450-500hp 5.9l 360 magnum

[JCarr98Ram]

Need help, how can I take my stock 5.9L magnum engine and try to get 450 - 500hp out of it. Can any one give me a list of parts? Also, my budget is $6000 but that is with having either a mechanic or shop installing the parts for me. Any advice helps. Just feel lost in this process.

 

[Wild one]

Need help, how can I take my stock 5.9L magnum engine and try to get 450 - 500hp out of it. Can any one give me a list of parts? Also, my budget is $6000 but that is with having either a mechanic or shop installing the parts for me. Any advice helps. Just feel lost in this process.

Put a 250 shot of nitrous on it,and send it till it blows,lol. Seriously though,you're a bit unrealistic with trying to get that out of an old school 360,especially if all you have to spend is 6G. Contact Ryan Hogan at FRP,he used to specialize in the older 360 magnums.
You should also post this down in the 2nd or 3rd Gen section,you might get more answers down there

 

[crazykid1994]

Hughes engines. Realistically 400hp is probably a better goal. 450-500hp is shooting for the stars. I think they list their budget built 360 around 400hp and a full on 360 build at 500hp with fully upgraded everything.

 

[Wild one]

Need help, how can I take my stock 5.9L magnum engine and try to get 450 - 500hp out of it. Can any one give me a list of parts? Also, my budget is $6000 but that is with having either a mechanic or shop installing the parts for me. Any advice helps. Just feel lost in this process.

I'd forgot about Hughes ,good catch Khris.

Building-Up Magnum Truck Engines (1993-2003)

BUILDING-UP MAGNUM TRUCK ENGINES (1993-2003) 3.9L V6 as well as the 5.2L and 5.9L V8’s Modifying magnum truck engines is a major part of our business. To obtain more information on any part number listed in this article, please visit our website at...

hughesengines.com

 

[pacofortacos]

Unless you have a beefed up trans sitting behind it, save your money. IF you get close to that horsepower level at the wheels the trans will go belly up in a very short time in a heavy truck.

Other than nitrous, to have someone build you a motor and install it is going to cost more than $6k.

 

[Riccochet]

Your goal doesn't align with your budget. But, yes, it's doable. But it'll be on the very edge of streetable power. Meaning a very aggressive cam profile. My friend's 318LA is putting out just over 500 HP N/A. We're talking crank, pistons, rods, heads, cam, intake, carb, bored and stroked. Every bit of the engine was modified and running VP-110.

 

[Yeret]

I actually have around the same horsepower goals in mind. It's quite a ways off, but it's something to aim for.
I'm thinking to bolt a Hughes AirGap onto a pair of Trick Flow cylinder heads, swap in a cam that'll match nicely (I'm leaning towards Hi-PoTek, but Ryan does offer cams now too, and they're certainly worth a look), then bolt a nice, big throttle body on top. 53mm is about as big as the factory ones can be safely bored out.

Then, the "big" stuff. Bolt on a Torqstorm supercharger, upgrade the fueling system to keep up, forged rotating assembly with dished pistons, and whatever "essential" stuff the block needs at the machine shop. And, of course, the tuning to make the whole works play nice.

I would budget no less than $10,000 for all this (and plenty of other stuff you're gonna need/want). Should make 500+ pretty easy though, not to mention be reliable and just generally be pretty awesome.

Also, make sure you budget another $3-4,000 for the transmission, because it is NOT going to last long in stock form.

 

[Wild one]

Op if the 360 is still heathly,why not look into swapping an 8 speed into the truck instead of doing motor work.Your $6,000 budget should cover an 8 speed swap,and give you a tire spinning 4.71:1 first gear and 2 overdrives for gas milege.Get ahold of Russell at Sound German and see what all is required to swap to the 8HP70.

Sound German Automotive

 

[G-Ride990]

It's gotta be nearly impossible to find all those magnum hot rod parts these days right? Took me years to find an M1 and Holley billet TB for my Dakota r/t and that was a while longer ago than I care to admit haha.
I have seen a few in that range of power but they were built 408s with all sorts of nitrous or boost. Good times!


Moved it too

 

[Yeret]

It's gotta be nearly impossible to find all those magnum hot rod parts these days right? Took me years to find an M1 and Holley billet TB for my Dakota r/t and that was a while longer ago than I care to admit haha.
I have seen a few in that range of power but they were built 408s with all sorts of nitrous or boost. Good times!


Moved it too

Trick Flow and Edelbrock still make the heads. Both are similar, but Trick Flow seems to have better quality control, so I'd lean towards them. They're actually a smidge cheaper too, last I checked.

Torqstorm seems like pretty good stuff and are a fair bit cheaper than Procharger. Their power claims aren't as high, but I don't see why you'd make any less power running one of their units vs Procharger.

Intake manifolds are tough, not much for options here. The Hughes Air Gap is on backorder again, and I suspect they'll be even more expensive once they are back in stock. M1's seem damned near impossible to find. I think Indy Cylinder Head used to have an offering, not sure if they still do, but I remember them being quite pricey. I do believe that you can get an Edelbrock Super Victor manifold with injector ports machined in, but this is a purpose-made racing manifold that isn't going to perform well in a street application. One could also spend $$$ playing with the factory kegger, but I've yet to see anything definitive to justify even bothering.

There's an outfit that makes (or at least, used to make) custom, billet throttle bodies for Magnum engines, but I can't recall the name. They're expensive, but are as good as it gets. I think Pepper has one on his rig. Otherwise, the factory units can be opened up to 53mm, which should suffice for most builds. I've got a 52 from Hi-PoTek, and it's a very nicely done piece, especially for the price.

Hughes, Hi-PoTek and Ryan offer premade and/or custom cams. Comp Cams used to have a pretty nice selection as well, though I'm not sure how available they are. I imagine one could get a custom cam from them, although I doubt they'd be any cheaper.

Scat and Eagle still offer cranks and rods and Keith Black offers pistons in various metallurgical flavors. Icon offers some pretty sweet forged pistons, but they're $$$.

I wish I could say it was cheap building up a fuel-injected Magnum, but it simply isn't, LOL. Then again, there aren't a whole lot of engines that are, especially in today's economy where a burger basket and a pint at the local tavern costs $20, LOL.

 

[G-Ride990]

Are you thinking F&B? That is the only other company I remember everyone used. Everyone used M1 with duals or M1 quads or M1 Quads with the dual adaptor on it. And Holley or F&B on top. I bought a sold a ton of those when I was in highschool. The airgap was the one I didn't see too often. But it was a solid performer.
Wish I had that truck now, let it go for far too little money.
Honestly the reason I sold the truck was that POS trans I built a few times and ruined it a few times too. Bought my RAM because I wanted a newer Hemi and a reliable driveline. Got tired of worrying if the truck would get me to where I wanted to go when I needed to be there.

 

[Riccochet]

Or do an LA swap. There's a lot more aftermarket for the older Chrysler LA motors. Can find 318 and 360 blocks relatively cheap.

 

[Robeffy]

Yup, Hughes seems like the guys to go to.
I bought a fix kit for my 5.2 Magnum, Intake manifold plate. It was a quality piece of gear, great instructions, perfect fit parts, it really did the job.

 

[rosco11]

Need help, how can I take my stock 5.9L magnum engine and try to get 450 - 500hp out of it. Can any one give me a list of parts? Also, my budget is $6000 but that is with having either a mechanic or shop installing the parts for me. Any advice helps. Just feel lost in this process.

Might be able to get there with the parts, but not with labor included. You can litterly buy a crate motor from dodge for less than a mechanic is going to charge you to tear an engine down, modify it and put it back together. On top of that you will probably expect some kind of warantee, rofl.

The most realistic way is to buy a super charger kit for around 5k and install it yourself. That said, an old school motor is going to grenade after a few times of hitting it.

Two best solutions, IMO, buy a 408 stroker shortblock from summit for 3k, some after market heads, beefy cam and a 700 to 750 cfm carburator. Probably get to 400. Remember you are starting at around 230 to 240. Second is a 6.4 Hemi swap. 480 in a hearbeat and can certainly pick up a used one for the price you are suggesting. Now, paying someone to put it in and wire it up....that is probably going to cost you 5k by itself.

I did a 408 shortblock on my 98. Instantly took me to 350hp and tons of torque. Did nothing with the top end. I was more conerned with driving it every day and still wanted to keep the fuel injection. I did the work myself. Was over 4k by the time i finished just to get that far.

In hindsight, i should have left it alone, sold it cheap and bought a newer truck with a Hemi and drove it for another 100k miles instead of playing with it and wasting money on something i was not even going to own 4 years down the road. Just my opinion. Old school engines have nothing on the modern Hemi. Nothing. 4k later and a dozen or so weekends i was almost where a bone stock 5.7 was at from the factory and getting much worse gas millage.

 

[Rob2gen]

I think the 408 Stroker option is best bang for buck to get close to 400hp. Anymore than that and you're gonna have to beef up that Tranny and even after that you will find the weak links in your drivetrain. You have several cam options and even cubic inch options (400, 408, 410, 426...). But for $6k budget take your stock motor and add a Torqstorm Supercharger ($3200ish), the intercooler parts ($800-1000), programmer, upgraded throttle body and fuel injectors ($1k) and i may forgot a few things.

Downside of the supercharger option is you have to run premium (91+ octane), which adds a cost to every mile driven. Upside to Supercharger option is you are only adding 6-8 pounds of boost at WOT to your stock motor, WHEN NEEDED. That amount of boost adds roughly 100-200HP for a limited amount of time.

I would build for torque... with horsepower as a bi-product. That's where I am going with my truck. I think we can get 700 ft lbs of torque out of the 46RE, but it will need work. 400HP out of the stock drivetrain, give or take.