Beautiful, thanks for the reply HY. I finally realized what the issue is today. While researching things out to see about doing a 5.2 swap to save money I realized that I have the wrong flywheel on my engine. The flywheel I have is from the 408 stroker I had in there, and the 408 is internally balanced same as the 318 so it's a 5.2 flywheel not the 5.9 flywheel... This really explains everything now. This is why I was having troubles doing the fuel synch with my scanner tool as well, because it runs lean when you have the wrong flywheel so I adjusted it by feel and probably compensated by making it run a bit rich and that's why I've been able to drive it around for a while. EUREKA. I was just stressed trying to get the truck up and running in time before the return to office at my work and it completely slipped my mind that I needed to go buy a 5.9 flywheel. Luckily one of my parts guys has an extra 5.9 flywheel he's gonna ship to me since he had the same issue but in reverse with a 5.2 someone had stuck a 5.9 flywheel on.

I know that hypothetically I should be able to just back off the transmission about a foot and pull the flywheel and clutch from there, however I do have memories of things getting really tricky trying to restab the transmission once it's pulled this way. I haven't decided if I'll just swap to a 5.2 and carry on doing a proper rebuild of my 5.9 or if I'll try and just swap the flywheel by way of pulling the transmission. This definitely explains why the engine would run rough and smoke at anything over 2000 rpms but runs great in low rpms.

 

One thing that I like to so, is get a couple long bolts that will thread into the block, (available at any hardware store....) cut the heads off, put a notch in 'em for a screwdriver, and use them as alignment pins for getting the engine/trans to mate properly. Works pretty good.

 

That's a good idea. I've had some luck with using trucker tie down straps and multiple jacks to dial it in. Including using the standard dodge bottle jack against the bellhousing rear to creep it forward. The last time I removed the transmission without the engine was about 10 years ago and it was on a hill in the dirt, not exactly ideal conditions so that was probably the bigger factor and it will be much easier than pulling the engine this time.

 

After you get the trans on the bolts(you can use all thread also) put a few nuts on and then you can pull it forward.

 

So I did some engine shopping on fb marketplace recently, I thought I was getting a complete 5.2 for $100 which already was a great deal but then I checked the block numbers and it's a 5.9! Boom! Got a fresh 5.9 that supposedly was a runner when it was pulled and clearly came from a junkyard that treated it as such. I pulled the plugs and sprayed lots of WD40 down the cylinders yesterday.

Soon I'll disassemble the fresh 5.9 and examine everything I can before reassembling it with a fresh timing chain and sprocket and with everything as clean and well lubricated as I can get it. I'll post some pictures soon, there is a strange new thing on it's intake manifold which is different from mine, besides that it's identical to my engine in every way. I'll post a picture of the mystery plate in a minute here, I'm curious what you guys think it is.

 

The hole is threaded

 

My guess is that this is the EGR valve and someone deleted it with that plate. This would indicate that this engine is probably a bit older like a pre '96 right?

 

I'm still trying to locate the date for it, I've been having troubles finding on on the block.

 

Should be cast into it somewhere.... usually on the drivers side, towards the bottom.

My 96 didn't come with EGR, but, the intake had the blockoff plate. My guess is, they had leftover manifold from the EGR age, and just put a plate on 'em, and used 'em. You don't wanna use that intake though if your truck didn't have EGR originally. The china wall, and tube for the EGR is kinda restrictive.....

 

When you get an engine to go into a vehicle, unless you tear it down completely and hot tank it, pop the expansion plugs out and flush the block. I had to replace a 318 once and when I was going through it on the engine stand, I replaced the timing chain and such but a couple of expansion plugs were pretty soft and my screw driver went right through one with no effort. I popped all the plugs out and flushed the garbage out of the block. Between the sand left over from casting the block and rust built up from not keeping the coolant up to date, I filled a 5 gallon bucket with crud. That engine ran a lot cooler than the one that came out.