I haven't been hanging around the 2nd gen section lately, but the plenum gasket on my father's 98 1500 is def. bad. I know most people used to say that the Hughes Plenum Plate and a Felpro gasket with no sealer seemed to do the best. Is this still true? What about the gasket that Hughes supplies?

 

Hughes is definately an upgrade . The aluminum plate matches the intake , therefore , the same expansion rates between the 2 , different from the stock set up , steel/alum. . There is a solution to the problem , use a small bead of anaerobic gasket maker on both sides of the felpro gasket . This gasket maker remains plyable and is for this purpose , to bond two different metals . I've used this sucessfully for over 1 yr of some very demanding driving in my 5.2 Jeep . I test the plenum occasionally (paranoid) but it's always good . .
There always avoid a plate all together and get the M-1 intake .
Realistically , hughes is proven to be a great never have to touch it again solution , you won't go wrong this way .
Torque to spec is critical , take your time , use 2 cans of Mopar combustion chamber cleaner and a tooth brush to clean the plenum , make it look like the pic . If you don't mind replacing the injecter seals , you can take off a little around the injecters to get a better more unrestricted flow easily with a dremmel or die grinder , you'll see where to trim , if you like that is . Make sure the intake set has the rubber ends for the intake gasket .
As for the hughes gasket , use it . If instructed to go dry , do so , if not , use the gasket maker I suggested above , it's the best IMO

 

Over 4,800 posts and you don't know to do a search first?

 

The Hughes kit instructs not to use any kind of sealant or substance on the gasket. The gasket the Hughes kit supplies may do the job, I don't know for sure, but it sure looked wimpy to me. I used the Felpro gasket, proven that it works well, looks a lot more like a proper gasket than the Hughes unit. Cleaned my filter the other day, looked into the intake out of curiosity. So clean in there you could eat off of it.

 

oh my fawking god are you serious....

 

How would you know if the plenum is bad?Where could I look to see if its bad

 

look on the side of the truck. if it says dodge then the damn plenum leaks.

 

Yeah, I am. V8 plenums has to be on the top 10 list of things discussed often in here and easily answered by doing a search. Look at the post after yours. A question that has been answered a hundred times already. So, now we have yet another plenum thread cluttering up the place. Along with the half dozen A/C threads currently on pages 1-2. It's always better to post to an existing related thread rather than start a new one. That's basic forum etiquette.

 

man i was going to say that first but u beat me to it

 

Everything you need to know : http://dodgeram.info/tsb/2000/09-05-00.htm

Here's how it's fixed : http://www.jeepsunlimited.com/forums...d.php?t=461371