Curious, I am looking at buying another Dodge truck, unfortunately not a slant six.

Anyway the guy is up their in age, says he has 5 prototype slant six turbo diesels, the engines are at his home in M.I. He says Chrysler never made them to production but has had at least one of them run and says it ran like the wind.

What can someone tell me about these. I am very interested.

There were such things although it's hard to believe that one person has five of them. There is information about it in the Weertman papers that were published in the Slant Six News. I was contacted once by a ex-Chrysler employee in Texas that had one to sell but he wanted quite a bit of money for it and no one I contacted was interested. Apparently the diesel has a 7 main bearing crank and other features that make it quite different from production slants. It never got beyond the engineering stage but I believe some were actually installed in trucks for testing. There are also some factory turbo charged slants around that never made it to production.

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If you didn't drive it there, it's not a street car.

It would be nice to see a picture of his stash!!

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

It would be really nice to see lots of pictures of his stash!

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"When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it." - Pointy-haired Boss

1964 Valiant V200, 225/Pushbutton 904
BBD, CAI, HEI, LBP, AC, AM/FM/USB, EIEIO

Any information and pictures you can get would be greatly appreciated.

The fellow told me that they were supposed be destroyed, had gone to a particular salvage yard but someone there recognized them for something worth saving. Evidently he gave 1500 and change for all 5.

He says he plans to keep one and use it but admits that cause of age it may never happen.

He has a truck that looks pretty clean from what pictures I have but zero paperwork, evidently he deals alot with vehicles that have gone to salvage yards, says he had a title at one point in someone elses name but has even lost that. After thinking about it more I am less interested in the truck cause of the hassle.

I may still make the hours drive North of here over the weekend to still meet with him and talk about the diesels.

He does not do the internet so I doubt pictures would be avail when he does head home back to Michigan.

Thanks for the info, anything else you can add to this might give me more leverage in getting more info from him.

If I show a genuine interest and have some sort of facts/documentation to back my interest up than it would only help me to get closer to what he has.

I am not a flipper, do not sell my things and enjoy the history.

I believe he has them, he sounds like he in his 70s or 80s and is ( or was ) heavily into diesels, diesel rabbits, trucks and such.

I have no reason not to believe what he told me and believe in giving the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

We need to get a diesel for the Slant Six Museum! Just dreaming about the museum. It would be good to have a collection of ordinary vehicles like Valants and Darts, A100a, and Sweptine trucks, with some fork lifts and industrial equipment. Store the collection in pole barns. Stuff that matters. Forget the Hemi 'Cudas, for me at least that's the way it is.

That era wasn't a good time for diesels, when turbos weren't yet common in automobile diesels. The Mercedes OM diesels still has a good name from that time. I sometimes consider an OM 617 for a 1st gen Dakota swap. Slow, but as dependable as a Slant Six - probably slower and even more dependable, and can burn waste oil.

Too bad the Slant Six diesel didn't see production. It might have brought in the Cummins diesel a few years earlier.

I talked with fellow again last night, apparently he owns the only two 85/86 Ford ( sumpthin or other...big car ) diesel vehicles in which BMW supplied the engines for.

Apparently Ford had a deal with BMW but something fell thru for whatever reason, my memory isnt so good.

He told me the slants had 4 bolt mains which I thought was interesting.

Can you tell me more about the slant museum, ( was that wishful thinking ? )

The Slant Museum is wishful thinking. As I've traveled around I find that there are many private collections put together by farmers and small town people without great resources. Someone might have a collection of International Harvester trucks of all sizes, or lawn mowers.

I wonder why Chrysler dropped the Slant Six diesel project? Back in the late '30s Chrysler developed a 413 diesel six for its new trucks. 1938 was the 10 year anniversary of the Dodge truck division(previously built by Graham). Dodge opened a new truck plant north of Detroit and installed the in house diesel in its heavy duty trucks, but didn't heavily promote them. Eventually Dodge began a relationship with Cummins. Those early Chrysler branded diesels are very rare today, maybe ten in existence. In the early years there were not many retail distributors of diesel fuel on the open roads of the US, but fuel oil was so cheap that a diesel electric locomotive could go from Chicago to Denver on what would be pocket change today.

I assume that the reputation of the GM diesels probably wasn't yet widely known when the Slant Six diesel program was canceled. Gasoline prices were high in those years, but I think buyers accepted the 2.2 liter four cylinders rather than looked to diesels. A successful diesel slant six might have been the impetus to redesign the gasoline version and extend the production of rear drive passenger vehicles.

I pulled out my old copies of Slant 6 News to see what it said about the diesel. Issue #51, page 21 talks about 2 projects, a NA engine was developed in 1975 with some prototypes tested but it doesn't sound like a very serious attempt. In 1980 the turbo was added and the seven main bearing crank. It sounds like this was a more serious program with quite a few engines tested on dynos and in trucks. They pulled the plug on it in 1983 about the time the short comings of the GM passenger car diesels became known. There are a couple of cutaway drawings but no pictures in this article. I think there might have been a more detailed write up on the slant 6 diesel in one of the Mopar magazines, probably Mopar Action. I believe I have see a picture of the engine installed in a truck at some time.

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If you didn't drive it there, it's not a street car.

It would have been almost the displacement of a 4BT, but I doubt if it was as heavy as the industrial Cummins. The seven main bearing crankshaft probably was as much to do with reducing vibration and noise as strength. I think it must have weighed more like the Mercedes automobile diesels, otherwise it would only be good for trucks. Even the best of the well regarded for the time OM617 3.0 liter diesels only made about 125 horsepower. The GM Olds diesel problems were unfortunate as some people are still running them, most of the problems could have been overcome, if not for some bad choices in cost cutting. By 2020 most new gasoline engines will closely resemble high speed diesels

Ford used BMW diesels in more than two cars - I've seen a Mk VII with the BMW diesel option in a junkyard. Could be there was some other application (Crown Vics, maybe?) that never made it to production.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

Crown Vics yes I believe that is what he says to have two of. I am planning on meeting the guy tomm. hoping for more info

Went out and talked with guy yesterday, talk about being in the middle of no-where, GPS did not work, cellphone had no signal, his wife wasnt even sure where they lived cause she told me to turn down the wrong road putting me miles away from where I needed to be.

I believe the guy wants to sell them but like anyone else wants to see how much of a demand there is for them and get a good price.

Whats a good price I dont know. Is 500 a good price? Maybe 1000. Might be 200 bucks would buy one, I have no idea, I mentioned that there were others involved/interested in these engines, I told him that I would like to give his phone # to a few, he is very eager to talk with anyone about these diesels, he is really into these diesels and is a big time car/truck guy and says he has nothing better to do but talk with other guys on phone about these things.


No internet though.


He told me that 4 out of the 5 are complete or rather 4 complete could be made out of the 5, he said one of them had all sorts of ports made and assumed it was for testing purposes possibly cooling?

I want one for my truck or another project I pick up eventually, he wants one for some un-known project he may dicker around with in the future that only leaves two complete ( ? ) ( didnt sound like he was married to having one for himself ) engines.

More than two of you have sent me P.M showing an interest in the engines, I will put you two in touch with the fellow once I find out how legit this whole deal is.

He is going back home next week, he told me he would mail me pictures, I believe he will, wouldnt even take my offer of me sending him a digital camera, said it was no problem and he would take care of it. Migt be several weeks before I see any pictures, he is prob. 80 plus, moves around like a young man but he has no reason to be in a rush at his age.

He comes down every year and we mildly discussed his bringing them down here next year when he returns so that would be good for me.

When I know more I will mention it, I will put you guys in direct contact with the guy, I am not a middle man type guy. I do not want to give his info out at this point cause Im not going to stand the chance of losing the one I would like to have because of some underhandedness by someone else.

Can someone please scan and post the article mentioned ( Weertman papers that were published in the Slant Six News) above about theses engines. I feel if I had better knowledge of them than I would have a better chance of sounding intelligent on the subject when we speak to one another. Thanks