I've never owned one of the V6's. I understand there is a Mopar PCM which is supposed to work with them. Also you could likely do things to the exhaust. I'd bet the throttle body mods would also apply. I'd call John at SE and see what he says. It's like being in the twilight zone but the dude seems to know a lot abut these things.

Who is John & what is SE? I thing by the looks of it, the 3.9 is a 318 with 2 cyliders lopped off, so I wonder if the double roller and roller rockers are options?

 

I had a 3.9Mag at one point.. good little engine, and a whole lot better in front a five speed than the auto..

yes- it's the same as the 18'r, just shorter..

you can do basically the same mod's to it you can do to it's bigger brothers.. plenum plate from hughes, 1.7rr's, open the exhaust up, and do most the bolt-on's.. I bet a few dollars that HemiFever can work an SCT tune for you too..

I could see that thing producing as much as 215~220 at the crank (from 175 stock), and get around 140~150 to the terra with just the bolt-ons and some port gasket matching, so long as you make yourself a nice list FIRST, and follow on with complimentary mods as opposed to just throwing stuff at it..

 

Hey I hear yall talkin about the Y-pipe, and i'm a bit confused, dosent the cat act as a y-pipe? It has the two pipes from the manifolds go into the cat and one pipe out... or is there different exhaust systems out there?

 

It changed in 2000, but, you are essentially correct. The trouble is, the way those two pipes are squeezed down to fit into the cat. That is THE biggest restriction in the entire exhaust system, until you address that particular bit, nothing you do anywhere else in the exhaust will help performance.

 

Ok, thanks for clearin that up for me has anyone heard about doin the tb mod where ya remove the walls that around the opening of the tb? That would be cheap and easy if it actually worked! lol

 

^Dremel.
lol

 

Did you do this? is it worth doin??

 

Have I done this? No.
Have others done this? Yes, apparently it allows a little more air in the to the TB.

 

I'm one of the less than prudent people who sprung for a fastman 52mm throttle body before I thought it through.. I wish I would have considered what I was doing, and spent effort and $ somewhere else..

the venturi of that TB, on a stock teener or 60, is 46mm.. there is a shoulder which is 50mm.. if you make a somewhat perfect cylinder out of it, you effectively open it up to that 50mm.. If you go more than that, you're going to need new and bigger butterflies..

think about what this mod is doing though.. all it does in the 'working' range of the truck is allow you to pull more air with less pressure on the go foot.. it does help on the extreme top end, where the limits of flow are a bottleneck, but that is the only place.. something else it does, though, is reduce velocity.. that works against you in the low range..

the kinda funny thing, is this: it is absolutely NOT the TB that limits flow.. it is the camshaft.. once that is addressed, it is the exhaust (air in=air out), then it is a matter of getting MORE air in and air out.. that is the ONLY way to make ponies.. so, heads have to be addressed and tailored to your needs along with the camshaft (low range, high range, or spread the range- you gotta choose; low velocity of bigger valves, or higher velocity of smaller valves depending on range, and purpose of your build)... and that is where we will likely part ways, and speak only in theories of how to proceed, unless, of course, we are building trucks for the same purpose in the same environment.

the TB is a worthy mod if you're looking for top end.. or even mid range on a truck built for that.. but only after plenum fix, exhaust, heads, and cam.. in short: do as I say and not as I did.. do it right, and follow that equation.. that is the right way to do it.. that stock TB will perform just fine until IT becomes the issue, but you're a long way from that on a basically stock internal engine.

edited to add, just for the helluvit, and because just about everything I know about engines is in this thread, and this should complete it:

all this talk is about getting MORE power out of these rigs.. man, you can build an engine to produce just about whatever you want to make within reason.. the REAL question here, in my opinion, is about RELEASING the ponies already being produced.. These things gobble up energy like it's cool.. there are a lot of things about it that beg the question about where dodge got it's engineers..

you lose a ton of energy in the poor mating surfaces of the manifolds.. simple gasket matching and a steady hand with the grinder can poop you as much as 20~30 ponies, depending on how brave you are and how deep you cut.. match everything up and make smooth transitioning surfaces and increase the flow.. every 10cfm is a pony.. add 20cfm per cylinder/ 160 per block (easily done), to each partnership between the full intake and exhaust path (that's air hanging out in front of your truck while running all the way through the engine, and spit out your pipes)- and that is 16 ponies you just freed for the cost of bolts, gaskets, fluids, and time..

lose parasitic loss from the drive train, and the accessory bracket, blam- free up another ten or so.. go efan, go rocker rollers, and, how much do you like your a/c?.. get extreme and go eh20 (not this white boy, but feel free).. add another ten or so..

we're up to 36 ponies now.. we haven't spent a grand yet..

this could go on and on.. I'll spare you now..

 

So much good info deserves a bump