1999 5.2l NEED MORE POWER

Looking to try to squeeze some power outta my 5.2l i wanna keep it naturally asperated because it a trail truck/ mud truck was thinking heads, intake manifold, throttle body, cam, injectors, fuel pump, and fuel management tuning system does anyone have a similar build or no were i find fuel injected performance parts for the 5.2l

Summit Racing is a great place to start. As far as getting power, intake, heads and exhaust with a tune will do wonders. The factory injectors are pretty good for quite a bit of extra power, so is the fuel pump. You can certainly improve the power with replacement injectors and fuel pump, but i'll defer to Dapapper on that one.

As far as the throttle body and intake, a 52 or 54mm throttle body will flow all you need when combined with an edelbrock airgap intake. Factory heads are pretty craptastic, Dapepper will know more about what to get in order to get a good deal on some nice heads, but summit racing has some OK deals. Exhaust is completely up to you as long as you toss the factory cast log. Those things are about as bad as shoving rags in the exhaust.

Cams can make a bit of a difference, but not nearly as much as intake, heads and exhaust with a tune. If you have to budget it out, imo the order of importance is, intake, throttle body, exhaust, heads, cams, fuel system (as long as the fuel system isn't tired and having trouble keeping up as is). For the tune, i'd rate that as very important, but a waste of money if you buy a canned tune designed for light bolt-ons like a throttle body or intake, then put on exhaust, heads, cams and fuel only to have to buy a different tune to get the most out of it. Once again, Dapepper has more experience with what tune packages are available from places like FRP Tuning, but i'd only recommend getting the tune once the hardware is the way you like it.

A good tune with nothing else will net you some nice extra get-up-and-go due the the crappy "death flash" which throttles down your power as much as it can. I paid $400 for my tune from FRP and that included a new SCT X3 tuner.

52mm, Hughes AirGap, headers, 1.7 Harland Sharps, Engine Quest heads, a "small" cam and a tune to tie it all together and you should easily pass the 300 HP mark, which the factory fuel system shouldn't have a problem keeping up with. Gonna cost ya though. I'm sitting on some exhaust work and a modified throttle body with my tune and am happy overall but certainly want to go further. Gotta put some money into maintenance at the moment though and I'm gonna need new tires before too awful long. Money tree just never quite seems to drop enough, LOL.

Alternatively, swap 4.10 gears into your axles and then get a tune. Shorter gears are said to make a whale of a difference on a heavy, 4-speed automatic truck.

I did the kegger mod and a msd coil with some ngk plug 1 level cooler gapped to .45 instead of .40 and noticed a little better off the line. Was looking at 1.7 rockers and shorty headers with a tune after all was done. It felt healthier after the kegger and coil with plugs


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I'm wanting to get 300plus hp out of my 5.2 also. How much do you guys think it will cost $1500-2000.

Well, using my list as an example...

52 mm throttle body: If you're lucky, you can nab an OEM TB bored to 52 mm for $100-200 on eBay. There was a guy who used to sell these regularly but I don't think he makes them anymore. Billet TB's from places such as F&B are sweet units but expensive. You're gonna have a minimum of $400 in one of these. The Fastman offers 51.75 mm TB's for about $300.

Hughes AirGap: $600 + shipping. Period. May as well budget $50 for gaskets because I've read from several places that the supplied gaskets are El Cheapo Especiale.

Headers: The sky's the limit. Long-tubes tend to offer more peak power but are more expensive and tend to use large primary diameters which can hurt low-end power. Ceramic-coated versions carry tesitcle-sacrificing prices. Shorties are less expensive whether ceramic-coated or not and tend to preserve low-end power but also offer less top-end power. Build quality swings widely with headers. You really gotta decide where you want your power here and how long you want them to last. Budget yourself $200 for cheap, mild steel, non-coated units, $600 for stainless, ceramic-coated units.

1.7 Harland Sharps: These are real nice full-roller rockers which offer a slightly larger lift ratio compared to OEM (OEM is 1.6 lift ratio). I'm not real sure how much power these offer but the full roller design plus longer lift ratio can't not make some extra power. They aren't cheap though. Plan on $500 here. Also, the added lift from their design is important to factor in when choosing a camshaft.

Engine Quest heads: Honestly, I'm not real sure where to get these. The Hughes Iron Rams seem virtually identical. At any rate, they are cast iron heads which not only offer improved casting between the valves to eliminate the pesky cracking problem which plagues OEM heads, but also offer improved CFM in both the intake and exhaust passages which, of course, increases horsepower potential. These babies will be right at home with an AirGap and cam swap. Gonna run ya about a grand for an assembled pair. If you really want to get fancy, Edelbrock offers Performer RPM heads with further improved airflow and the design is proven to significantly improve power on pretty much any American V8 that they're bolted to. The price nearly doubles for them, however.

Camshaft: There are way too many variables and possibilities to even recommend a specific cam here. All I can say is the Mopar engines across their history have relatively large lifters (.904" diameter I believe) and they can reliably handle some pretty aggressive profiles. Look for relatively high lift vs duration here. Unfortunately, the Magnum engines are limited by pedestal-mount rockers which can't handle much for RPM. For purpose of the engine, they work just fine but if you want to regularly run higher RPM, you're gonna have to do some work and that's an whole different basket of bananas. Whatever you pick for a cam, you're gonna want to stick to a hydraulic roller and you're gonna pay at least $300 here. Also, MIND THE VALVE SPRINGS. If you buy assembled heads, make sure the springs can handle the pressure of a "larger" cam. As the lift increases, so does the spring pressure. Do your homework and make sure your springs will reliably handle the cam. If you don't...well...stuff's gonna break, LOL.

Tune: With all this stuff, you will absolutely need a tune to tie it all together. Flyin' Ryan writes some kickass stuff but for an engine with this much work, a canned tune isn't gonna cut it. You're gonna have to shell out extra for a wideband gauge or Ryan isn't going to work with you with such a build. What everything entails, I do not know. My engine is far from needing a custom tune so I haven't had to ask, LOL. Best to budget $600 here.

On the highish end, this setup's gonna run you around $4,000. A wiser man would budget higher because there are always little things/stuff you forget to factor in. In this case, you'll also need head gaskets, header gaskets, you'll want to swap the OEM timing chain with a double roller, get some high-zinc oil to soak the rockers in overnight, etc, etc. Don't come up short, always budget for more than what you think you need and then budget higher.

Far from cheap but with this setup, you'll have one of the quickest non-stroked, non-forced induction 2nd gen gasser Rams around.

Damn that's a lot of money. I'm sure it's worth it. I also thought about building a 360 and replacing the 5.2 bet that would cost more.

Honestly, the two will cost about the same overall to build. However, the 360 has the advantage of more cubes and for a given modification will generally produce more power for the same money.

Joe w. said:

Damn that's a lot of money. I'm sure it's worth it. I also thought about building a 360 and replacing the 5.2 bet that would cost more.

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Not really, rebuild kits cost basically the same as the only difference is 1/10th of an inch stroke and 2/10ths of an inch bore. However, due to everyone thinking the 5.9s are magic power machines and will blow away the 5.2s they go for $100-200 more.

I have had both 5.2 and 5.9 in my truck, stock, I cant tell the difference. If someone were to steal the 5.9 out of my truck today and replace it with a 5.2 by tomorrow morning, I would never know unless I checked the color of the injectors.

Aside from the slight bore and stroke, everything's the same between the two, same intake, heads, pumps etc are the same.

Intake manifold, heads, throttle body, tune and exhaust. Don't even bother with a cam unless you have all that. Our heads and intake manifold are so restrictive that cams don't do a damn thing to these. Almost no power gain for money, time and labor invested unless the rest of the engine is capable of flowing more whereas an FRP canned tune on a bone stock 318 has shown nearly 50lb/ft at the tires.

Look at my signature for example. It's a 360 but concepts still apply because these engines are nearly exactly the same in character and pretty much every performance part that isn't part of the rotating assembly swaps over. My combo recently made 222hp and 299lb/ft at the wheels on 95degree and humid day. Exact opposite of ideal conditions. My tires also weigh almost 15lbs more than stock, each. Wheels are 17s that weigh about 3lbs more each. So 18lbs more total weight rounded without being exact on each corner. They're also 3" taller than my factory tires were. So more weight, placed in a larger circumference. Not looking good for making power, lotta drivetrain loss. Factory crank output of my engine is 245/335. So I'm 23hp and 36lb/ft lower than factory crank output....at the wheels...with 199,000 miles of sheer abuse. Compression isn't great but it's within spec. Factory output with factory wheels and tires is generally 180-190hp/260-280tq, dyno and conditions dependent. My combo generally makes 250-260hp at the tires on factory wheels and tires. Thats between 20-25% drivetrain loss on factory equipment. My new trans is about 20ish. 250hp after 20% loss is about 312hp. Above that 300hp mark with basic bolt ons and it's hella fun to drive. Nothing near what stock was like.

These guys have laid out a good slew of parts. 52 or 53mm throttle body from hipotek, less than 200. Airgap manifold, 600. Pacesetter longtubes, varies as you can buy basic painted or ceramic; painted are like 250 if i remember correctly. Harland Sharp rockers, about 350. FRP tune, 4-450; I don't quite remember. You can even delete the clutch fan, that's next on my list.

Watch EngineMasters on youtube. Their fan shootout shows how good of an upgrade that is. Their 408 episodes show how a cam isn't worth squat if the heads and manifold are the limiting factor.

Gears!!

Take my word on this. You will read thread after thread about people wanting more power, why not put in some gears that will help the power thats already there?

Ive done just about every mod to my 318, they do help, but nothing made a big difference until i re geared the truck

I went from 3.55 to 4.56 and added a spicer limited slip

This is what you want to do. save the money on all the bolt on stuff for later, save up, re gear it to help you.


That 318 is a great engine, but if your off road chances are you will be running bigger tires. Bigger tires take away HP and TQ.

Gain that back with gears. Trust me on this, in the end, this is what you will want!

Stegs said:

Gears!!

Take my word on this. You will read thread after thread about people wanting more power, why not put in some gears that will help the power thats already there?

Ive done just about every mod to my 318, they do help, but nothing made a big difference until i re geared the truck

I went from 3.55 to 4.56 and added a spicer limited slip

This is what you want to do. save the money on all the bolt on stuff for later, save up, re gear it to help you.


That 318 is a great engine, but if your off road chances are you will be running bigger tires. Bigger tires take away HP and TQ.

Gain that back with gears. Trust me on this, in the end, this is what you will want!

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Just got mine back from getting 4.56s and truetrack! Almost done breaking it in

crazykid1994 said:

I did the kegger mod and a msd coil with some ngk plug 1 level cooler gapped to .45 instead of .40 and noticed a little better off the line. Was looking at 1.7 rockers and shorty headers with a tune after all was done. It felt healthier after the kegger and coil with plugs


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Msd coil and kegger mod are both actually bad. Coil should only be direct from mopar as anything else has been shown to kill pcm and higher voltage coils aren't at all needed anyways until you start running into quiteb large power situations or boost situations. In which case you'd need an msd box to do it right.

Also kegger mod has shown losses of nearly 40wtq. Yes it seems like it breathes into a higher rpm but the butt dyno can't tell you that peak power either doesnt change or drops. Biggest falsehood out there actually

dapepper9 said:

Msd coil and kegger mod are both actually bad. Coil should only be direct from mopar as anything else has been shown to kill pcm and higher voltage coils aren't at all needed anyways until you start running into quiteb large power situations or boost situations. In which case you'd need an msd box to do it right.



Also kegger mod has shown losses of nearly 40wtq. Yes it seems like it breathes into a higher rpm but the butt dyno can't tell you that peak power either doesnt change or drops. Biggest falsehood out there actually

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Depends on other add one as far as I'm concerned. Before kegger mod I couldn't peel out. After with 33s no problem. I also have exhaust done and a few others. A few companies building motors are running a hotter coil and 1 step cooler plugs on their magnum builds and noticed a difference over stock. And I've yet to have problems with the coil. Plus I only cut 1" on the kegger mod and took out the middle fin. I looked into it a lot before doing it and 1" was the most beneficial to even the curve out. Any more hurt the power curve


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crazykid1994 said:

Depends on other add one as far as I'm concerned. Before kegger mod I couldn't peel out. After with 33s no problem. I also have exhaust done and a few others. A few companies building motors are running a hotter coil and 1 step cooler plugs on their magnum builds and noticed a difference over stock. And I've yet to have problems with the coil. Plus I only cut 1" on the kegger mod and took out the middle fin. I looked into it a lot before doing it and 1" was the most beneficial to even the curve out. Any more hurt the power curve


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Kegger mod loses power but it does allow you to build rpm easier to get into that power curve. However, if you want to actually get from point a to point b quickest without changing manifolds, stock kegger and bolt ons+tune will make a ***** out of any modded kegger.

Exhaust can actually do quite a bit though it can also be easily overdone. Hotter coil, no engine builder worth a damn would suggest one on our JTEC operating systems without an ignition control box. Oem only. Those who actually build respectable engines and not "go fast 1 time" setups as well as those who get into the intricacies of tuning them will tell you this. Hotter coil isn't going to gain anything, colder plugs clean up the burn and help with timing advance and knock resistance yes but hotter coil is just going to lead to failure on these without proper precautions.

dapepper9 said:

Just got mine back from getting 4.56s and truetrack! Almost done breaking it in

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And?????

would you agree with me that bolts on are nice, but going with a better gear ratio changes the entire truck?


My guess is that your pretty happy with the swap, your truck drives alot different....in a good way???

Stegs said:

And?????

would you agree with me that bolts on are nice, but going with a better gear ratio changes the entire truck?


My guess is that your pretty happy with the swap, your truck drives alot different....in a good way???

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It seems to have more get-up for sure. Haven't been too awfully hard on it simply because i only just picked it up Friday lol. Have gotten on it a bit in 1st gear simply because of ****** traffic and the way this town is setup and so far I'm very pleased. Anxious to see how effective the truetrack really is firsthand

Likewise, I too am quite curious as to how well the TrueTrac works. Sure hope it's sweet because they ain't cheap!

dapepper9 said:

Kegger mod loses power but it does allow you to build rpm easier to get into that power curve. However, if you want to actually get from point a to point b quickest without changing manifolds, stock kegger and bolt ons+tune will make a ***** out of any modded kegger.

Exhaust can actually do quite a bit though it can also be easily overdone. Hotter coil, no engine builder worth a damn would suggest one on our JTEC operating systems without an ignition control box. Oem only. Those who actually build respectable engines and not "go fast 1 time" setups as well as those who get into the intricacies of tuning them will tell you this. Hotter coil isn't going to gain anything, colder plugs clean up the burn and help with timing advance and knock resistance yes but hotter coil is just going to lead to failure on these without proper precautions.

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Would colder plugs be worth it on a stock setup? I've seen posts to suggest no but I figured I would ask. Also I can second the MSD Ignition coil. Going to replace mine soon. It's failing me already anyway. This Texas heat isn't kind to the ignition coil I have.

Oh, on an unrelated note. Do you only recommend Mopar Coils for performance builds or all builds? I'm just curious about this one.

Edit: Gah I'm a little jealous. He can get a Mopar Ignition coil for 40 bucks off Amazon.