It's an intake manifold, and no you do not need it to fix yours. You only need the kit to fix yours. If you buy one like this one, you no longer need the kit. So it is just an option... I am buying one like this because I do not like the plenum design, and I want a normal intake design. I'd rather spend $354 on this than $140 on the new plate. I think it will pay off performance-wise...but that's just me

 

Well now that I know my plenum is in fact trouble, it's something I will replace, but I'll do this on my own time. Why would this transmission shop be coming up with this though? It's there for the transmission. Also, with a bodylift, would that mean there would no longer be stresses on the suspensional components if I keep the 35" tires, or am I still having to deal with having pieces that aren't up to par still? I kind of feel like just going fullout down to stock though and not messing around with anymore lifts until I can actually afford the whole real deal and gears etc. But as for the plenum, I will find a way to do this myself, where is a good guide on here that helps explain do to it? But for the transmission, why aren't any codes being thrown up from that. And yeah, I am not getting it done from there anymore. I'm bringing it down to northeast transmission in saco. Can't hurt to have two different quotes.

 

Go to the DIY section on the 2nd gen home page and you will find a write-up with pics...

 

Because they want you to spend as much money at their shop as possible. Tell me after the header install you didn't figure out that mechanics are snakes

Body lifts don't put any additional stress on your steering components. They don't effect it at all. They'll give you more room under your hood for when you're tearing your engine down (plenum gasket repair). Even if you bring the truck down to stock offroad height and add a 3" body lift you can still fit your 35s. And the best part is they're only like $250 That's way cheaper than buying a new set of tires.

 

I think they are just trying to get more money out of you. They want to fix the plenum, then when it doesn't solve your tranny issues, make more money by rebuilding it. I would get that truck away from them asap. Or they could have been stalling because they didn't get it looked at and wanted to go home.

 

Easy now there Killer....

 

Sorry
I wasn't refering to all mechanics, but poor neon isn't a very good judge of character, and the people he just took his truck to are definetly trying to snake him. There are still good, decent, honest, Christian mechanics out there. But they're about 1/20 now in days, and there's no denying that.

 

Please Please Please take my advice this one time. First just a quick I told you so. I have to point out that I've told you to check that damn plenum 4 or 5 times now. Now that I said thatI feel better. Here's my advice. DO THE PLENUM BY YOUR SELF and BUY THE NEW PLENUM. All you need is wrenches and a fuel line dissconnect. You can get the dissconnect on lone from somewhere like autozone. Get the plenum plate from hughes. Don't buy the kit just get the plate. It's like 80 bucks. It comes with a gasket. Then goto autozone get a tube of black gasket sealer and a felpro intake gasket set. It comes with the upper and lower gasket. Some people suggest replacing the bolts on the plenum but you should be fine with the old bolts. Then read the diy on here. It's really simple. I think the hardest part is getting the fan off but you can do it with out getting the fan off. I think the only mistake that I made was I turned the ignition to the run position instead of the on position and it sprayed gas everywhere. If I could call you I swear I would be beating this into your head. I promise you can do this on your own. If you did the headers on your bros truck you can do this on yours. It'll take you about half a day.

As far as the tranny goes I highly doubt the intake is affecting your tranny. The only thing that could be is if your having a misfire it could set off code 1740 wich is the PCM thinking there is something wrong with your tourqe converter. Still a misfire dosn't explain the problems you were talking about. In fact I think you should go get your truck from that hack mechanic. If he thinks it's the intake he better have a damn good reason as to why because I don't see the connection and I think he's looking for money. Did you ask him to go through the whole truck?

 

Thank you for the advice, I will be doing the plenum with my brother on my own time. I didn't ask them to look over the whole truck though, I wanted to keep it simple and focused on the transmission, but obviously that didn't really work. The fact I had to call them at the end of both days today makes me uneasy. I'm having it pulled out of there later tomorrow after he calls me. I will do that plenum myself, so thank you guys with helping me out with what I need for that. I'll bring the truck to another transmission shop. Thanks for the tips guys, I refuse to get ****ed anymore from mechanics, because I did learn from that header ordeal, TRUST ME.

 

When are you planning on doing this??? When you get your 33's I want to know how your 4.56's feel with 33's... im debating on weather to get 4.11's or 4.56's.

I doubt that the plennum leak can affect the tranny... I dont know if there are any vaccum controls that control the tranny... but you you have a plennum leak that can screw with your vaccum presures and posibblly **** with the tranny.. but only if there is some sort of vaccum thing that controls the way the tranny shifts. Also maybe your plennum is bad, you you are having to throw more throttle at the truck than normal to get it going (hence the plennum leak reduceing your engines power) and more throttle WILL effect the tranny... everything has to work in sync for the tranny to work right, but I doubt you will have problems like you make out.

I would really check into the sway bar idea... its a good one... driving a truck without a swaybar on the highway is... well scary and is ALOT like you say. People that offroad alot take them out/unhook them to get better articulation.
The plennum leak is probaly why you are loosing speed on the highway up hills.. Mine did the exact same thing when my plennum was bad.
GET the aps or hugues kit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you use stock parts (the mechanic will) it WILL happen again... they can fail in as little at 10k miles... even sooner if the intake it warped slightly... and probably will be from all of the heating and cooling cylces (its why the stock plennum pan goes bad... but mostly becasue the pan is made of thin steel, and intake is cast alum... they both expand at differnt rates... after a while the stock gasket cant take it anymore and goes out.

Doing the plennum repair isnt hard... just kinda a pain. Ill tell you one thing... when you do it... CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN around that intake manifold... I did alot, it looked perfectly clean... when I took it off a whole bunch of DIRT fell down my intake ports... not good.