He had two of them on his cart he showed me but I don't know if it was more or just two. Is this fairly common? Why do they do this?

 

The gasket between the head and the intake fails, and water from coolant passages finds it's way to a bolt hole. Then it just sits there are rust the bolt. If the gasket fails bad enough, it looked to me like it wouldn't be hard to get coolant down into the lifter valley.

 

Installed the Plenum Kit last night and modded the kegger, the same way Silver did, definitely helps the top end out

I did not use RTV on the steel gasket and it seems to be sealed pretty good, no leaks yet

The part I was really worried about was the intake manifold gasket themselves not sealing and allowing coolant into to where its not supposed to be..........And the whole 12F/t lbs of torque on the intake manifold seemed like it wasn't enough, but everything is sealed for now

 

This rust problem is one of the reasons why Dodge recommends replacing the bolts everytime you remove the intake manifold.

 

The main issue is that they are TTY bolts.

I do not want to have to do this twice, so I am going with an M1 intake!

 

Thats what I thought I was going to due but got to looking at prices and comparing them to the APS kit and decided I could spend the extra $300 or so atleast somewhere else. I didn't know which M1 I needed anyway and others told me I probably wouldn't notice much of a power difference if any and I might have lost power in the low end. This was enough to make me just do the APS kit but then again sometimes I sort of wish I had gotten the M1 anyway. The APS kit so far seems to work fine though.

 

Update*

Im not very happy with the truck, not sounding pessimistic or anything but I was hoping the new plenum was going to cure my loss of power problem

I don't know what else to do, I have done everything possible so far but no luck

I just think the motor should run a helluva alot better than it does..........Im seriously thinking about selling the truck

I can't even hit 80 MPH in O/D on flat ground which seems ridiculous.......any suggestions

My tranny was rebuilt about a year ago......Can the tranny drag the motor down that much if it's going to hell?

 

What are HS RR's. I seen it posted on here as a mod someone was going to perform.

 

What else have you done combating this particular problem? I checked back thru your posting history, but, didn't really come up with much.

A few things I can think of just off hand to have a look at though, would be possibly a failing Cat Converter..... if it is only partially plugged, you would see more problems at higher RPM.

Fuel pressure is something else I would check. When is the last time the fuel filter was changed?

What is your crankcase vacuum like? if you pull the hose (not the one from the PCV), and put your hand over the hole with the engine running, does it try to suck you in? or is it just a light vacuum?

Is timing set?

Mouse build a nest in the air tube thru the side of the fender. (Don't laugh, I have actually seen this happen......)

It should run a heck of a lot better than that.

Something else I am curious about..... what size tires are you running, and what gear ratio?