Alrioght i have a 96 dodge ram 2wd with a 318 engine and an automatic transmission.

Transmission is just about done. It was bad! The guy said it had the most damage of any transmission that has ever came to his shop.

The next step is exhaust because the damn catalytic converter was rattling so i punched it out and it is still rattling and i cant get the piece to come apart so it is going all together. I plan on putting either long tubes or shorties on it with true duels and a H-pipe or an X-pipe with street/strip chambered mufflers on it out the back. After that i am tossing around the idea of putting a cam in it. I dont want anything that is going to require a stall or make it horrible at pulling, but i do want a lope to it while its idling and some more power. Im just not to sure what to look for with a stock 318. Along with the cam and exhaust i am really tossing around the idea of heads as well. Possibly R/T heads; from what i hear they will bolt right up. To add to that some 1.6 or 1.7 Roller rockers.

If anyone has some knowledge about any of these mods or some recommendations i would appreciate it.Not looking for a race truck, just some more fun factor to driving it around. Its my secondary vehichle so downtime doesn't bother me.

 

the exhaust is a great idea to start out with, but if you do that and that alone, you are not going to feel much of a power increase, mostly sound. when you do the exhaust to help the engine exhale better, you should do an intake and/or throttle body to make the engine inhale better. you will feel much more power this way. as far as cams and rocker arms, i am still working on that myself, but some of the other guys can help you out with that a little more.

 

i was looking. I was thinking a cam with 1.6RR's. Now i just need to know what cam and also i was wondering what to do with the ECM issues that a cam will present. Anybody recommend shorties vs. longtubes?

 

long tubes are a better way to go for keeping low end torque from what i hear, my experience is with the shorties. B&G is the place to go for the pcm flash, they will need to know your engine setup to know what code to flash it with. I had the R/T heads and liked them alot (2000 QC 4x4 360), since then there is now another option in the HD heads, if you visit the Hughes website they have info on how they can be modded to outperform the r/t's... and they are cheeper out of the box.