First off "cummins, diesel"
Well depending on what motor you have or want I'm putting a 12 valve into my 50 but its a rat so might be hoodless. I would stay away from the 24 valve th vp44 pump is junk electronic controlled and it is a little bit of wiring to make them run the newer common rail injection 24 valves have a cp3 bosch pump and they work a lot better at delivering fuel but that is even more wiring and would be quiet the journey hooking up one of those the motors have a stand alone setup and the trans is hooked up into the interior computer
Ok now that I got you scared lol the 12 valves are much easier it takes only 1 wire to keep a 12 valve running once started there are 2 different gens of the 12 valve 89-93 the 89 to early 91 have a turbo route right over the motor directly into the intake most use a water methonal injection setup and watch the egts while towing cause that was a little bit of a problem on these trucks, there is a ford intercooler that some swap in and use but its really not necessary, then the 91.5 to 93 have the intercooler both run the same turbo but they have a small intercooler. These 89-93 trucks have a ve bosch pump which doesn't really put out that much pressure so to upgrade you have to tweak the pump or get bigger injectors this has the same basic bottom end of the later 12 valve and these are pretty cheap
Now for the later 94-98 12 valves they are "p pumped" p7100 injection pump is very tuneable you can buy fuel plates for these motors to make quick easy and cheap power a lot of aftermarket for these motors and these still mainly populate the pulling truck community the bottom ends are solid but they do have one flaw in the timing case a dowel pin that aligns the case can fall into the gears if not "tabbed" they make kits its no big deal but you should do it if you have it out of the truck. The main thing with the old 12 valves are that they are supposed to have there valves adjusted every 40000miles which no one does and that's why most all the trucks are so noisy. Also keep in mind that the motors weigh I think 760 or so alone so I know your talking 1.5 ton truck but that has to be considered hope this helps and didn't bore you to death if you have any question about the cummins or Duramax's lol just ask ill try to help
