Originally Posted by MoparFanatic21

Wrong thread?

Originally Posted by Skeptic68W

Since purchasing this truck over 3 years ago, I have spent a very long time scouring forums looking for essentially an Order of Modification List that would show the best bang for the buck mods on these magnum engines. It's been a MAJOR headache. Back when I had an LS1 Camaro, you could pop into LS1Tech.com and those guys could show you with dyno results that X part did Y on Z setup. It was great. If you were going to buy a cam, there were dozens of people who had run that exact cam, dynoed it, raced with it, and reported their results. Over here in magnum world though...it just seems like it's thread after thread of people looking for 40 horsepower out of a cold air intake and indexed E3 spark plugs, or someone else saying that every performance issue under the sun is just a plenum leak so fix that and it will be sunshine and roses.


I am not trying to be a dick, but I really wish those who don't actually know anything would stop giving advice because in one thread you'll see someone claim that X modification made a world of difference, and in the next you'll find someone else saying it doesn't do squat. We aren't talking about changing human beings here. This is a nearly identical inanimate object that we all own. The same changes will result in pretty much the same results. The placebo effect is very strong, and I wish there were more scientifically minded folks out there doing testing on these engines (that don't work for magazines and market for their sponsors). I would like to point out that I am not in the position financially or experience wise to be someone who does this kind of testing and results publication and I understand that most people are in the same boat as me in this regard...but I also don't go around telling people what they should do to their motors either because I obviously don't know. That's all I'm asking.


I, and I am sure many others like me, have ended up wasting money on modifications chasing performance gains and being very disappointing. The ideal example would be superchips. I can't tell you how many threads I read where people reported noticeable performance gains on stock trucks with superchips...so I bought one(an F4), installed it....and.....nothing. It's a complete and utter waste of money. Didn't matter what tune was loaded, or what octane of fuel was in the tank, every one of them was worse than stock. Lots of pinging, and no noticeable gain in performance whatsoever. Even the 87 tune with 93 octane in the tank pinged a little.


The ONLY place I've seen that has even attempted to put together a list of first do this, then do that, for magnum engines is Hughes, and they sell magnum parts... I'm not saying they can't be trusted somewhat (some do say this) but there is a conflict of interest here. Even if they're honest, the information they've published is extremely limited and offers nearly no explanation as to WHY things work. For example, if the stock throttle body will outflow the stock heads by over double, why the hell would you need a bigger throttle body on a stock truck?


The last vestige of organized performance information are the magazines. And guess what, exactly none of them do testing with the stock efi...which we all have. Less than 1% of us are ripping off the stock efi in favor of a carburetor...because that would be stupid. All of their tests though, are done carbed because it's convenient. Therefore, any dyno proven results they publish are unlikely to be duplicated in an efi setup because of the computer compensation and tuning issues.


Now, I'm not just ranting here. I'm begging someone to point me towards some valid information that I can use when moving forward with my motor build. I'm not 65 and haven't been working on mopars for 40 years. I need some help. I've put in the effort to attempt to self-educate, but I've come up empty because of all the conflicting information. I don't know who to believe.


This is what I want to accomplish with my 5.9. It's in an extended cab 4x4 ram with 4.10s and 33's.


I need more passing power, quite a bit of it. Right now, passing on a two lane road is a butthole puckering experience because the truck is so damned slow. It doesn't have any mechanical issues hamstringing it, it runs fine, it's just slower than I want it to be. I would like to see at least a 50 horsepower and torque improvement at the wheels over stock. Obviously this will require internal engine modification and I'm good with that. The motor is coming out next month for a refresh and I want to build it then. While I'm there I am going to do the plenum fix even though mine doesn't fail the test, and re-seal everything.


It currently has
Spectre Cold Air Intake (full one with heat shield, not drop in. This did nothing for performance but sounds good)
180 degree stat (also no register on the butt dyno despite dozens of posts claiming otherwise)
New trans with shift kit, external filter, and lots of auxiliary cooling


The combo I THINK I can accomplish this goal for minimal investment, but I also think I'm probably wrong.

Cam - Hughes HUG SER0814ALN-14 - They claim up to 31hp and 48ft-lbs on a chassis dyno with only a cam change. Of course there is no dyno chart to prove this on their site.

Heads - Stock heads with mild DIY porting, meaning using the mopar porting templates, then gasket matching the heads to the intake

Intake - Stock keg, gasket matched with polished runners. Can someone for the love of christ do an A -> B dyno test with the damn kegger mod? "Results" for this are all over the place. I know Dulcich did the flow bench test with it, but he didn't do a dyno test with it, so we have no idea if it really changed the powerband or made more power, we only know if flowed 10cfm more.

Exhaust - Stock except for glasspack muffler (haven't seen compelling evidence of headers, off road y pipe, etc pickup up power on mild magnums)

Tune - STOCK The reason I am not running a more aggressive cam is because hughes claims that one will work fine with stock tuning. I have experienced nothing but massive hype followed by bitter disappointment when it comes to custom tuning on modern vehicles.


Can someone experienced please point out errors in my thinking or suggest better alternatives for the sake of meeting this goal? I know I probably sound like a ***** right now, but I am just exquisitely frustrated by the lack of real information I've been able to obtain despite literally hundreds of hours of online research. I would very very much appreciate it.

Originally Posted by JohnnyD66

Soo... About a year ago I too spent a lot of time researching anything I could find on the Magnum engines. After all was said and done, I came to this conclusion. Several folks did in fact run chassis dynos with various intakes, and the keg actually performed best. So.e modified theirs without really any significant gains. In the end, I just rebuilt the engine from the crank up. Before the rebuild, the engine had 111,000 miles on it, and I question if the oil was ever changed. The crank was in good condition, so some light polishing and it looked new. I replaced all bearings and seals with exception of freeze plugs, and yes cam bearings too. New rings, just honed cylinders. Ring gap @ 0.022. I used my intake and exhaust gaskets to template the passages and ground them to match. I spent about 4 hours of polishing all intake and exhaust ports, but did no porting. I polished inside of keg for about 2 hours. I cut head valve spring lands down 0.150 to fit some new beehive springs that sat at 1.8 with 362 lbs compression. I installed Harland Sharpe roller rockers 1.8:1 up from 1.7 stock. Stock cam. Cleaned all valves on drill press. And then just lapped them all in, installed all New hydraulic lifters, presoaked. New flywheel, clutch and throw bearing. New master and slave clutch cylinder. New drive shaft carrier bearings and universals, heaviest ones I could find. Changed 3.21 rear gears to 3.90. When all said and done, the truck would run out of power at 3500 in third gear. Now it pulls hard thru 5500 where the rev limiter actually kills the engine. Lol. So recap, don't let you valves float, feed it a lil more air, and you might be surprised.

Originally Posted by Adobedude

Stock rockers are 1.6, and the stock springs are a joke. I doubt you gained anything polishing the inside of the keg, and I've never heard of a keg intake making more power than any other intake you can bolt on, in fact I've run em all except the intake Hughes sells. I'm guessing folks complaining about a Mopar M1 2bbl or 4bbl didn't get the required PCM tune to match.