Last night and a bit of today I changed out my stock plenum pan for the Hughes Engine repair kit. I couldn't really see any blowouts in the stock pan but there was a little oil inside the intake.
Just wanted to let anyone who is considering doing this repair to their rig that it was really simple, most of it was just remembering where to plug all of the peices back into. The hardest part I found was putting my stock air box back onto the throttle body, man I hate that airbox setup!!
Before the fix my truck really couldn't climb any hill I would always have to downshift to 4th gear. I haven't tried to climb any hills yet but I did take it for a test drive on the highway and to be honest I haven't really noticed a change in torque or power. Maybe because my truck is a manual tranny and I need to downshift more it just doesn't seem to get the power I think a v8 should. There is quite a bit of miles on it 165,000. Any other suggestions to get a little more power would be great!
Thanks guys and happy wrenching!

 

When was the last time the truck had a good tune up?

How old are the O2 sensors?

Cat clogging up?

 

I haven't looked at the o2 sensors but I would imagine they are old! Seems like the only thing the previous did was plugs, wires, cap, and rotor. I may try to pull an o2 sensor and see if it runs better!?!?
I would pull the precat sensor right?

 

Just looked under my truck, the cat has been deleted, from the exhuast manifolds to a y then just straight back to a muffler. It is weird cause I think my truck is really quiet than most other trucks. I didn't pull the o2 sensors but since there is not cat I don't think those would be robbing my power, right?

 

Well, evidently, your clogged cat certainly isn't the issue.

I am gonna guess that the O2's are still original though... same thing that prompted the PO to get rid of the cat, more than likely killed the pre-cat O2 sensor as well. They don't take well to carbon fouling. (which is what ya get from burning oil from the blown plenum.) Replace the pre-cat O2 when you do the plenum. You can get 'em for like 25 bucks from Rock Auto. Go for NTK, or Denso, stay away from bosch.

 

in case anyone is interested here is a decent write up with pics of the replacement on a 5.2l


https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...ml#post2678077

 

do you hear a faint ticking coming from the passenger side valve cover.. if you dont think your plenum was blown and there was a small amount of oil, id guess your pcv valve is gone.. for the 10$ it costs, it wont help with power loss - but the little bit of oil couldve been caused by that.

 

Thanks for the info guys!

 

And for the love of God get NTK o2's . LOL Rock Auto has them for a good price.