5.9 vs 5.3

GreenTJ

GreenTJ

I Break Stuff
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Jan 4, 2017
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Ladysmith, VA, United States
Was going to wait till summer to do a motor swap a gm 5.3 but i just ran across a Dodge Durango with the 5.9 for a donor (500 bucks) and ive been reading about the easy of dropping it in..now i know there is a few people on the site that have done the LS swap and i know all the benefits of sticking to the Chevy powerplant but has anyone done the 5.9 swap? do you regret it? pro vs con?..would you recommend it?
i dont need tons of power and torque,id be happy with 280-300 hp with around the same in torque which shouldn't be to terribly hard to achieve with the 5.9 i just want to build once and would hate to drop a mopar in and regret not just spending the extra and going LS
 
thats what im gathering as well,its almost a strait swap,,all the way down to similar ecu,after pricing all the parts with donor vehicle and doing the labor ourselves im under 2500
 
I know that @Stinger (who has a V8 swap as well) probably has a bunch of knowledge about this as well. He'll chime in shortly (if his house is still in one piece from all the snow).
 
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Chris said:
I know that @Stinger (who has a V8 swap as well) probably has a bunch of knowledge about this as well. He'll chime in shortly (if his house is still in one piece from all the snow).
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Buried but in one piece.
I couldn't find a decent low mileage hemi which is what I wanted because of the factors you mention for a decent price.
I found my 6.0 with 24,000 miles did my swap using Novak conversion parts and am very happy with the outcome.
Go with the 5.9 if the price is right. Make sure the engine is good before buying. Are you using the tranny that is on the engine now? Would simplify things.
 
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yeah,was hoping so would love to ditch the 3 speed..if itll mate to the TC id like to just pull the motor and trans and slide it into the heep,along with the ecu, and a new set of headers,do you recall if you had to change out the steering box or did that stay?
 
GreenTJ said:
yeah,was hoping so would love to ditch the 3 speed..if itll mate to the TC id like to just pull the motor and trans and slide it into the heep,along with the ecu, and a new set of headers,do you recall if you had to change out the steering box or did that stay?
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I didn't change steering box. I did have to notch the frame for the power steering pump. But remember I run a Chevy.
Advance Adapters can help with any tc/tranny needs!
 
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X2 on Advance Adapters. I checked those guys out and they have basically everything you need to make the conversion as painless as possible.
 
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I had to change the input shaft on my AtlasII to match up with my 6L90 tranny. Yup. They had the new shaft and instruction on how to do it. Made it pretty painless. When you call ask for Vic Carrol. He is super to work with.
 
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Jerry Bransford said:
It's my impression the Dodge 5.9 is a better/easier swap. @mrblaine has done this conversion, maybe he can confirm or deny that impression.
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I have not done the 5.9. I have done the LS into a rig I don't own, I've worked on several I don't own and after dealing with the mess that is an LS swap and my particular need for up-travel that isn't limited by the oil pan on a motor, I won't ever swap an LS into my personal rig nor will I swap one into a higher performance offroad rig.

If you desire a largish HP front axle, you're going to spend some serious coin getting it wide enough to keep the pinion off of the corner of the block so your up-travel isn't limited by the massive interference there. And that is with us cutting up the Novak mounts, saving only the pieces that bolted to the motor and remaking the frame mounts to move the motor over to the passenger side and back. Even that wasn't enough so we're building a wider front axle and going to coil overs so we can slide the pumpkin towards the driver knuckle as far as possible.

I had a gent here with a 5.9 in a Brute conversion trying to get me to build him some suspension. After the installer of the engine putting it only where it benefitted the routing of the exhaust on both sides, I declined to touch it.

There is another one I work on quite often that I've done the back half of a mid arm conversion on and we can't touch the front nor can we install a HP front. (I tried and had to take it out and swap the LP 44 back in) A stock width Currie HP 9" only has 3" of up-travel before it slams into the motor.

The biggest mistake I see is folks concentrating on getting the swap just in and working with little regard for all the little things that make it wholly successful and not a compromise of the whole rig just to get a bigger motor.
 
Oh, maybe it was just a Jeep with a 5.3 where you said the owner wasn't happy with its performance and wished he had installed the 5.9.
 
mrblaine said:
I have not done the 5.9. I have done the LS into a rig I don't own, I've worked on several I don't own and after dealing with the mess that is an LS swap and my particular need for up-travel that isn't limited by the oil pan on a motor, I won't ever swap an LS into my personal rig nor will I swap one into a higher performance offroad rig.

If you desire a largish HP front axle, you're going to spend some serious coin getting it wide enough to keep the pinion off of the corner of the block so your up-travel isn't limited by the massive interference there. And that is with us cutting up the Novak mounts, saving only the pieces that bolted to the motor and remaking the frame mounts to move the motor over to the passenger side and back. Even that wasn't enough so we're building a wider front axle and going to coil overs so we can slide the pumpkin towards the driver knuckle as far as possible.

I had a gent here with a 5.9 in a Brute conversion trying to get me to build him some suspension. After the installer of the engine putting it only where it benefitted the routing of the exhaust on both sides, I declined to touch it.

There is another one I work on quite often that I've done the back half of a mid arm conversion on and we can't touch the front nor can we install a HP front. (I tried and had to take it out and swap the LP 44 back in) A stock width Currie HP 9" only has 3" of up-travel before it slams into the motor.

The biggest mistake I see is folks concentrating on getting the swap just in and working with little regard for all the little things that make it wholly successful and not a compromise of the whole rig just to get a bigger motor.
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Thank you for all the info!! I'm leaning more and more to the 5.9. Ive already come to the acceptance that I'm going to have to rebuild part of the front suspension set up for the build and most likely rip all the exhaust..
 
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GreenTJ said:
Thank you for all the info!! I'm leaning more and more to the 5.9. Ive already come to the acceptance that I'm going to have to rebuild part of the front suspension set up for the build and most likely rip all the exhaust..
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I still love mine. I don't run Happy (Johnson) Valley. I do run some rugged stuff in Moab and it worked just fine. Up here in the mudding/sandy Northwest it is even better. We will see if I ever have to upgrade the front axle just how happy I will be then. However I have been looking into stuff like remote oil reservoir because I think I had a bit of oil starvation on a VERY steep downhill.
But like I said when I started replying, I was looking at a hemi but cold not find one that would work with my budget.
I would got some second opinions from the guys at Novak and Advanced Adapter before making a final decision.
 
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