the noise, everything about that truck was great. My plan had been to do a veg-oil conversion, I ended up selling the truck to keep the peace.
My bro in law has one sitting in his yard with around 300,000 on it, still runs good but the truck is falling apart around it. Best engine in the worst built truck. I’ve tried to talk him out of it, but he won’t sell, going to let it rot into the ground. I could use it for a trailer tower for my big tractor and equipment. Wouldn’t want a diesel for every day use, fuel is more expensive than premium gas anymore.
This diesel will go 1,000,000 miles on the highway towing a camper or 2. But the great thing about this diesel is that while at 70mph you may get 17-19 mpg and at 55-60 mph you can get 24+ – mpg. That’s what my friends have found !
As a diesel fuel consumer l would like to know the real reason why it has become so much more expensive than gasoline. Everyone is affected by the steep cost of diesel considering that just about everything we consume was delivered by diesel vehicles. Add farm and construction equipment using diesel. The higher cost gets baked into what we pay at the retail end. When I bought my first diesel car at the turn of the century (twenty first for those who might think I’m older than I really am, lol); diesel was cheaper than gasoline. When low sulfur became the mandate, the price of diesel was more in parity to gasoline. From that point the price kept creeping upward. Why? The last time I was in Europe (Ireland) diesel;as it has always been, is actually cheaper than petrol. Cheaper being a bit of an oxymoron as Europeans pay a ton more for fuel than we do. I know that diesel is taxed more by the US government but conversely diesel is cheaper than gasoline to produce. I’m not buying the Ukraine BS anymore. If any Barn Finds readers can enlighten me; I’d appreciate it.
There are several excuses that can be used. The most basic is that there is a tad more gasoline in a barrel of crude than diesel. However diesel is one of the first products to come out when the crude is refined. So that leaves politics and the misguided few who are seeking nothing more than re-election. That’s as political as I will get on this page…
You are correct on the by-product but you would think that fuel would be less in the states that not only pump it out of the ground but refine it too ! I was told that diesel was not produced in Wyoming ?? Really ? I find that had to believe ! They just use it as kerosene or oil ? It still cost more in Wyoming then many other states. Then you hit poorer states like Tennessee and had and diesel could be $1 less a gal. Well Wyoming people for the most part aren’t what I’d call wealthy except those driving prices n property values up around Jackson! I think because diesels require less maintenance and last 2-5x longer that’s much of the reason behind it. And of course taxes. Government can raise taxes on everybody by just raising taxes on diesel ! Yup. We ALL pay for it ! There is not a tax that has Not been robbed from its sole purpose to spend on something else !
Few reasons diesel got so exspensive. Politics & taxs is a small part, but demand got a lot greater with the diesel wars, trucking industry growing & growing. But the #1 reason is the tree huggers. The process to get the sulfur out drove the price up.
Great truck, little much for me unless you are a huge fan of it. Chevy guy, but currently have a 14 Cummins deleted with 45k on it. Went Dodge cause last ones still to offer 6spd manual
Also still have my 04 Durmax 6sp man with 39k on it
2000’s diesel wars truck are the ones to get & keep. Big power, no emissons and great MPG, except Ford, run from that nightmare
The new Ford 6.7 is a good runner, only took 15yrs to figure it out again
This truck will be a great worker, and keep 60k in your pocket over a new one. Good luck to the new owner
To I’ve had my share of problems with my old Ford 7.3. Mostly the cam / crank sensor. Went thru lots of them. They all have their issues. You don’t have enough miles on your Chevy to realize those problems yet. Duramax uses Bosch injectors . Bosch has one spec for fuel filter while gm has their own spec. You’ll find out when you get 100,000 +miles on it.
There’s alot of good stuff being said about the longevity of the engine here, and perhaps the rest of the drivetrain would also go a half million miles. But. You still have the rest of the truck. Awhile ago I had a well cared for, low mileage ’91 half ton with what I believe to be the same body and interior, and long story short, it didn’t hold up well, especially the interior. I guess alot of people who opt for the Cummins might not care much if the window switches stop operating, the bench seat driver’s corner sags so one cheek is always lower than the other, and the headliner droops, but I did. Then there’s the cheapest looking gauge cluster that makes the 80’s and early 90’s squarebody Chevy and GMC clusters look sophisticated, appealing and modern. And finally you’re paying around $25k for the tiniest of steering wheels that would be more fitting on a ride at Disneyland. Chrysler should have up-designed the truck to match the legendary fortitude of the engine. What they put out was pure irony, an awesome, bulletproof motor in a lackluster truck.
A friend down up at work with one of the first Cummins. A week later he was driving something else. Yup, Cummins come apart ! We all laughed. New engine and a month later that one came apart. Funny how they can build stuff for big rigs but always run into trouble when they put them in a truck for the average working person.