Hey everyone,
I have a 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 manual tranning with the 5.2 magnum. My question is, when I start my truck it runs great, but when ill start to drive it will sound like it wants to go but doesn't. Also when I go to step on it, sometimes it will go but most of the time it it has no power. I'm only getting 12 mpg when empty and 11 mpg when pulling a trailer and again it has no power. I put dual straight pipes on it if that makes a difference. I have changed the Throttle position sensor and MAP sensor but nothing helped. If anyone has any ideas they would be greatly appreciated. Oh also there were no codes that came up on the reader.

 

search the word "plenum" in the search utility and read away.... do you have stock tires or bigger? the bigger the tires without changing the gears to match the more sluggish it will be. and have you done a full tuneup? you can try the seafoam treatment (again use search feature for more info)

 

is your catalytic convertor getting clogged up? unscrew the pre-cat 02 sensor and drive it, see if it does any better

 

I don't have a cat on it. I have dual straight from the motor out. No muffler no nothing but pipe. I do have 305 70 16's on the truck. It has way to much power loss to just be the tires though. I haven't done a full tune up. That's my next thing however it use to run fine then all of a sudden it was losing a lot of power. I can't even get into 5th gear unless I'm on flat ground with absolutely no wind

 

There are only 4 gears in these trannies (that 5th you feel is actually the TC locking)

Regardless, read the top sticky in this forum and see if that describes your problem.

 

He has a manual trans.

 

I really should read more carefully.

 

Yeah I have the manual 5 speed. I'm giving it a complete tune up and replacing the O2 sensor along with new top side gaskets this weekend. Hopefully it fixes the problem or I dont know what else to do.

 

I had a jeep wrangler once which I decided to lift and put 32" tires on it...it was a 5 speed with 4.10 gears. (your truck has 3.55 or 3.92 stock gears).. after the new tires my gas mileage was terrible and I constantly felt like I was dragging *** giving it too much gas to get going...5th gear was useless at most speeds except going downhill or on flat land with the wind at my tail.my speedometer also read about 4-5 mph slower than actual speed. I then changed the gears to 4.56 gearing which IMPROVED my mpg and corrected my speedometer and gave me the use of 5th gear back so.... gearing makes a huge difference when you step up the tire size from 28" to 33"... there is a reason gearing makes such a huge difference on drag cars.

 

My speedometer isn't off though. Im wondering if someone before me changed out the gears. Becuase with the 305's the speedometer is right on. This is puzzleing me