MikesRammin
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2011
- Posts
- 261
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- New Carlisle, Ohio
- Ram Year
- 1994
- Engine
- 5.2 Magnum
So I finally got to start on my plenum gasket Friday after I got off work. Boy I didn't know how much I had bit off. Now I know my way around a wrench I've built race engines and worked on cars my whole life but if I have to another plenum gasket again I'm sending it to the shop. It took me 22.5 hours. Ridculious. Granted I didn't take pictures but it was horrible.
I started out friday and first thing I did was spend about 30 minutes cleaning up my throttle body the bottom was caked with oil. I then did the throttle body mod it was easy and very straight forward. I started around 4 and around 6 or 7 I had it ready to pull the intake now here is where my problems started. The last thing I had to unhook was the EGR tube from the manifold to the intake.
Now if you have a 1994-95 then you have the tube. But if you have newer then you don't have to worry about it. Well the nut on the tube to the intake was froze and rounded off. No biggy I'll just unhook it from the manifold and it'll be good. So I started on them. Just my luck they were all crudded up and to rusted to get off. Fudge!
Well I went and took a coffee break and went back at it. Well then I noticed that the tube was trashed. UGH!!!!!!! By this time I'm fuming and was pretty pissed off. Luckly my dad owns a wrecker bussiness and he was on his way home from a tow. So I called him up and we towed her home.
Next morning I looked up the EGR tube. Couldn't find it ANYWHERE! like really? Such a simple part and no body sells it. Well then I called the local dodge dealer and they told me it was 42 bucks! WHAT!!!!!
I don't have the money or time to wait on it. So I said screw it. I looked up online about blocking the EGR and a few people have done it and saw no changed with mileage or performance, just a CEL every know and then.
So I decided to block it off. Well I went about deciding how to block it off. Time to think outside of the box. Well I found a fitting to that screwed in the intake well now I had to to figure out how to plug the hole in the exhaust manifold, I didn't want to crush or anything or damage it. Eventually I want to get the tube and fix it back to stock.
Well I decided to go look for a manifold in the junkyard off a newer truck that didn't have EGR. Luckily I have two junkyards within a mile of my house. Convenant right? Well my dad was on a tow and I had nothing to drive so I packed my bag full of tools and headed down to the first yard. My original mission was to find the tube. I get down to the first yard and they only had one that was an EGR truck but guess what? NO ENGINE! Geezzzzzz!!!! Well luckily the next ram I looked at they took the heads off of then threw everything else in the bed. They had the manifold!
So I figured since my dad and me are on the fire department and the owner used to be an officer at the FD I would get a deal. He wanted 45 bucks for the manifold! Screw thatttttttttttttttt.
So my dad picked me up in the wrecker again. Some random guy came up to my dad and asked about the prices. Well we ended up getting a tow! Talk about luck lol.
We headed back home and my dad asked me if I wanted to go look at the other yard I was like ok but I doubt they have a ram. They had one ram. A 98 with a 5.2. Halluyah!!!!!!! and the whole front end was off except the passenger fender lol. So I started un bolting and they cam out like butter. Then my problems started. I couldn't get to the back bolts to the pipe to the manifold and the wheels where off so it was in the ground.
Well then I walk back up there and tell them about it and they wanted to charge 30 dollars to use the oxy torch. REALLY? So the owner had a good idea. Take a sawall cut the floor and cut the pipe and pull it out. I liked that idea! But our sawzall is cord powered. And the ram was in the farthest corner of the lot. Well then they had a 1970 cuttlass that had been side swiped that needed towed to a house. They asked my dad about it since he was there with the wrecker. He then offered to tow it for the manifold. They said ok. Score!
Well we run home and get the sawzall then we streched extention cords alllllllllll the way out there to the truck while my dad towed. It took an hour to get the cords to work. In the end we had 100 feet of just trouble lights ran lol. I then cut a big hole in the floor and cut the pipe man it was fun!! :********:
My dad got back and ends up he got 20 bucks to for the tow! So all in all he got 65 dollars for the tow now the rates are 50 dollars hook up and 2 dollars a mile well it was about 3 or 4 mile tow so it was a profit! But it gets better the yard owner is now gonna use my dads business for his tows in a partnership! All in all I spent about 5 hours between both yards and getting the manifold.
So I get home and continued working on the truck. Finally I got the intake off. So i open it up and man was it nasty! I spent the rest of that day cleaning it and a few hours the next day cleaning it. Well while I was taking off the intake I accidently broke my oil pressure switch gahhhhhhh! Luckly I still had my aftermarket oil pressure gauge from my Ford. So on that went the truck does look pretty cool with it on there!
So monday rolls around and I finally get everything back together and start working on swapping out the manifold. All the bolts came out easy as pie except for the last to. They were correded to hell. I had to go to work so I had to wait till the next day.
I drive the truck around and it was running super rich. No problem I knew the computer had to re learn everything. Few days later it's running better. It's running good now but I don't really feel any increase in power or see any better mileage. Oh well it does idle bettter now and I got great heat now so it's all good.
I started out friday and first thing I did was spend about 30 minutes cleaning up my throttle body the bottom was caked with oil. I then did the throttle body mod it was easy and very straight forward. I started around 4 and around 6 or 7 I had it ready to pull the intake now here is where my problems started. The last thing I had to unhook was the EGR tube from the manifold to the intake.
Now if you have a 1994-95 then you have the tube. But if you have newer then you don't have to worry about it. Well the nut on the tube to the intake was froze and rounded off. No biggy I'll just unhook it from the manifold and it'll be good. So I started on them. Just my luck they were all crudded up and to rusted to get off. Fudge!
Well I went and took a coffee break and went back at it. Well then I noticed that the tube was trashed. UGH!!!!!!! By this time I'm fuming and was pretty pissed off. Luckly my dad owns a wrecker bussiness and he was on his way home from a tow. So I called him up and we towed her home.
Next morning I looked up the EGR tube. Couldn't find it ANYWHERE! like really? Such a simple part and no body sells it. Well then I called the local dodge dealer and they told me it was 42 bucks! WHAT!!!!!
I don't have the money or time to wait on it. So I said screw it. I looked up online about blocking the EGR and a few people have done it and saw no changed with mileage or performance, just a CEL every know and then.So I decided to block it off. Well I went about deciding how to block it off. Time to think outside of the box. Well I found a fitting to that screwed in the intake well now I had to to figure out how to plug the hole in the exhaust manifold, I didn't want to crush or anything or damage it. Eventually I want to get the tube and fix it back to stock.
Well I decided to go look for a manifold in the junkyard off a newer truck that didn't have EGR. Luckily I have two junkyards within a mile of my house. Convenant right? Well my dad was on a tow and I had nothing to drive so I packed my bag full of tools and headed down to the first yard. My original mission was to find the tube. I get down to the first yard and they only had one that was an EGR truck but guess what? NO ENGINE! Geezzzzzz!!!! Well luckily the next ram I looked at they took the heads off of then threw everything else in the bed. They had the manifold!
So I figured since my dad and me are on the fire department and the owner used to be an officer at the FD I would get a deal. He wanted 45 bucks for the manifold! Screw thatttttttttttttttt.
So my dad picked me up in the wrecker again. Some random guy came up to my dad and asked about the prices. Well we ended up getting a tow! Talk about luck lol.We headed back home and my dad asked me if I wanted to go look at the other yard I was like ok but I doubt they have a ram. They had one ram. A 98 with a 5.2. Halluyah!!!!!!! and the whole front end was off except the passenger fender lol. So I started un bolting and they cam out like butter. Then my problems started. I couldn't get to the back bolts to the pipe to the manifold and the wheels where off so it was in the ground.
Well then I walk back up there and tell them about it and they wanted to charge 30 dollars to use the oxy torch. REALLY? So the owner had a good idea. Take a sawall cut the floor and cut the pipe and pull it out. I liked that idea! But our sawzall is cord powered. And the ram was in the farthest corner of the lot. Well then they had a 1970 cuttlass that had been side swiped that needed towed to a house. They asked my dad about it since he was there with the wrecker. He then offered to tow it for the manifold. They said ok. Score!
Well we run home and get the sawzall then we streched extention cords alllllllllll the way out there to the truck while my dad towed. It took an hour to get the cords to work. In the end we had 100 feet of just trouble lights ran lol. I then cut a big hole in the floor and cut the pipe man it was fun!! :********:
My dad got back and ends up he got 20 bucks to for the tow! So all in all he got 65 dollars for the tow now the rates are 50 dollars hook up and 2 dollars a mile well it was about 3 or 4 mile tow so it was a profit! But it gets better the yard owner is now gonna use my dads business for his tows in a partnership! All in all I spent about 5 hours between both yards and getting the manifold.
So I get home and continued working on the truck. Finally I got the intake off. So i open it up and man was it nasty! I spent the rest of that day cleaning it and a few hours the next day cleaning it. Well while I was taking off the intake I accidently broke my oil pressure switch gahhhhhhh! Luckly I still had my aftermarket oil pressure gauge from my Ford. So on that went the truck does look pretty cool with it on there!
So monday rolls around and I finally get everything back together and start working on swapping out the manifold. All the bolts came out easy as pie except for the last to. They were correded to hell. I had to go to work so I had to wait till the next day.
I drive the truck around and it was running super rich. No problem I knew the computer had to re learn everything. Few days later it's running better. It's running good now but I don't really feel any increase in power or see any better mileage. Oh well it does idle bettter now and I got great heat now so it's all good.
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