Oil consumption..
 

Ok... so while I was on vacation a few weeks ago, the slight ticking I had turned out to be a rod knocking, so I had to get a used engine put in my Durango... note that I said used, not rebuilt, so I didn't expect it to be perfect...

However....

on the 800 mile trip home, mainly interstate and 70mph highway, I burned 2 quarts of oil. Never saw it smoke. Decided I would watch it. So I have put about another 1000 miles on, and another 2 quarts. Still, no smoke that I can see.

Where could the oil be going, I see no leaks?

Also, sometimes when I start and sit at idle, I get kind of a 'miss' sporadically... any ideas?

Plenum leak. You will have to remove the intake and fix the belly gasket (Plenum gasket) new set of intake manifold gaskets, RTV the corners and replace the intake manifold.

Ok... the mechanic that swapped the engines for me had to swap the intakes too, said something about the replacement engine had different injectors, so if he did that, wouldn't he have had to replace the plenum gasket?

In theory, yes he would.... but, if he was an ass hat mechanic, it is possible that when he did the swap seen that the gasket was in tacked and reused it( never should be done but, i have see shops do it before) .. take off you air hat and open up the butterflys and shine a flashlight down there... if you see puddles of oil you need to change the gasket...

I would say your mechanic screwed you over by not replacing the belly pan gasket. I highly recommend to also replace the factory steel belly pan with an aluminum belly pan while you have the intake off the engine. The steel belly pan and the aluminum intake expand and contract at different rates with the heat and the gasket will get sucked into the intake causing a lose of power and oil consumption.

Hughes and ASP offer the aluminum belly pans but here's one on ebay the is as good or better than theirs at a lot better price. Check it out! http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/DODGE...item3a69a0009c

I don't think he screwed him, he might not have thought about it or not known about it. However he could have blotched the intake manifold gaskets.

The plenum gasket has been a problem from the very first 'kegger' intake to the last one that was made. Chrysler knew about it but was never forced by NHTS to make the recall and to make things worse, they continued the design flaw to the last one! There should not be one mechanic out there that has any experience at all that shouldn't know about the problem but we'll give his mechanic the benefit of the doubt and assume he'd never heard of it or just overlooked it.

Regardless, the belly pan should be replaced with an aluminum one. Just replace the gasket and reuse the steel belly pan and the problem will come back.

Ok, I tried to take pictures, and I am pretty sure it's the plenum with the rate that it's consuming oil. Now I just have to save my pennies to get someone to do it, since I don't have the time, place, or know how.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...905_173019.jpg

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...905_173013.jpg

Yelp, definitely a blown belly pan gasket. Before you start the repair, get in touch with Brian (1999BLKDAKRT) and pickup one of his aluminum belly pans or you'll be paying for the repair again later on when the gasket blows again.