Hello folks long time since I've posted but I'll probably become considerably more active here because I've decided to change out to the Hughes Airgap as my plenum gasket solution. I tried as I'd read here and asked about free shipping because I placed the order by telephone and was told they do not do that - so I was unsuccessful in trying to save about $36. Oh well.

Here are some quick stats. It's a 2001, CA truck, it's got approx 99500mi, 5.9, and it's got nothing but a Volant intake on it. Quick note on that so I'm not told that I'll essentially gain nothing from having it ... that's okay because I can thank myself for that as I completely butterfingered the original intake and broke it. When I got the truck I replaced the plugs/wires/rotor/cap and right when I got started, "(Curse words.)" Don't judge too harshly because I know I'll be on here looking for help soon. The airgap should arrive early next week.

Anyhow, this will probably be a considerable challenge for me to complete. I'd like to know what else I should probably change while I work. Sensors for example? It was suggested that I get a new coolant temp sensor and a new thermostat. I'd probably prefer stock - it's 195* right? - and not change out to 180* seasonally as was recommended on the phone. Seemed a bit ridiculous to me. I'll probably be told to get a new double roller timing chain - I'm nervous enough with the intake already.

I picked up Autolite 3923s because it seems a good deal of folks on the board prefer them (or the original Champions) and a new cap and rotor.

So if anybody has some tips, words of encouragement, or recommendations on tools beyond what an average joe who doesn't tinker with cars as a hobby please let me know. Would I need a torque wrench that uses in-lbs?

Oh and hopefully WhiteKnuckle or J415 will catch this - we may or may not be in roughly the same area. Would like to PM each of you about this as well.

 

if you don't have a lot of experience - you'll need a standard foot pounds torque wrench for the intake manifold job so you torque things correctly. an inch-pound would be nice for the standard intake belly pan bolts which are about 72 (or so) inch pounds which is 6 foot pounds, but 6 foot pounds is enough to register on a ft-lb wrench, so you can get by without one. in your case, your M1 intake won't require any inch-pound measurements.

also if you don't have much experience, you might want to keep the scope of the job small, so you get done without too much stress. timing chain and water pump will require the removal of some of the same top clutter as the intake, but i wouldn't worry about it. just do one thing at a time. that way if you do screw up something, you have a better chance of figuring out what it was, so you can fix it.

 

Its not really that bad of a job. There are some tricky parts with the air gap, fuel crossover at the back of the rails, for instance, but, that's about it.

Go with the 195 stat. Don't worry about changing it twice a year.

Timing set really wouldn't be a bad plan. With close to 100K on yours, it is probably stretched out pretty good. With the intake off, it's maybe a dozen more bolts, 50 bucks in parts, 20 bucks for gaskets, and yer done. Might consider water pump too, if you do the timing set. Has to come off anyway.... might as well put a new one on.

O2 sensors as well. You probably have two pre-cat sensors on your truck. (one on each side?) Not sure on that. I wouldn't worry about the post-cat O2's.

How are your cats?? (on the truck, not the ones in the house.....)

 

Well, I'll defer to your opinion on driving for a month with a misfire on 1 and 8 and then another month of minimal trips with misfiring on 2 and 3. Didn't make me happy to do that. If I recall the misfiring on 8 is the one that's a cat-killer. On three different nights that I couldn't sleep I went through 83 pages of the plenum thread and I looked at the blown gasket picture thread.

I've known about this problem for some time so I've been expecting it - though if I'd been a member of this forum BEFORE purchasing ehhh I probably wouldn't. I'm also sad to say that I've also been a transmission victim. And again if I'd known BEFORE... I like this truck quite a bit but the intelligent person hiding in me somewhere knows I should have walked away when that happened. Roughly 60% of the purchase price. That's completely separate and in the past however. Here's hoping I'm not making a gigantic mistake.

Thank you dhvaughan and HeyYou for the responses.

 

Please before you do this work do a comp test, see where your motors at.

 

I am going to second merc's response. Although all is probably well in that respect, it would be better to know before you do all the work only to find out that a much larger problem is hiding in plain sight. A compression test is easy enough to do and will help to determine the real health of your engine. If that is good then dig in. We have a love hate relationship with our trucks. The like to eat wallets and gas stations but you can have a lot of fun in between.

 

OP do you have any supporting mods to go with this intake? If no then you might not be to happy with the end result. Both the Mopar M1 and the Air gap like to have supporting mods to work right. Look at 1.7 RR's and a tuner of some flavor.

 

Hey Silver360,

Welcome back to DF. I'm not sure what I have to offer in addition to what has been said. If you are living in CA, then unfortunately both the M1 and AirGap are not legal per smog regulations. Hughes likes to claim that on their website, however, it's out of date. At least as of a month ago, there was not listing for the AirGap on the CARB site. Just informing you for completeness.

Let me know where you are at and if you need some extra hands, I'd be willing considering distance....of course. Plenty of ppl here can provide input to you. BOth of these IMs don't really wake up unless complimenting mods are alongside.

Keep us posted!

 

Hello DFers. I need to put on my flamesuit. I posted when I had been up 28hrs and despite reading my post before I put it out there I made a huge omission. So let me apologize and now say this.

The things I was referring to happened when using a Flashpaq. The main reason I had gotten it - and admittedly put the cart before the horse in my situation - was to correct my speedo and then use it later because I have the deathflash/Chrysler software update baloney. I had utilized the 87 setting at the time revealing the hardware problems you could say. I had always planned to either fix or upgrade the IM anyway but I did it backwards.

There aren't codes present at this time. Though it had really been surging after and a new TPS seems to have that taken care of.

Never bothered with a dealer or a regular shop to ask to reset the speedo frankly because I don't already have an "in" with any and didn't want to pay them - I'd just use something that I'd use later anyway. Same reason I wasn't planning on an SCT as I understand you can't manipulate the tire size on there.

If I still sound ridiculous it's a combination of that's just me and now I'm at about 33 hrs or so.

 

I use a Superchips to set tire size. Yes SCT can't do that. I think a couple of ppl have commented on using both to piggyback their features. I can't think of who has done that...or admitted it. lol

Schips would remove death flash and do tire, then SCT would override for performance tune (also removing death flash). That's my understanding anyways.