I don't have heat in my truck. The reason for that is I'm burning a little coolant for a few minutes at start up, which gives me little white puffs of smoke for a few minutes from the tail pipe. I top off the coolant once every 500 miles or so. I'm not leaking coolant, I'm not seeing puddles anywhere, it's not mixing with the oil, it's just being burned.

My compression numbers are all 125-130psi on cylinders 1-6, cylinders 7 and 8 are about 105-106psi. I've done wet and dry compression tests on this engine, no real difference in the numbers (been a few years though). Engine is the 5.9 liter Magnum with 198k miles.

I believe that the cylinder heads are cracked at cylinders 7 and 8, as I know this is a common issue on these trucks.

The plenum was fixed several years ago, and hasn't been an issue.

I own a set of EQ heads (1.92" valves) for this engine, but haven't installed them. I believe that replacing the heads would stop my truck from burning coolant, raise my compression, and allow me to have heat. I have considered installing the heads, but an concerned about it generating too much compression and blowing out the engine's bottom end. Is this something I should be concerned about, or is that a myth?

 

The bottom ends of these engines were (are...) pretty stout. Replacing your heads, and restoring compression will NOT cause you any problems. (ok, maybe speeding tickets.....)

 

Hahaha! I do have a lead foot sometimes (ok, all the time). I'm much worse in cars than my truck though.

Follow up question:
This truck isn't my daily driver, but I do drive this truck for light hauling, trips to Lowe's for stuff that won't fit in my car, to go get a truck load of dirt or gravel, and anywhere where I'll be driving off the road or need 4x4 (I occasionally drive out to a farm and have to drive through a creek). I currently have a ported factory keg intake on the truck. This isn't my 1st 2nd gen Ram, and I happen to also own 2 extra intakes for it. 1 is an unmodified factory keg intake, the other is a new old stock Mopar Performance M1 intake. Would either of these serve me better for my uses with this truck?

When I install the heads, I'll likely also install some HS 1.7r roller rockers.

 

I drove an 88 Firebird Formula 350 for many years.... and my wife would be constantly reminding me that my truck was NOT my firebird...... even though I drove it like it was anyway.

The modded kegger tends to raise the power band up a bit, depending on how far you cut the runners. On my 96, I bought another intake to modify when it was time to do the plenum, so I would have one I could just swap in, and not have the truck down while I was playing with it. (worked well on that aspect.) I didn't notice any lack of power off-idle, but DID like the way the engine ran as compared to before fixing it. However, was that due to the mods? Or fixing the big vacuum leak? I don't know.

The M1 is a single plane manifold though, so that would most certainly compromise low end power...... the rockers will make up for some of that..... but, I think if you want to use your truck AS a truck, and aren't going to do any major changes at this point, (cam, tune, things of that nature) I would just stick with the modded kegger.

 

Thanks. I do have the canned HemiFever tune. Guess I should of mentioned that.

No plans to change the camshaft or anything.

 

Yeah, stick with the modded kegger.

 

Thanks!