this is my situation, if you dont already know, i drive a '93 with the 3.9 magnum auto 2WD. now my problem is heavy oil consumption. i added lucas oil stabalizer (pretty much the whole bottle) and it helped the oil burning issue, but did not cure it. now its starting to get bad again and im going through about a liter a week. im sick of paying for oil so often, i dont even wanna do an oil change on it the way that it is. its pissing me off. now i was lead to believe that the intake gasket likes to blow out on the magnum engines. so i guess my question is, could it really be the intake gasket, cuz theres times where i smell serious oil in the exhaust, but then theres times where it smells like nothing but normal exhaust fumes. im confused... i would assume that if its the piston rings, that it would burn oil constantly right? i would also assume that if it was the intake gasket, wouldnt it burn oil constantly too?

 

My guess is that it is the plenum gasket. Just do a seach on this forum, both in the dakota and ram sections and you'll see countless posts about the plenum going bad and causing excessive oil burning.

 

Here, I just wrote up an explanation of the plenum gasket issue if you want to read it... https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...ml#post1639299

 

right on, thanx. but would that cause it to only burn oil at certain points of temp change? cuz i just assumed that it would constantly burn oil if the gasket was "blown". so from the write up, i would assume that the plenum plate is just a plate that kind of sits in the intake? im not 100% sure on how the intake works, i dont really know the dynamics of an engine, this is the first truck that ive taken a real interest in, i owned an '86 f-150 before and had planned to fix that, but no interest in dealing with fords b/s. if i just replace the gasket, how long do you think it would last, being driven hard, medeocre, and like a grandma? i will eventually order the plenum plate from hughes, but right now im in between jobs, so i dont have much money to play with either.

 

being how there should be no vacuum in the motor itself, take your "breather" cap off. it's located on the driver side valve cover.

place your hand close to the hole (with motor running) and if you feel suction, you have a bad intake gasket.


my uncle (who's been a dodge mechanic since 1990) told me the new gasket (if ordered from dodge) will never give you a problem again. those who have problems are those who order them from parts stores.

 

As far as never give you problems,thats kinda far off. But being better than autozone junk thats true. Napa is good quality too.

 

well i did that test, and with my fingers nearly in the hole i can feel suction. so that means the intake gasket is "blown out"? there wasnt any heavy suction, i could only feel it when i stuck my fingers right into the hole

 

Is this correct? :

"place your hand close to the hole (with motor running) and if you feel suction, you have a bad intake gasket."

My manual says that there is supposed to be suction at the breather filter port.

 

Actually to test if you do have an intake leak you have to remove the breather filter AND the PCV valve. Then plug up one hole and check for vacuum at the other. Then swap sides. With just the breather filter the PCV will make the vacuum through out the engine system. This test is not the most accurate. If the leak is big enough you can detect it. But if the leak is small its very hard to fell anything.

 

Thanks for backing me up on that Crazy! I was going to say exactly that but then I figured whats the point of arguing.

It was the factory Dodge plenum gasket that blows out so fast in the first place, so why do you think a new Dodge gasket be fine? The gasket from Dodge is fine, its the design of the plenum bolting together 2 different metals with different heat expansion rates that causes the gasket to blow out.