I have been looking for specs on the 5.9 motor. I was hoping to find out what the Magnum designation involves with the EFI 360 motor.

I was thinking it had improved heads and larger valves over the old 360 motor, but can't find any specs!

 

try this place... http://dodgeram.info/ there's a lot of good stuff on there.

 

Steve,

Thanks for the quick reply. I found some great info on my persistent pinging problem.

http://dodgeram.org/tech/gas/Trouble/ping.htm

I see that you have the Mopar Perf. Alum heads. Any comments? Alum should help pinging vs. the stock cast iron heads.

 

thanks for the link. my heads arent aluminum, they are the r/t's. I suspect my problem is electrical... something, somewhere is telling the pcm to lean it out. a couple of things that i've added helped performance which also prevented pinging... 1 being I added a fuel cooler. Summertime temps here in the Sacramento area often reach over 100, having the truck sit outside all day, the gas heats up and expands. cooling it down has the reverse affects. I also insulated the fuel rail to prevent any heat soak that might occur. my truck was running fine for about 6 weeks after the head/1.7 rr install and then pretty much all of a sudden it started pinging.

A motorhead buddy of mine insists it's timing, and i'd agree to a point, problem is you cant adjust the timing on the ram motor w/o doing the crank sensor mod (slotting the holes and moving the sensor in towards the center of the truck).

 

hey that's a dern good article on engine ping. the 360 definetly does have those problems. simple fix i found was just to run the 93 pump over the 87. yeah it's about 20 cent's a gallon more but the ping decreases dramatically.

now if only i could figure out that damn belt squeak... no not too loose.. not to tight.. flexes like it should.. but in drive it sqeaks.. park, neutral, it sqeaks.... any ideas?

i should just post that somewhere else anyway.

steve do you ever go out and drive your truck? or do you just sit in here all day giving advice about it?

 

[sm=alcoholic.gif]... I refer you to the ram action page on my cardomain site... www.cardomain.com/memberpage/577104 I have 2 other vehicles that I split my driving time with... a BMW M3 (1995) and a '97 Dakota... I've had my truck less than 2 years and have put over 40k on them odometer [sm=alcoholic.gif]

your squeek is probably your belt tentioner or the idler pulley... I just loosened my tensioner up significantly a couple of weeks ago when I had it torn down... sprayed penetrating oil on the spring and worked it with a wrench. if your idler pulley is the culpret, they're at the dealer for under $50 bux if I recall correctly...

 

ah crap... another thing to add to the list.....

just paid 735 bucks for some tires... arg.... but hey they look a hell of a lot better.

gotta love les schwab and their txr's.. yum

 

Put a 180 degree thermostat in it and say bye bye to the ping. It'll also help protect those fragile heads from cracking.... a common problem with the 360 magnums as i found out when rebuilding mine. And in response to the guy that is about to reply to this saying a cooler thermostat will decrease fuel mileage and performance.............i'd rather have 3 less hp and 0.5 mpg less than to have a constant pinging and cracked heads.

 

Amen to that, I put a 180 in and can't really see the .5 mpg difference, and I don't know any motor head that can pick up on a 3 HP difference let alone a 10 HP difference, no sensor lights coming on, but it definatelyy runs cooler.

 

A cooler thermostat results in a cooler inlet air temp and make 2-3 HP more. This is an old-school hot rodder trick. I am surprised to hear about the head problems. I always remembered the carbed 360s in Power Wagons as being totally indestructible. They didn't make much power stock, but ran forever.