Recently acquired a ram 1500 with the magnum 360 97 model single cab. 4x4

has about 70k on it and I'm wondering what are some common mods for this truck to make it more reliable. Should I be looking into beefing anything up, new cold air intake exhaust and programmer?

All comments are appreciated. Going to be a daily driver. Will get a picture up tomorrow of it.

 

Catch up on the maintenance. Check the plenum.

 

A new exhaust and CAI.

 

I 2nd the maintenance... service the transmission and I don't mean a power flush as they can cause more problems than they remedy, also service the differentials and transfer case if they haven't been done

 

CAI is pretty much a waste of money. 99% of them draw air from the exact same place as the stock system. The only improvement you *might* see is at high RPM, where your engine should very rarely, if ever, be. Spend the money somewhere else.

 

Don't just check the plenum replace it with the Hughes kit. It's bound to fail sometime so it's just good insurance. May want to replace the the front axle wheel ujoints with spicers. Keep the stock air intake just get a K&N filter for it. Check the cap on the distributor, If it has the aluminum inserts toss it and get a OEM style cap. They have brass inserts and last a lot longer.

 

Okay thanks i will check out some plenum threads and take a look at mine along with starting research for exhaust.

Thought about doing headers if I do exhaust to have it all done at once.

I believe I have read on here that programmers aren't good for these trucks because of a head gasket issue is this true?

 

Programmers are great for these trucks.

Problem with the heads isn't the gaskets, it's the heads themselves. Cheap castings, prone to cracking. If you ever feel a need to pull your heads, don't bother spending any money on them, just replace them.

 

I would avoid the K&n myself if the truck sees a lot of dirt roads or dusty situations which many do .. I've had a few on different vehicles and read up on them quite a bit.. they do let more dust through the filter in dirty environments than a paper filter... I know paper isn't as "cool" and most of us want to bolt on improvements whenever we can but the K&n filters are more for a weekend street cruiser or drag racer that needs the extra 1 or 2 HP.
I trashed my old corvette when the K&ns fibers broke down And I didn't notice (looked fine when oiling till you inspected up close) ... burned a lot of oil..

 

Scratch the 70k it's got 150k miles..

Installed some halo/hid headlights over the weekend and have been working on custom front and rear bumpers.

Drove it to my house 2hours and didn't over heat despite me realizing it was low while doing lights.

Is very sluggish going up hills I had cruise set at 75 and most times it would drop to 60-65 by the top of the hill. Which SUCKS! This could be the plenum and or the cat converter from what I've read on this site is that correct?