It’s hard not to be impressed by today’s diesel heavy-duty pickup trucks. Ram pushed its Cummins 6.7-liter turbo-six to 1,075 pound-feet of torque, and Ford and Chevrolet aren’t far behind. But you don’t need a massive engine with the ability to shift tectonic plates to get real work done.
YouTuber Robot Cantina swapped a 1.6-liter naturally-aspirated diesel four-cylinder engine from a 1985 Volkswagen Golf into a 1989 Chevy S-10, imbuing the compact pickup with a mighty 54 horsepower. The swap, including the installation of an adapter to allow the VW engine to mate with a five-speed manual transmission for the rear-wheel drive S-10, is covered in multiple videos on the channel. But here we get to see what it can do.
First, the bed was filled with approximately 300 pounds of a Chevy 350 engine block and other parts. Then the truck was hitched to a trailer carrying a lawn tractor. The rig weighed 4,140 pounds, which, subtracting the 2,520-pound weight of the truck itself, works out to 1,620 pounds of trailer and payload.
Acceleration was a bit slower at around-town speeds, but that’s not out of the ordinary when towing a heavy load for a given vehicle. The S-10 struggled a bit at speeds above 45 mph, as reflected by higher exhaust-gas temperature readings and molasses-like acceleration times. The zero to 60 mph time increased from 28.3 seconds to 34.8 seconds with just the payload, so the owner didn’t bother to try a run to 60 mph with the trailer. It took 48.1 seconds just to reach 55 mph (the speed limit on local roads) with the trailer, compared to 23.3 seconds unladen.
S6 E6. Can the 54 hp 1.6L VW diesel powered Chevy S-10 do real truck work? abuse can it take?
It’s (relatively) high speeds that show the limits of this naturally-aspirated diesel. It took about 21 seconds just to get from 45 mph to 55 mph with the trailer, as the aerodynamic drag from the trailer’s upright tailgate strained the little diesel. These acceleration tests took place on flat Kansas roads, isolating aero and the engine’s lack of grunt as the main issues.
A different trailer or rear-axle ratio (this S-10 has the stock 3.73 rear end, but a 4.10 was also available) might help, but these results have the owner contemplating a larger engine, a turbo, or both. That this small naturally-aspirated diesel could do real work under any conditions is still pretty darn impressive, though.
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