Well, the title says it all, the old girl is pinging pretty bad.
Anything over 2000RPM. Not just up hills either, flat road over 2000.

On Monday when driving to a friends place, the truck pinged, but not a lot and noisily. However, on the way back that afternoon, it was pinging BAD. Loud too.
In the morning it was around 55* and in the afternoon it was around 75.

I just wanna know whats wrong with it so that I can get it done and over with...the pinging at 2200RPM is just maddening because the power drops off to almost nothing. Yes, its a truck, yes it has big tires, but still. I should be able to make it move when I want to. I don't think the CAT is clogged as it doesn't exactly fall flat on its face, it just slows WAAAAYYYY DOOOWWWWN. The pressure coming out seems decent too.

I've got autolite platnums in it now (PO), I need to change them. The no. 8 plug has this hardened ash deposit on it....bad. The other 2 I was able to pull looked fine except weird wear (electrode wasn't wore evenly).

I was thinking earlier, staring at the service manual on the computer screen, about what might be causing this ****. I'm not driving the thing yet, but it still pisses me off, and I want it fixed.
So far I've come up with this, please offer the collective wisdom of the 2nd Gen Dodge Forum Ram section!

remove carbon build up
fuel pump
fuel injectors
pre cat 02 sensor
map sensor
stuck pcv
brake booster line
timing chain/gears
sh1tty e10 87octane gas


weird fixes

180* tstat
20psi rad cap
colder plugs
fix vac lines

The 180 tstat will be last resort for me, I would rather stop the pinging and get more power than lose what little fuel mileage I do have.
Has anyone heard of the 20psi radiator cap trick?
Keeps the coolant system more pressurized, supposedly keeping it cooler or something. Found it on dodgeram.org

Any thoughts are welcome!!!!!!

 

the root cause of your pinging is probably a leaking plenum, possibly combined with a timing advance from a tuner, including a Jet chip, or by just having a non-death flash tune in the pcm.

look on your passenger side firewall, attached to the pcm, and make sure you don't have a Jet Chip. if you do, remove it and throw it away, or sell it to someone you don't like.

fill up your gas tank with the highest octane you can find. at least 93. see if this helps.

do have you cat checked. if its stopped up any, it increases temps, which can cause pinging.
plan to replace your plenum and timing chain.
do fix all vac leaks.
don't waste time on 180 tstat, cooler plugs, rad cap, etc.

 

I check the plenum last night, and this is the third time I've done this, and all appears to be well in that regard...for now.

The truck is not tuned, nor does it have the deathflash. So its good there.

While taking my shower, I realized that the bad pinging started when I threw $25 of 87 octane in the tank after going down to 1/8 of a tank with a low fuel light. I also threw in some STP fuel system cleaner.
Most (I'd say about 95%) of the 87 octane around here has E10. So, I'm thinking thats contributing to it.

I'm also getting a sucking sound at 1800-2000RPM.
I'm thinking air cleaner gasket there.


Where are all the vacuum lines at?

The idle is kinda lopy. Timing would affect that, right? Loose timing chain?

 

Sounds like you picked up some bad gas and also have a vacuum leak. The vacuum hoses are all throughout the engine bay. Maybe spray some starting fluid around some of the lines and see if your idle rpms go up or down. Should be able to track it down.

 

What about the pre-cat 02 sensor?
I know that it deals with the air/fuel ratio....if its buggered up it might affect something, right?

What about home-made octane booster? Anyone tried it?
Me thinks 89 oc with the octane booster might help....

Anymore input?
I'm trying to get ideas of what to check before I go on a problem search. lol

 

Breather to throttle body seal tends to deteriorate, easy check and fix. I had been thinking my valves were chattering but all this talk about the plenum has led me a different way, in the plans for me. I had my cat converter removed so mines definetely not clogged.
Time for a tune up and others for me @ 172,xxx miles. Good luck with your fix, I've picked up a lot of info from the knowledge of this site.

 

^You'll know the difference from ping and valve chatter when your truck falls on its face. lol
The breather line looks ok, same with the valve cover side...


I've picked up a lot of stuff from the site too....like my wish list.

 

How exactly did you look at the plenum?

 

I know you're gonna b1tch but, the old "look through the butterflies" technique.
I don't see ANY thing pooled. A VERY LIGHT glazing is the only thing in the pan....well...that and the cooked black crap over by the PCV....

 

The oil pools in the corners, where you can't see without removing the TB.