Nick&Nora
Well-known member
TL;DR: Tons of fun. Average of 22.8 mpg over 2,800 highway miles. Power to spare.
As a few people here know, Doug installed a Cummins into my 89 ROW 110 last year. He did loads of other work as well, including an R380 stumpy, a new harness, a Rovers North AC kit, a Webasto heater, etc. I picked it up last fall and a few days later drove it out to Arizona.
The trip out was filled with mishaps and wasn’t representative of the experience of the new engine, so I’ll set that aside.
In early April, I turned around and came back to NYC, and I thought people considering the swap might be interested in my experience.
We left Phoenix and drove to El Paso, Abilene, Shreveport, Birmingham, Charlotte, Yorktown and Cape May, then up to Manhattan. We drove all Interstate until our approach into Yorktown. Along the way we experienced 100+ temperatures in Arizona, NM and Texas, we got drenched with 0.8 inches of rain in 30 harrowing minutes during a tornado warning in Shreveport, we drove through beautiful 70-degree weather in MS, AL, Georgia and the Carolinas, we encountered fog across the Chesapeake, saw beautiful skies in Delaware and Cape May, and then drove home in NJ’s grey drizzle.
The R2.8 replaced a 19J, and while it ran well, it left a lot to be desired whenever I needed to enter a highway or parkway, or whenever I approached a hill. Even gentle hills, or, God forbid, an upward sloping on-ramp or one of those horrible Northeast merge-onto-the-highway-from-a stop-sign situations were all unsafe at best.
With the new engine, it’s like I’m driving a normal car. There is no issue accelerating onto a highway; there are no issues heading up hills. I passed cars going UP HILLs. Other than the floods in Shreveport, a traffic jam in Mississippi and stop-and-go in Atlanta, I was in fifth gear for 2,800 miles. I mostly drove between 65 and 70, even with 80mph limits in Texas; I didn’t feel like pushing things, and frankly that’s probably already a little faster than I want to be driving a 30-year old 110. Even at 70, a little additional right foot yielded a quick response, though, and this is all with the stock tune.
Operating temperatures ran between 178 in cold and wet NJ, to as high as 210 on a long upgrade in hot West Texas. From Abilene on, I’m not sure it ever got above 196. A small multi-function gauge replaces the stock temp gauge and shows RPMs, oil pressure, coolant temp and engine hours at the touch of a button (along with any fault codes you happen to throw, as I learned).
I have a winch, a Front Runner full length rack, 235/85 KO2s, and I had a pretty solidly packed cargo area. The R380 has the stock gearing. For the whole trip, I averaged 22.8mpg. I averaged about 25mpg all the way across Texas, much of which had the AC running at least periodically. I was doing about 65mph there; further east with more traffic, I was keeping up at 70 or so. From LA on, I averaged 21.9. Before the swap and the winch, the unladen 19J was doing 20mpg, and of course it had no AC.
Overall, the new engine has completely transformed the experience of driving my 110. Sure, the carpet in the second row was still soaked after Shreveport. Of course it’s still loud (especially since I prefer the windows to the A/C). I need some work on my shifter, as reverse is often difficult, and it doesn’t like to slide into 4th when coming out of 5th. No crunching sounds, just not moving into gears correctly. And there’s some auxiliary wiring that I need to have cleaned up.
But it’s like a completely different vehicle. It’s an awesome improvement. I know it’s not built for US highways, but it is WAY more fun and way less worrying to drive on the highways now. And my long-suffering wife didn’t complain once!
As a few people here know, Doug installed a Cummins into my 89 ROW 110 last year. He did loads of other work as well, including an R380 stumpy, a new harness, a Rovers North AC kit, a Webasto heater, etc. I picked it up last fall and a few days later drove it out to Arizona.
The trip out was filled with mishaps and wasn’t representative of the experience of the new engine, so I’ll set that aside.
In early April, I turned around and came back to NYC, and I thought people considering the swap might be interested in my experience.
We left Phoenix and drove to El Paso, Abilene, Shreveport, Birmingham, Charlotte, Yorktown and Cape May, then up to Manhattan. We drove all Interstate until our approach into Yorktown. Along the way we experienced 100+ temperatures in Arizona, NM and Texas, we got drenched with 0.8 inches of rain in 30 harrowing minutes during a tornado warning in Shreveport, we drove through beautiful 70-degree weather in MS, AL, Georgia and the Carolinas, we encountered fog across the Chesapeake, saw beautiful skies in Delaware and Cape May, and then drove home in NJ’s grey drizzle.
The R2.8 replaced a 19J, and while it ran well, it left a lot to be desired whenever I needed to enter a highway or parkway, or whenever I approached a hill. Even gentle hills, or, God forbid, an upward sloping on-ramp or one of those horrible Northeast merge-onto-the-highway-from-a stop-sign situations were all unsafe at best.
With the new engine, it’s like I’m driving a normal car. There is no issue accelerating onto a highway; there are no issues heading up hills. I passed cars going UP HILLs. Other than the floods in Shreveport, a traffic jam in Mississippi and stop-and-go in Atlanta, I was in fifth gear for 2,800 miles. I mostly drove between 65 and 70, even with 80mph limits in Texas; I didn’t feel like pushing things, and frankly that’s probably already a little faster than I want to be driving a 30-year old 110. Even at 70, a little additional right foot yielded a quick response, though, and this is all with the stock tune.
Operating temperatures ran between 178 in cold and wet NJ, to as high as 210 on a long upgrade in hot West Texas. From Abilene on, I’m not sure it ever got above 196. A small multi-function gauge replaces the stock temp gauge and shows RPMs, oil pressure, coolant temp and engine hours at the touch of a button (along with any fault codes you happen to throw, as I learned).
I have a winch, a Front Runner full length rack, 235/85 KO2s, and I had a pretty solidly packed cargo area. The R380 has the stock gearing. For the whole trip, I averaged 22.8mpg. I averaged about 25mpg all the way across Texas, much of which had the AC running at least periodically. I was doing about 65mph there; further east with more traffic, I was keeping up at 70 or so. From LA on, I averaged 21.9. Before the swap and the winch, the unladen 19J was doing 20mpg, and of course it had no AC.
Overall, the new engine has completely transformed the experience of driving my 110. Sure, the carpet in the second row was still soaked after Shreveport. Of course it’s still loud (especially since I prefer the windows to the A/C). I need some work on my shifter, as reverse is often difficult, and it doesn’t like to slide into 4th when coming out of 5th. No crunching sounds, just not moving into gears correctly. And there’s some auxiliary wiring that I need to have cleaned up.
But it’s like a completely different vehicle. It’s an awesome improvement. I know it’s not built for US highways, but it is WAY more fun and way less worrying to drive on the highways now. And my long-suffering wife didn’t complain once!