1989 - 1993 Ram 5.9L Cummins

1989 was the start of a beautiful thing, the marrying of Dodge and Cummins. When the Dodge-Cummins pickups came on the scene, the light-duty truck market was changed forever. Its true that GM had diesel pickups in their line since 1978 and Ford since 1983. And that's all fine and dandy, but those who know diesels, understand the major difference we're talking about here. The smaller Cummins engine produced more torque than either Ford or GM (400 vs. Ford's 345 ad GM's 246). And with a manual transmission, the Dodge's GCW rating was 16,000 pounds, which was two tons greater than its closest competitor!

The Cummins engine used in the Dodge lineup first went into production in late 1984 for such heavy-duty applications as combines, tractors, road graders, loaders, cranes, and crawlers. Thus, the Cummins engine had been tested on the job for 5 years and more than 11 million miles before the first one was installed in a Dodge pickup, allowing them to really work out any of the kinks that Ford and Chevy owners had to discover themselves. Was the 1st Gen a perfect truck? No, not necessarily, but it was a solid powerplant that many would pinpoint as the beginning of the diesel performance industry.

Any automotive enthusiast has an era of vehicles they deem a “classic,” many times evoking memories of a vehicle they once had, or dreamed of having one day. For some, it’s a 50’s Chevy, for others, muscle cars of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Some of us, its 1980’s square body trucks. There’s the C/K Chevy’s, Bullnose Fords, and the first iteration of the heavy duty Rams unveiled in 1981. Now, if you take someone with a passion for these trucks plus an interest in diesel performance, there’s really only one truck in your eyes, the 1989-1993 Rams with a 12 Valve Cummins. This first iteration of Rams with a factory diesel option were very mechanical in nature, meaning they’re relatively simple to work on and parts are fairly inexpensive. Compared to the newer vehicles, there’s no computer to allow for a “chip” or “programmer,” just good old mechanical performance by means of injectors, an upgraded fuel pin and governor spring, turbo, and so forth. The 1989-1991 models were not equipped with a factory intercooler to keep your exhaust gas temperatures (EGT’s) down, so a very popular upgrade is to upgrade the truck with an intercooler. Overall, you can make plenty of performance parts upgrades on these trucks to bring the power levels to the same levels of the newer vehicles, and honestly, do it for a whole lot less money! Will you have the creature comforts of auto-dimming headlights, proximity sensors, and a tire pressure monitoring system? No, but not everyone really wants all of that anyways.

Look through all of the options we carry for your truck, and as always, if you have questions on how to best achieve your goals, feel free to give us a call, send an e-mail, or start a chat and we would be happy to assist.

Products in this section are designed to work on 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993 model year Dodge trucks equipped with the 5.9L Cummins unless otherwise noted.

Disclaimer: Diesel Power Products is not affiliated with Cummins or any of its subsidiaries or related companies. Unless a product is specifically identified as a Genuine Cummins product that has not been remanufactured, modified, or refurbished, Cummins makes no representation or warranty about the product and has not authorized, tested, or approved the parts for use in genuine Cummins brand products.