slant 6 diesel?

anyone ever see a Chrysler slant 6 diesel? Did they never get past the experimental stage?

I saw some info a few years back. To many problems and not enough money. Just couldn't get it to work. Never saw one. Just remember reading about it.

I have a Hobart 3010G welder/generator that has a Chrysler industrial 225 slant 6 engine in it. When I bought the unit the guy I bought it from said he did some web searching on the engine and learned that Chrysler had experimented with this grade of engine to try and develop a diesel. Seems the blocks were cast a little heavier, the crankshafts and rods are forged and the head is a little different. Apparently the diesel experiments never panned out but the industrial version continued on till the end of production. One thing Chrysler did get right, they made a bullet proof engine indestructable with that industrial version. MPFI would have made an engine like this as near to perfect as any gas engine could be.

They had even more head gasket troubles than the /6 and 4-banger gassers already had. If they had the multi-layer-steel gaskets of today they might have worked.

The slant 6 was designed to be an open-deck cast aluminum unit with steel sleeves. The plan was to cast some in iron while they worked out the process to get the molten aluminum to flow in the molds. When they couldn't get it to flow properly (in the 60s) in the molds, they took the remainder, smoothed them out between the strengthening ribs, and cast them all with iron.

They also had diesel 2.2L and 2.5L 4-cylinder test mules in the early 80s as well, but again, head gasket technology wasn't up to snuff to keep the gas versions sealed, let alone the higher compression of the diesels.

The MLS gaskets that came about in the late 90s solved the problem of Chrysler's 4-cylinder head gasket problems. The aluminum head on the cast block expanded at different rates, causing them to "walk" on the gasket, tearing it up. In the MLS gaskets, the steel layers expand at different rates and "walk" on each other, minimizing the amount of "walk" each layer has on the next.

Chrysler also figured they were about 5 years away from a feasible turbine car, when congress decided the money would be better spent having NASA do the development work. We see where that got us, don't we?

Not to worry, Fiat will fix all...they been building diesels a very long time. :twisted:

I had the same optimism when Daimler bought them. The feds aren't going to let us have affordable diesels. They have been the hangup for a long time now.

(quoted from post at 16:27:31 09/16/12) Not to worry, Fiat will fix all...they been building diesels a very long time. :twisted:

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Fiat and Windows Vista!
The 225 was all but bullet-proof, but I've never seen a diesel version.
Hmmmmm.........

I messed around with slant 6"s for many years, both 170"s and 225"s. They held together well, got good gas mileage and were even fairly powerful for their displacement. But I never saw, or even read about a dieselized version.

The crankshaft might have been strong enough for diesel use, but the connecting rods would have needed to be lots stronger and obviously the pistons would have needed to be forged with a much higher compression ratio. I don"t know how much modification the head might have needed, but only 4 headbolts around each cylinder would certainly be a worry.

Over the years I had 2 head gaskets go bad on slant 6"s, one from a lower radiator hose popping and causing the engine to overheat. That caused the head to warp and need to be planed and get a valve job. That engine ran much stronger with higher compression! I never did figure out what caused the other head gasket to start leaking between 2 cylinders. The head seemed to be perfectly flat and I just replaced the gasket. It ran fine for a long time afterwards. But I would be concerned with the head gasket problem in a dieselized slant 6.

I still have a Duster with a 225 and have thought about the possibility of converting it to multiport fuel injection. I bet a lot of Jeep 4.0 parts could be used, including the computer. I have an aluminum intake manifold, which I think would be a whole lot easier to remachine for injectors than a cast iron one.

But would it be worth it to change over to MPFI? Probably not. I sure wish Chrysler had continued the Slant 6 into the MPFI era so there would be easily available parts. But they didn"t. It sure seemed to me that the 225 worked a lot better than the 3.9"s.

Yeah, a MPFI 225 is fun to think about, and so would a 170 screamer that would safely rev more than about 5500. Maybe someday!

I dont have fond memories of the slant 6.I did make money fixing the junk starters.My son had a 170 that lost its oil pressure.I found one with the top rings stuck.There may be one of those engines out in the barn,if I can find it its off to the junk yard.I shut the hood on the Valiant and smoke rolled. The torsion bar hood spring got out of its bracket and shorted to a 12 volt terminal.I cut the battery cable with an axe, should have let it burn.Fellow stopped in wanting to buy the back window, told him he had to take the whole car.