I have not seen this on any of the gazillion threads about the plenums so I am going to put this out there. This is for those of you who are having plenum issues and dont have the money to buy a Hughes plunum kit. The reason the plenums have an issue is that the bolts that hold the plenum in place are bottoming out in the intake. This is causing the gasket to not get properly tourqed. This was an engineering flaw when in the design phase. The fix is to get bolts that are a size shorter and install a stock style gasket.

 

No, the problem is the steel plate in combination with the short bolts.

 

yeah, i think ive seen the shorter bolts mentioned...i can see them being a bigger prob than the steel plate

 

you have a prochargered ram with a sweet hood and cant afford a plenum for 130 ??

 

if you can have just as effective fix for $10 whynot?.....hence the extra money wisely saved for things like procharger and hood....
I find this very interesting because there are a lot of other applications with aluminum on steel found in cars that seem to work better....

 

There are a lot of applications of aluminum on steel, but how many are sitting on such a huge temp difference, or are as large as the intake manifold?

Many times the whole gasket doesn't blow out, just certain parts.

I am not saying the bolts aren't part of the equation, they probably are. But its not the whole equation.

Seriously, $130 for a kit is pretty darn inexpensive. If your budget can't afford that kind of vehicle fix, then you are in a world of hurt, financially. Not saying we all want to spend $130 per week or anything on vehicle maintenance, but this is a one time deal/fix.

 

Still, now I see why hughes was so insistent in using the new bolts...

 

WOW bunch of haters lol I mentioned this for the guys that are a little more cash strapped. I dont have a problem with 130 dollars. There is no issue with the pan or the different materials. I know this MOPAR guy that has done what I mentioned on all of his work and never had another issue running NA or boost.

 

theproblem was steel to aluminum, and the heat makes them expand differently causing leaks.

and i got the Hughes Kit in mine...And if i own another Ram that has a plenum issue, since my next vehicle will be another ram, i would definatly buy the kit again. just for the hughes plate and 2nd day shipping it cost me 116 and thats it.

 

Did you use the same intake bolts and gaskets? It comes out to be more then just 116.