blah blah blah is what I got from this thread....I read 2-3 post and got annoyed. Basically mods are just that ANY changes to the truck/car/whatever!

Do we get more horsepower, probably but I don't dyno after each change I make!

Does it make our ego bigger? ABSOLUTELY!

Does it really matter? No...not unless you are trying to make it drag worthly in the 1/4 mile! We do what we do for the love it not the proven fact that our changes make HUGE differences....

That my 2 cents...I work on my truck as a hobby to get away form family and have fun! Plain and simple!

 

Oh for the days of old, when you could change the advance curve in the distributor and rejet the carburetor and make a very noticeable difference! For less than $500.00 you could get a cam, headers, heads, ignition, and two carb. intake manifold for a flathead Ford V8. I guess by now you all realize I'm an old fart. LOL

 

Well folks when I bought my truck it was getting 12mpg give or take. I had no 4th gear and a leaky plenum. I replaced the transmission(bolt on) and picked up 4mpg right off the bat. up to 16mpg. I fixed the plenum did a tune up with the 180* t-stat and the cooler spark plugs(both bolt on) only picked up 2 mpg but used way less oil. Was up to 18mpg then did the cai thing it was a cheap ebay aluminum copy of K&N got 1 mpg for about a month then mpg droped 2mpg I suspect due to ethanol being used and worn tires. I replaced tires and got 3mpg(again bolt on) now up to 20 mpg. My exhaust is a single to the flomaster muffler then split to 3 inch duals although looks and sounds cool got me nothing but a $400 bill no gain in mpg

As a disclaimer I have kept a constant record of my fuel usage and miles. I almost never drive over 60 and almost never chug up to the store its a total interstate machine for going to and from work and hauling my boat to the pond.

Now my friend at the local speed shop has a similar truck to mine minus the long bed and he did dyno various mods. As I recall the tb spacer is a total ripoff. The K&N cai had a gain of 3hp he then tried the mr gasket round filter and stayed at +3 hp. for a comparison we tried with no filter at all and got another 3 hp so with no intake system at all you can get 6hp but not recomended. just the 180*t-stat with the cooler spark plugs and got 6 hp. On a note the old plugs were really bad to the point of we wonder how they were even working. Then although not exactly a bolt on he replaced all fluids with the royal purple synthetic stuff and got 8 hp. so now with just "bolt on stuff" he has +17 hp next month comes the engine programer and the pully system or an electric water pump/cooling fans. Then headers and true duals.

before doing some tests like the cai and spark plugs we did do a base run with new stock airfilter and plugs. There did not seem to be a problem with the old t-stat and the fluids needed to be changed any way so there was no base run with the standard fluids. Its about as sientific as we could get with out tossing a bunch of money in the trash.

Some mods do good for mpg and nothing for hp like tire replacement Some mods are showing a gain just by replacing worn parts with fresh parts like the fluids, although there was no base run to prove this. I can say from experience that a cloged air filter will hamper hp and in some cases you can feel the diffrence from simply replacing with a clean stock filter.

 

shorty headers/no cat/flowmaster- sounds nice/revs quicker/changes tq to higher highway usage.
Round k&n- sounds nice/revs alittle quicer
Programmer- Nice to be able to change shifts for higher RPM,recal for tire size, alittle tq gain down low
fastmann TB- compliments the rest in a little low end...

What the f#ck is wrong with you people?? you b!tch and complain and moan about doing these mods and not seeing anything...What do you honestly expect when you do these modification to be your gains? 99% of the time ( ahem exhaust) your just changing the torque curve of the motor not gaining "performance" Your sitting there saying to yourself then, "but smokegrinder, why did you do all these mods then?" cause I enjoy the mechanical aspects of the truck and changing parts. Just friggin enjoy life and enjoy working on your truck....What is this all about? I'm sorry I didn't realize i was on mustang forums where im building a 1/4 car....Why did i spend 15bucks on a round k&n?? Because when your out enjoying your truck driving up a snow covered hill with your friends and their trucks yours has a nice growl out the exhaust and a growl from under the hood...Thats worth 15bucks to me so i dont know WTF people are complaining about...Then you woke up and realized your driving a truck. And the reason why people complain and moan is because of kids like 360neon who's more confused on what he wants to do/build with his vehicle than lindsey lohan is with her sexuality and the completely clueless (vmann i think?) With the nice tool picture infront of the truck who puts his 4x4 on in the rain, doesnt know what a screw driver is, and when theres frost on the grass creates a thread," omg omg guys, how should i drive in this frost?!? I already use the 4x4 in the rain and theres no 6x6 switch for the snow" yahhh...Welcome to the market of people who buy throttle body spacers, resistor chips, and claim they get 20mpg/lots of performance/ or the realistic ones that come to the forum crying...atleast 360neon started out with a neon and he should have stuck with it, hes not that bad of kid, vmann should be driving a camry......,

ehhh

/rant

 

Wow all this and just 2 days after Christmas.............Wow!

 

i guarantee with the mods i have done my truck runs much better than what it did stock. i will continue to mod my truck because i just like to do it. and i also keep any maintenance up too. i like having a truck that is not the norm.

yes,there are somethings that i havent noticed any difference. but there are some things that you could definitly tell a gain.dyno or no dyno.

this sounds like someone who is just trying to justify having a stock truck. like the guy who told me his 2wd truck would go in the snow and stuff just as good as my 4x4. c'mon, are you serious.

and its not about having a race truck for me. its just about having a truck that runs better.and it does run better.

 

I think the opposite, I think some people are trying to justify their mods. I dont want a stock truck personally, I just am cynical about how much can really be done with the engines. Yea I think you can get 20 horses. But like someone else said, these are trucks. I use mine to tow a boat. In that, it does a great job. If you want to add mods cause you enjoy using the wrench (and I'm with you) then do it. If you want to add mods so you can brag to your friends, thats great. I just fear that some people are chasing a dream with these trucks.

And some people need to calm down.

 

superchip 3815 will net you more than 20hp by itself.

i am calm,maybe my post didnt read like it. i am just voicing my opinion,just like you.

 

Not sure if this was mentioned, but I believe that one mod won't make a difference, but a series of mods that compliment eachother will make a difference.

Thats my opinion

 

Very interesting thread, WTL. I think it's a legitimate question. Charlie1935, I hear you man. Some of the comments from folks like SmokeGrinder and Viper had me laughing so hard I busted a gut!

I don't see any problem at all with Ram owners trying to eke out any extra HP/performance they can with simple bolt-ons. Heck, I'm glad there is an extensive aftermarket out there for our trucks. However, if you want big performance gains (relative term), then you really need to get into the internals of the engine. Once that is done, then the bolt-ons (TB, intakes, headers, etc.) will complement what you have done internally. I haven't dyno'd mine yet, but I can tell you she puts my butt back in the seat when you stand on it a lot harder than she ever did stock.