A quote from a book entitled "Dodge Power Wagon History" by Monty Montgomery says...
"Dodge offered an optional diesel engine in its 1978 truck line. Sourced from
Mitsubishi Motors (a company which Chrysler owned an interest), the 243 cid inline six
produced a meager 100 hp and 165 lbs-ft of torque, which did not provide the
performance expected in a Power Wagon. Poor performance, noisy operation,
a long break-in period, and maintenance difficulties spelled the demise of this engine
at the end of 1978. Few have survived."

If you're looking to repower your rig, consider the Cummins 4BT. Tons of power,
economy, ease of parts locating, reliability and weighs about the same as a big block.

I'm also new to this forum but not new to this Dodge truck lineup.

There's been also some discussion over there at the other forum about these Mitsu-powered trucks:
http://www.dodgeforum.com/m_405321/tm.htm

I have one of these as well, it's a 1978 Dodge W150 4x4 stepside with 727. The truck has been turbocharged with a Schwitzer S2 turbo and I recently added an intercooler. Now, the truck is not a rocket yet, since I have not been able to find exploded view of the inline fuelpump or good solid instructions on how to tune more fuel. And when I dont have enough fuel for operation I'm also therefore lacking boost, now max boost is 11 psi, I plan to have around 22 psi. Can anyone help me with this?
Now, we do have diesel tuning shops here nearby that can do the job, but I really want to learn to do this myself.





That truck is not the only 4x4 Dodge that I have. I also have a 1961 Dodge Power Wagon Panel like this:

Photo courtesy of owner

And I also have a 1999 Dodge Ram 24V Cummins 2500 4x4 with auto and full options and leather.

Actually, the parts for the Mitsubishi engine are not so hard to find since the engine shares quite a lot of parts with nearly identical Toyota 2H engine. 

Sweet truck, Jari.  That's probably only the second pic I've seen of one.  Like MMM, I seriously dig the panel truck, too.  Were the Mitsu diesels equipped with hydro boost from the factory?  Those hydraulic lines look like factory hardware.

Well,
I really cannot tell you for a fact whether hydro's were equipped to these trucks as OEM. That unit has been added there alongside when the engine swap was made.

This truck is an original 360 4bbl car at least according to all the original stickers inside the engine compartment. Haven't cared that much to investigate VIN. All the hydraulic lines and everything fit just too well to have beeen hotrodded in. So I imagine all hydro-related parts along with the engine have been extracted from another truck and put into this one. Everything looks pretty much like OEM.

Mpg is about 20-25 with those tyres and fulltime 4wd and my right foot. And I floor it all the way to 4000rpm quite often, several times a day since that is my daily driver. And that is not highway mpg, my average speed has been around 40 mph.

The 1961 Panel is also my favourite of the bunch. Bodyshape is just awesome if I can say that about my own car.

Just sold my Gen. 1 1978 Dodge 4x4 pickup diesel with turbo and intercooler.

Funny thing was that it was a young woman who just had to have it ??
Life is funny sometimes.

sorry to unbury the dead post but i was redirected here by a google search on these engines. lol

while dropping the baby off at the sitters today i noticed a nice looking 78 1/2 ton 2wd manual transmission short bed adventurer in the drive way. noticed it originally because it is almost 100% rust free!!!! Noticed it even more as i was backing out of the drive and i glanced over at it again and on the fenders and tailgate it has some stickers you just dont see every day.

on the fenders and tailgate it says "diesel powered". wow, i had heard about them but never actually thought i would see one.

now for the reason of bringing up this topic. when we went back to get the baby i asked the sitter about it and the possibility of acquiring it. she said she wasnt sure as it was her husbands but that he could very well consider parting with it. she didnt seem to know a ton about it but did know the engine option was kind of rare and stated they had been having trouble locating a water pump for it.

so i told her to mention it when he got home and have him give me a call. i looked the truck over a bit more carefully before i left. there is a very very very small area of plain surface rust, maybe 1/2 inch wide by 7 inches long on the rear passenger side wheel well lip but that is all i could see on the whole truck and easily sanded out and painted.

all the glass looked solid and no obvious cracks, overall other than a bit of oxidation to the paint from sitting out side in the sun the paint looked good and solid. the seat is definitely worse for wear but the seat is a minor fix. only other obvious damage i saw was the front bumper had a crease right in the top center of it like someone had hooked a chain there to pull it. not a major problem.

so now i must ask, what kind of price would some of you consider decent for this truck. i know a similar truck in 4wd would go for about $1000-1500 here even with the water pump being bad. as of right now the water pump is the only thing that i know is mechanically wrong with it. i know it is somewhat rare, but being that it isnt a super popular engine nor a real sought after option i dont think that will or should effect the price.

also, if anyone has info on potentially turbocharging or other performance upgrades that can be done to this the info would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

eric

Slap a Turbo on that critter and i'm sure you could wake it up a bit    Even the little 4D56 2.5L Turbo Diesels (Mitsu-Itchy again) are cranking out 175 HP / 300 Ft-Lbs stock     Granted those numbers are for the newer Common Rail Intercooled version of the 4D56, mine's a much older Intercooled VE pump'd 4D56

I can't see why you couldn't squeeze 200 / 400 out of the 6 Cylinder with a couple tweaks and a turbo

Anybody happen to know what IP is on one of the 243 6-Banger things? if it's another VE pump it should be fairly decent to crank up.  My 41 is almost identical to the 44 in terms of internals and tweaks