Doing some more modding to my Ram

MysteryMachine

Active Member
Jun 21, 2003
1,835
2
39
Parkesburg, PA
First off how has everybody been? The 94 is still parked and I haven't done any work on the 514. The 99 is running great. I lost my job last week they turned my plant into a warehouse and only 7 people got to stay there.

Background info on why I started doing all this

The ongoing mis-fire the Ram was having started getting really bad. Over the 4th of July my truck started running really bad. I lost my gauges and had to put it in the shop. They messed around with the cluster and got it to start working and told me either the cluster or PCM could be going bad. I had planed beforehand that after we returned from doing our firework shows over the 4th I was gonna tear into the engine.

Dodges have a few known issues that could cause a mis-fire.

Leaking plenum gasket (basically a intake gasket. 2nd gen Dodge trucks and a few of the early year 3rd gens have what they call kegger intakes. It looks like a beer keg cut in half. On the under side of it they have a plate that covers the bottom. The plate is thin and has a crappy gasket stock. The tend to leak and let oil in there and causes issues. I'm still not sure why yet though.

Cracked head is another issue. The stock castings are pretty ****ty. Another member on Dodgeforum.com found just a small hair line crack and was causing his mis-fire. Not totally sure if mine are cracked or not but they are getting replaced. I took a look at them yesterday and its qite possible theres a hairline crack in the bowl going from one valve to the other.

A while back I ordered a plenum pan reinforcment kit. Its basically and really think aliumnum plate that replaces the stock pan. At that time I also got a 180* t stat.

As I have been tearing the engine down a new friend of mine that I gained from dodgeforum did you usual gear head type encoragement. He kept saying "ya know your in this far"

That being said we get into the good stuff :D

last night I placed my orders for

Comp cam 20-604-9
Comp double roller timing chain
Mopar roller lifters
New water pump (seems these like to go bad on rams too)
New head gaskets
New connectors for my fuel inj wire harness (mine were all broke and the one had to be zip-tied on the inj)

I still need to order

Heads (I'm going with HD EQ Iron heads. The have a 62 cc chamber with 1.920 intake valve and 1.625 exhaust valve)
Harland Sharp 1.6 roller rockers
possibily new push rods
some other gaskets
and Probably an SCT tuner with custom tune
 
Sounds good, I don't know much about dodge, but I have a friend that's a dodge guy. About all he owns is dodge products. Sorry about the job, I am looking myself for a better job also. Hopefully things will turn around soon for the better. Still looking forward to that 514 monster one day. Are you still planning on aluminum heads? Scott and reincarnation high performance has had alot of success with the dove heads.
 
You mean these bad boys?

Trick Flow® PowerPort® Race A460 Cylinder Heads for Ford 429/460: TFS-5440T801 - trickflow.com

Look at the dyno graph on that page with a 520cid like 800hp and 650+ ftlbs lol.

They also lists the flow figures from .100" to .800"
No the A460 is a totally different block. The A stuff won't work on a normal block

what year Ram? My buddy has an '04 SLT 4x4 with the 5.7......LT's, O/R Y, Flowmaster 40, SRT8 cam and comp springs, KN, and a hypertech tuner. Sounds wicked and absolutely hauls ass for a vehicle of its size.

its an 01 5.9 4x4 quad cab

So far it has pacesetter shortys, magnaflow Hi-flow cat, flowmaster 40 single in / dual out, 14" round air cleaner, MDS SF wires.

I keep forgeting but I also picked up a 52mm tb for it
 
Haha just realized I put MDS instead of MSD. Well I found a set of adj roller rockers on ebay. Summit sells them for 549 the seller had them listed for 200. I bid 300 with less them a minute to go and somehow with like 2 seconds left I got outbid. I don't know how people can bid that fast
 
Amazon stuff got here Friday and Monday, Summit stuff showed up Tuesday morning. I ordered my heads yesterday. I gotta get out there and finish ripping it apart and start painting stuff to go back on. Its freaking cold and today snowed enough to turn the ground white
 
Well good news is my heads, and the cam degree kit and push rod length checkers I'm borrowing off a Mike (Low5.0) came in today. I got the cam removed, got the gasket surfaces scraped off, Got a few coats of paint on a bunch of the parts.

Bad news while cleaning the cam bearings I found one is is all tore up. Another one has dings on the edge. i will be ordering these either tonight or tomorow.

Pisses me off that I found this. In a way I'm happy though. I could have not changed the cam and had the bearing blow apart and totally screw my engine. Then I would have to go through this all over again

I also found after cleaning my pistons that most of them have then knicks out of them like the 4th cylinder has. Me and pc looked at my old heads and the valves look fine. I don't know what would cause this to happen.

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Well after farther thought and recomendtions I've run into more bs. I'm gonna pull the motor out and replace all the bearings. Everything that has come off was hiding some kind of suprise under it. It has taken a lot of thought and I hate to do it but I'm thinking ahead. If i was to not do it and a main bearing went out i would be back at this again. Also my pistons are all gashed up and the more I think about it I should change them cause nobody can figure out how they got chewed up.
 
In a way yes. I used my severance and vacation check to buy parts. I was hoping to fix the truck before I got another job. I did it for 2 reasons. 1. I wanted the free time to work on it 2. I didn't want to get a job and not have a truck to get there if it happens to snow
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Update on this mess.

Before I start if you haven't seen I got a job. Actually started the week I dropped my block off

I dropped the block off at the machine shop the last week in Dec. I'm still waiting on it :mad: The guy found that my pistons and bores were off size. After that was found out he suggested I have it bored. It will be bored .030 over making it a 365. I'm having him build the short block which is why I'm still waiting. He seems to keep putting my stuff to the side to work on other ****.

I have since got 98% of the parts. I have added a few parts to the list lol. Heres a run down and noted if I got them yet or not. I'll have to update this again if I think of anymore stuff

Bored .030 over making it a 365 - waiting on machine shop to build short block

Comp 264HR-12 Cam - received

Comp Double Roller Timing Chain - received

EQ Iron HD Heads - received

Harland Sharp 1.6 Roller Rockers - received

Air Gap Intake (info can be found on OpenDNS engines.com) - received (yes I paid 600 for a intake for my truck. Everyone else that has bought one so far loves it so I'm happy)

Fastman 52mm Throttle Body - received

SCT Tune - need to order

Autometer Cobalt Wide Band - received

Autometer Cobalt Digital Trans Temp Gauge - need to order

180* Thermostat - received

Summit Multi Spark Box & High Volt Coil - received

FMS 24# Injectors - need to order



Normal Engine Build Parts

Push Rods - need to order

Thrust Plate - received

Valve Cover Grommets (Mine were like rocks) - received

Gaskets - machine shop ordered a kit

Melling HV Oil ump and Screen Tube - received

For those wanting pics. I have most of them up on cardomain. Heres a link Page 4 is dedicated to the rebuild. I update it every so often. http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2948080