98 Dakota 5.2 V8 is using a lot of oil and pinging and power loss. No leaks or smoke, so I removed the air cleaner hat, and there's an oil film on the plate and everywhere around the sides. There's no pooling, just heavy film all over. Does that sound like it's bad enough to go in and replace the gasket? Will a new gasket likely fix the problems? Otherwise, the motor runs pretty good. Plugs, wires are new.

Great forum. Thanks in advance.

Jim

 

if its a 5.2 or 5.9 and its pinging and using oil, and the plenum plate's never been replaced, its almost certainly leaking. there's a lot of good DIY over in the 2nd gen ram section for the Hughes plate. come over and help yourself.

this has a lot of good info too.
http://www.rm-indy.com/wavefiles/2001ramsrvcmanual.zip

 

I don't think they did a very good job. It's time to do it right and replace the plate, gasket and bolts. I noticed APS Precision has a kit also.

Thanks!