Does Gas or Diesel Work Better for Off-Roading?
Can Diesel Hang With Gas on Rocky Trails?
Motor Trend’s “Dirt Everyday” is one of our favorite ways to spend time on YouTube. They always come up with wild project ideas, and nine times out of ten, Fred Williams and his crew are able to make that wild idea come true.
On a previous episode, with help from Cummins, the “Dirt Everyday” crew managed to build a Jeep that will drive underwater. They used Cummins’ new four-cylinder turbo diesel crate engine to make it so. In the video below, the crew takes that same underwater Jeep and preps it for a day of rock crawling.
Then they compare it to similarly-prepped Jeeps. There’s one with a four-liter inline six, and another equipped with a GM LSX engine swap. Which engine survives the best, and which is the most fuel efficient for off-roading?
In the video, Fred drives all three trucks and comments on each. The diesel rig, affectionately named “Tube Sock,” manages to crawl the trail relatively well for most of the day, turning far fewer RPMs than the other guys. We won’t give away the ending, but it does run into an issue on the trail. It comes down to user error, but a beefier part would have survived.
When it comes to your Jeep, no matter your engine choice, reliability is paramount. Getting out on the trail, having some fun, and getting back safely is the name of the game. If it weren’t for Fred’s nasty knock on a rock, the Cummins likely would have been the best trail engine. Perhaps if it were equipped with a steel oil pan, or had a nice metal skid plate under the engine compartment, or both, it would make a nice off-road engine.
On this day, with this information, we would probably stick with the four-liter. But regardless, the video shows a bunch of capable off-roaders having a day of fun and facing some adversity, so it’s definitely worth watching. Cue it up and kick back, it’s half an hour of quality entertainment.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
Via [Motor Trend]
