I have a 2002 2500 4x4, 5.9 gas, 5 spd. It's pretty much stock besides either the transfer shift **** has been changed or the transfer case itself has been changed. They are opposite each other. It has 33's on nice Aluminum wheels. So far I'm pretty happy with it. It did seem low on power but I did some small maintenance , fixed the breather gasket, added an AEM filter, tried to open up the air box a little,without getting to much heat and cleaned it up.
It seemed to run better, but my plenum looked really dirty so I am keeping an eye on that. Another forum suggested doing additional work like adding roller lifters, double roller chain, and some other maintenance.
I am looking for all of the free and cheep horsepower I can get and am looking for suggestions, whether or not I need to change the plenum gasket. If I do have to I would even go find parts from other vehicles if they added performance, like air intakes, throttle bodies, intakes, exhaust etc. I have been out of the game for a while, lol. Are the rocker arm kits worth doing?

 

Well, if your plenum is blown (sounds like it probably is), then you'll want to fix the plenum, replace the catalytic converter (they clog up when the cat is blown from burning oil) and replace the O2 sensors (probably toast from the oil). When I did mine, I went ahead and did the timing chain as well. Since you'll have the Kegger style Intake off, it's the perfect time to replace the distributor cap and ignition wires. You'll see a big performance difference by doing these and getting the truck running right.

The roller rockers basically free up horsepower because there is a lot less friction using those than the stock ones. You'd get more power at the wheels. I don't know how much, I haven't done this myself...

 

Being an 02 it probably has the deathflash that chrysler did to get rid of the pinging. i think the 2000 and up trucks (3.9 5.2 5.9) came with it from the factory ( i believe) which didnt even help, people ended up with a truck that would still ping and have no power. My plenum was blown but i still had power( i was surprised), just bad pinging and oil consumption, which i would use a quart every 1000 miles, some say thats not bad for the mileage my truck has etc but after doing the plenum i havent used but a 1/4 of a quart in 4000 miles. As for the roller rockers from what i have read they make a nice power difference for our engines if you go with a 1.7 rr vs the stock stamped 1.6 rockers and the fixed harland sharps would be the ones to go with if you use stock valve covers.
things i want to do to my truck to get some power are a modified throttle body(you can usually find some nice ones on ebay, cant remember the sellers name), a programmer, 1.7 harland sharp roller rockers and evetually gears, a set of 4.10's would be nice!

 

Hey thanks. I came up with the rocker idea myself, the other forum was saying lifters. I can only imagine they meant rockers? I don't even know if that engine has hydraulic or solid lifters from the factory. I think the longer rockers would be like adding a higher lift cam which would increase flow. and the lifters? Would I really need to go with the double roller cam chain and gear set? I have seen chips advertised as low as $69.00 boasting to add a ton of HP and fuel mileage.
I really don't want to spend to much on this truck, even though I really like it. Otherwise I would already have a set of headers, X pipe and dynomax super turbo mufflers. While the dynomax super turbo is not so loud it flows great. Also I have found that many of these exhaust parts are the same manufacturer with other names put on them. Most importantly I want to try to buy USA made stuff. I do have an old edelbrock performer intake for small block dodge, I wonder how that would work with a modern small block and the fuel injection?

 

The chips are snake oil, don't waste your money. Same as throttle body spacers. Don't bother with those either.

You already have hydraulic roller lifters in there. Don't get much better than that. (aside from a cam change...) Roller Rockers (1.7s) give you about 10hp/tq.

Old manifold won't bolt to newer heads, and it doesn't have provisions for injectors either.

 

Yeah, I think the other site meant roller rockers. Adding rockers is like a higher lift cam like HeyYou said. If you fix the plenum, it's not much more work to do the replace the timing chain and gear with a double roller. The problem with the one from the factory is they tend to stretch over time, and it gets your truck slightly out of time. I bet that your timing chain is pretty sloppy, I know mine was. Mine had a big improvement with a new chain.

 

I forgot tomention that this truck is a daily or often driven vehicle. As much as I totally want to escape pavement and just mess around off road I can't. I still would love a header exhaust system and have been looking at cvlassified adds for a system. As far as a cold air intake I am going to look for a way to cut out the other side of my breather and run a hose to somewhere it can pick up cool air. I saw a supercharger for sale but missed out on it, I have always wanted a supercharged vehicle. I think they are safer and better than turbo's or nitrous. More about me, I have a grand Cherokee in need of attention, an arctic cat 650V2 4x4, a 3500 GMC extended van, an RM 250 team Suzuki/FMF race bike, Honda 250 R, Yamaha warrior, Honda rancher 420, an intrepid that I put a 3.5 engine in. I like messing with cars, trucks and ATV's but always seem to fall short on money to do what I want with them. Thank you all for the advice so far. I am trying to find that write up on the plenum change on Dodge Ram Forum but can't find it again. A guy on there did a good job of going through it all.

 

Ok, the air intake on these trucks is already pretty good. A Cold Air Intake would draw air from the same place the stock system does. The benefit would be minimal with a Cold Air Intake.

Be sure to check out our End-All-Be-All Plenum Thread https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...um-thread.html

But I found a pretty good write up for you to. It's at: http://www.****************.com/smf/...p?topic=9504.0

And another one that I found helpful: https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...placement.html

Timing chain if you so desire: http://www.pavementsucks.com/tech-article-37.html

Superchargers are cool! I've got a Pontiac Grand Prix and I wish it was the Supercharged version! Sadly it's not. I went to the jy and got all the parts to change it over to all the supercharger, but it looks like I might need to sell the car next year, so no installing the supercharger...