First. I agree with you completely on the intake manifold bit. What do you think about Marty Fletcher's experiments with the kegger? utawesomeperformance.com

Second. Right. It always has irked me that no-one...ever...discusses part-throttle characteristics. If you're building a better daily driver and not a race car, you want to know this. I want to know how much I'm going to need to bury my foot to get this heavy thing rolling, and what can be done to make that more effortless(specifically what works in this application, not in general principles of just more torque production)...but no-one does these tests. As you rightly pointed out, it's all about peak numbers, which are nearly irrelevant.

Yes, newer engines are more efficient and more powerful for their displacements, but that can all be explained. The Hemi is making a lot better power primarily as a result of it's outstanding cylinder heads. The heads on a 5.7 eagle hemi (the standard corporate v8, not an SRT product) flow 331cfm right out of the box, compared to 199cfm peak of the stock magnum heads. 6.1s, 6.2s, and 6.4s all flow even better. They also have variable cam timing, allowing for different effective cam profiles in the lower and upper RPM range, maximizing low speed velocity. The intakes are also much higher flowing to support the heads. I remember looking it up one time, and the stock 5.7 hemi camshafts are very similar in spec to a stock magnum camshaft. The intake and heads are just so much better that it can draw in much more air with roughly the same amount of duration. That being said, Chrysler and GM haven't figured out how to prevent a substantial percentage of these engines from eating camshafts/lifters, and don't get me started on Ford's engines these days. Yeah, let's add 2 turbochargers and bury them underneath the engine where they're completely inaccessible...then run with direct injection so the valves get carboned up, sending a bunch of extra carbon into the turbos and killing them too. Brilliant!

I will gladly take some lower performance for the simplicity of these older engine designs. First generation of LS engines is about as new/complex as I care to deal with. No VVT, no MDS, no crazy neural network tuning...screw all that.

 

So far as I am concerned, the auto manufacturers have taken computer controls WAY too far. When my power window switch merely suggests to some computer that I want the window to go down, that's just stupid. Same goes for locks, turn signals, and a host of other systems that used to be 100% reliable, but, are now at the mercy of some chip stashed away in the dash, and what some programmer loosely defines as 'logic'...... The level of complexity has increased exponentially. I don't want to have to have a computer engineering degree just to work on my truck. Won't be long, and the average back yard mechanic will simply disappear, as they don't have the hideously expensive equipment required to diagnose what's going with their high beams any more..... Of course, from the manufacturers point of view, that's probably considered a 'good thing', as it means vehicles MUST came back to the dealership for any service work. But, the 'technicians' there aren't computer engineers either..... and they are just as baffled as the rest of us, when one system or other fails, for no apparent reason. And they are the ones that actually HAVE all that hideously expensive equipment to diagnose the problems..... This was becoming an issue even back in the early 90's...... A lot of the older techs I worked with had no concept of how the systems worked, and didn't really care to learn them. The younger guys were better, but, out of 8 techs working at the dealership, I had only one that could figger out some of the more esoteric performance problems...... One of our master techs that was older, had issues with ABS systems..... to the point that he gave up on it, and the service manager asked me (I was a service writer at the time), to poke at it, and see what I could figure out. Turned out, the whole issue was a sensor that wasn't seated completely in it's mount. Pull the wheel, pull the sensor, clean the mount, reinstall, reset the system, problem gone. Of course, I had the advantage of NOT being on flat rate, (warranty time at that.....) so I wasn't in a hurry, and actually enjoyed playin' with a bunch of the cool new toys we had for just such an occasion. (not to mention test driving the corvette that had the issue. ) Had I been working flat rate, I would have lost my shirt. And that is why I suspect most techs these days are just parts replacers..... They can't afford to take the time required to properly troubleshoot a problem, as it has a rather negative affect on their paycheck......

Ok, rant over.

As for Marty's intakes, they obviously work. Looking at some of his charts, it almost looks like torque peaks even BEFORE the graph even starts..... THAT is a TRUCK motor.

 

Man, I couldn't agree with you more on your rant there.

Here's how I see things.

I don't want to be like everyone else, living their lives on the treadmill of car payments. If you are married and both you and your wife drive relatively new cars, you could easily be spending $1000+ per month by the time you factor in insurance costs and all that. For the average person making a median income, that's absolutely stupid, and can significantly hurt your ability to achieve financial freedom, retire, or merely have choices. Maybe your wife wants to stay home and raise kids, and that thousand dollars a month is the difference between her being able to or not. I don't want my vehicles to have that kind of power over me. So I buy vehicles and keep them indefinitely, doing what is necessary to keep them not just roadworthy, but nice and enjoyable to use.

If you are not mechanically inclined...too bad. You're screwed anyway. Have fun on the treadmill.

However, if you are a halfway functional mechanic like us, that gives us a choice. I can either buy modern vehicles that I can't fix (or can't fix for long...imagine trying to get some of these esoteric electronics in 20 years), or I can assemble a fleet of older vehicles that I know I can maintain almost indefinitely. For me, this is clearly the better choice. The cars don't cost much on initial purchase because they are 20 years old, parts are cheap, they're easy to fix, and they are new enough to be reliable and reasonable safe (fuel injection, crumple zones, and airbags, etc). The idea of owning a fleet of modern vehicles makes me cringe. I see them as an utter liability if you live like me. Take radar guided cruise control for example. If you have F-U money and can buy a new or nearly new car every few years, you likely love this technology. It makes long freeway trips much more relaxing. However, radar cruise require crash mitigation, and do you really want to be driving around in a 20 or 30 year old vehicle that has the ability to panic brake itself? Everything electronic will eventually start acting up, and the last thing I need is to be cruising along at 80mph on the freeway and suddenly a sensor fails and locks the brakes up causing a major crash. I don't want my car to have that ability.

I had a 2014 Charger for about a year. It was throttle by wire, and that thing almost got my killed once. I was pulling out of an alley onto a busy road and the way the cars were parked you couldn't see traffic coming further than about 15-20 feet. So I start out into the intersection and as soon as I pass the parked car I see an SUV barreling down on my at probably ~50. So naturally I stand on the go pedal and the hemi leaps to life.......but then the ****ing stability control panics and shuts the throttle on me! Just shut it completely. Damn nannies (which aren't even defeatable). Anyway, fortunately it recovered and re-opened the throttle a moment later and I narrowly got out of the way of that SUV. Either way, I was pissed, and there is no way I am giving that much control to a computer again. Charger got sold (not just for this reason).

My plan going forward is this. Any time I need a new vehicle. I will drive down to Texas or Arizona or somewhere where rust isn't an issue and buy what I'm looking for down there. Late 90's to mid 2000's vintage American stuff will make up my entire fleet, with the exception of 1 classic Mopar project I'd like to do with the old man soon.

 

Exactly. I AM retired..... (medically, unfortunately) so, car payments just aren't in the financial picture. If I can't pay cash for it, I don't buy it. When I purchase a vehicle, I drive it until it becomes cost prohibitive to keep it on the road. So, pretty much, only a MAJOR failure will prompt me to start looking for something else...... Of course, there are exceptions to that as well.... My 96 2500 was still running/driving just fine when I bought my 98 2500..... It was the right truck, at the right time, for the right price, and my 96 was rapidly approaching the 200K mark, and was seriously rusty.... (thank you, michigan winters.....) I suck at body work, and spending several thousand dollars on body work, on a truck that I bought for less than 2K, just didn't fit the picture either. I started looking, but, I wasn't in any hurry.

I agree with your idea of going down south to find my next truck though. Prices around here are getting stupid..... so, if I am going to pay that kind of money for something, it's going to be coming from a rust-free state. I can fly down, drive back, and still be saving money, as I won't have to spend it on body work.

 

Didn't know 10hp was "so much less." Guess my 318 at only 230hp is "ludicrously less."

 

I read an article years back where the "lackluster" performance of the dodge 5.2/5.9 had mostly to do with the bad quality control in making the crankshafts. The cranks are supposed to be properly timed/indexed, one cylinder to another. However, due to typical build sloppiness, the dodge engine was kneecapped by crappy cranks that didn't turn up the advertised CID due to low quality manufacture. This is also advertised to cause that annoying ping in these engines, prolly because the compression and ignition and fuel timing are always "off kilter" in comparison to the crank rotation. Mysterious engine stalls, no knock sensor as hey you stated, a keggar that was poorly designed and last but certainly not least, heads that crack waaaay to easily. I run a manual tranny n my cat is only a hollow shell on my beast n that seems to make a world of difference in both power n acceleration with my 5.2. I've never been a big fan of automatic dodge trannys since my long ago days owning a tricked out '72 charger. I used both 904 n 727 trannys. Both sucked the power as well as on the dependability. However, over the years, I think we've all managed to compensate for the shortcomings in our dodges. Hells bells, without these chatrooms n the oracle of youtube, I'd have given up long ago on mine, lol!

 

Not talking about ratings. The ratings are similar. The ACTUAL dyno results though are massively different.

 

Uncle Tony would disagree.

 

Hey something I have a fair bit of experience with. Although the vortec may "feel" stronger it actually isn't. There are 2 factors for this, one as mentioned the transmission gearing in the 4l60e is better in 1st and 2nd gear. Second it has been my experience that for similarly configured 1500s the GM's are 500-700 lbs lighter. Let me set up an interesting scenario for you. My freshman year of college I was working at my Uncles house doing concrete. We were removing sod and hauling it to the local landfill with his 2000 K2500 crew cab 5.7 4.10 gear with headers and exhaust (4l80e is in between the 4l60e and 46re gearing). First two trips on the scale were about 11,500 gvw. Well he ended up needing the truck later in the day so I hooked up my stock 98 Durango 5.9L 3.92 gears. Felt better power wise on the way there, then I was shocked to see the scale, 12,800 gvw. So on the route to the landfill there is a steep hill right after a stop sign with minimal run up to it. His truck got to 38mph while my durango got to 48 mph. So even at ~1000lbs more total weight the 5.9l was 10mph faster up the hill. Once his truck shifted to second it could hardly maintain speed where as my 5.9l gained some. I have had other similar experiences in a tahoe and K150. I raced a 5.7 vortec with my 98 1500 with 3.55s. It was a race that was to keep from someone cutting me off I heard those straight pipes on that 5.7 and knew so I then punched it and he could not get by. I guess point is feel isn't everything, results are. I have towed with 5.3 ls motors and would prefer my 5.9 any day. Now 6.0 ls and 5.7 hemis are a different story until you get some good heads and a cam in that 5.9, but I prefer my v10 in the end for real heavy work. Also I don't know where you are getting your dyno results, from my quick search they are similar stock with the 5.9 doing better tuned. If I remember right when I was researching the flow numbers on magnum heads are slightly better than vortec heads. Both motors are terribly under cammed however the dirty open secret is vortec heads cannot except more than .460" lift stock with out modification. In the end you really can't go wrong with either motor but I do prefer the raw torque of the 5.9 and it's my personal opinion the 2nd gen ram is best looking truck ever created.

 

I'm with you on this! And a close second is my 78 power wagon. The magnum motors didn't utilize all they could offer. The factory limited the intake opening to 500 CFM so it was no means a "performance" motor. The 340 6 packs back in the day had 1350CFM. The motor lived in trucks so no real need to build it to it's full potential. As for the computer controlled everything i agree it's gone way to far. Our company has Furd vans that shut off at stop lights. First time i drove it i was like WTF? Wonder how long the starter will last on these in city driving? My 96 jeep nearly everything is run off can buss. The dome light is controlled by it also. Don't see why a light needs to be controlled by the can buss since all the wiring is already there. I think the auto manufactures factor in failures like this so they can keep people coming back for service.