has anyone used this guys plates?after reading here i relized i'm been driving my truck for 3 years with a blown plenum gasket so now it's time to fix it. i have emailed him and am waiting for a response but for 65 bucks how can i go wrong beside i'd rather give my hard earned money to the little guy anyways. i'll be ordering mine as i hear back from him but figured i'd pass it along in case anyone else wanted to save a few bucks

http://www.dakota-durango.com/forum/...d.php?t=135026

 

Dude sells the same plates on Ebay for $54. Lists them as "Hughes/APS" plates.

 

I was gonna point the same thing out but also we have a thread as of now with that same thing.

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...num-plate.html

 

hey anybody interested in this plate, email him at brianwhiteley1974@yahoo.com, mention that you are a dodgeforum member, b/c he gives a small discount. I am currently awaiting mine, should be here in a few days.

 

if your broke or have more important uses for your $ you could always just add washers to the bolts that hold the stock plate on and replace the gasket and reuse the stock plate or shorten the bolts.. There's nothing wrong with the stock plate...Dodge admitted the real issue was the bolts were too long for the holes in the manifold and bottomed out before applying enough pressure to hold the gasket in right... of course this has been mentioned many times if you search "plenum plate" here you can find hours of reading... aluminum plate is thicker so longer bolts work without bottoming out...thats its only proven advantage. Especially in a near stock engine..

 

^ maybe, but the different materials - thin steel plate and the aluminum intake expand and contract at different rates and supposedly saw the gasket apart.

considering how much work it is to remove the intake and replace the plate, i'd spring for the extra 50-100 bucks for the aluminum plate. why take a chance.

 

The amount of movement is so friggin tiny, I think it would take a hundred years for JUST different metals to cause the problem though.... (granted, I sprung for the plate. )

 

I could come up with so many instances were aluminum and steel are used against each other...sometimes without even gaskets like the steel cylinder sleeves on my air cooled vw that at used on a magnesium block.. aluminum heads on a steel block, aluminum valve covers on iron heads or aluminum manifolds on a steel block ..... In the case of the plenum the expansion and contraction differences would be so tiny it wouldnt effect the gasket life...

 

figures i couldn't get this page to load earlier so i just went ahead and order it for the 65 then i typed out this response only to have it not post it. (must be one of them days for my computer) anyways my truck is completly stock but the peace of minds is worth the extra cash knowing i'll only have to do it once. the wifes durango is an 01 and from what i understand dodge fixed the issues by then atleast i hope so

 

Where did you read that dodge shortened the bolts prior to 01?