Looking for advice. My 1998 Ram 1500, 5.2L 5 spd has 140,000mi and occasionally will backfire out of the throttle body when I first start her up. She has a K&N cold air, gibson headers, and flowmaster cat-back. Plugs, cap and rotor have approx 8,000 mi on them. Ignition wires are MSD and have about 60,000mi on them. Thoughts and recommendations to solve the occasional throttle body back fire are appreciated. I'm worried that something could be damaged by the back fire.

Steve

 

how long has this been happening .have you rerouted your wires per the tsb?popping through the intake/throttle body is a timing issue either a crossed plug wire or crossfiring between 2 wires firing another cylinder while the intake valve is open .reroute your wires or replace them 60k seems like a lot for a set of wires...on dodge anyway .if you havent messed with the distributor ,the wires are likely the suspect,also take a look down the throttle body and check for oil if you see oil you need to reseal your plenum which can also cause some misfire issues.

 

Good call; thanks. The no. 8 wire looked rather close to the no. 4 wire so I added another separator to keep them apart. Yup, I did the wire re-route per the TSB several years ago. No throttle body backfire this morning. We'll see how the week goes...