What headers to you recommend? I was thinking about putting on a set after the catback.


ken

 

Shot8283 has had problems with corosian (sp?) on his edlebrocks and needed exhaust donuts in there to mate the header flange with the exhaust. I had the gibsons and had no problems with them other than minor surface rust on the tubes that ran closest to each other. I think the heat may have played a factor there. the gibsons bolt right up and worked great.

Since your new to the dodge, there's a couple of things to know... the heads suck, they tend to crack between the valves, I think because of the heat buildup near the collector of the e-manifold. they usually crack on the #7/8 cylinders which happen to be next to the collector. The timing chain also sucks. if you have anything over 50~60k on it, get a double roller chain in there. Next get a big tranny cooler (if you have an auto) and make sure it's serviced when it needs to be. One other problem is the intake manifold, they (older ones) are prone to having a leaky plenum gasket. With yours being an '01, you may not have that problem.

If your looking for a good setup for your truck, my recommendation would be this...

replace the heads with heavy duty ones with 2.02's in there
swap the timing chain to a double roller one
Either modd your existing intake (cut the runners down 1"~1.5", open up injector bores and cleanup TB ports) or get an M1 (only recommend for light 2x4 std cab's or maybe QC's).
1.7 rollers with the stock cam or 1.6's with the aftermarket one.
gibson headers
flowmaster dual out exhaust with outputs between 2.25" and 2.5" (2.25 for 4x4's or QC's)
180 t-stat
electric fan
K&N FIPK II intake kit with a 7x9" filter to replace the small stock one in the kit.
either a programmer or a re-flash to match your motor mods.
52mm TB from fastman

I had this setup (or close to it) and my motor screamed, pulled really strong up thru 5k but it lost a little on the low end. a little too much for my QC 4x4 with the 5.9 motor.

Shott added an e-fan and likes it so that would also be a good mod to do.

anyway, hope this helps...

 

Thanks for posting those results.

It is nice to see the air to fuel ratio posted too, like it should be.
Are the 'ticks' on the air to fuel graph 1 unit each or 0.5 units?
Is the dotted red line 14.7 'stoichiometric' level
or perhaps 'best power at 12.8'

The results KenB found at Md Motorsports are more or less consistent with what the rear wheel dyno of KenneBell found on the west coast - they found a 8 rear wheel hp gain on a 1998 Magnum 5.9V8 with the air intake filter box and tube completely removed and the throttle body fed outside air:

http://www.kennebell.net/techinfo/do...-test-data.pdf

If you look at the Hypertech dyno sheets:

http://hypertech.com/dynocharts.php?...&model=all&pn=

and compare the last of the 2nd gen Magnum 5.9V8s in 2001
to the first of the 3rd gen Magnum 5.9V8s in 2002
you also find a hp gain.
There was a new design air filter box in 2002 {along with a less restrictive exhaust},
compared to the older design filter box tested here.

If KenB wants to try another run.....
why not add a few gallons at a time of E85 fuel to that Ram's fuel tank;
the lower btu and greater internal oxygen content will 'lean' the air to fuel at the higher rpms and might show up some interesting hp gains as the air to fuel got closer to 12.5

The higher octane of the E85 'might' keep the Magnum 5.9V8 from pinging on the leaner mixture, but the safest way to do this test would be to start with 93 octane in the Ram's tank for an added margin of safety.

 

Hank,

That dotted line is 13:1 which would be considered a good target A/F for a naturally aspirated engine. Tuning is my specialty, but unfortunately I don't have the software for the dodge. This truck is so rich, it should pick up significantly by leaning it out. You should be able to do this without worrying about pinging. It really depends on the timing curve though.

Ken

 

Hank, one of my complaints about the graphs & the claims to +16hp (example) is that they never talk about what is gained below. Ive seen very few companies mention where the gain is. the better ones post the spreadsheet. A good case in point would be a cam manufactur named Sunbelt and Bimmer World (BMW M3's), Sunbelt made the cams, Bimmerworld tuned the pcm's for optimal performance. once they were done they posted the actual spread sheet so you could see where the gains were and how much of a gain there was. When I was modding my M3, I didnt care what gains there were out there at 7000 rpms because it was a daily driver. So all the mods I did were geared towards the mid range. Most of the dyno charts dont have the resolution to see what's happening in those area's (that's why it's better to post a spreadsheet).

 

dont waist your time and money with edelbrock headers...youll just want to replace them 4 months later when they start to corode. the donuts steve is talkin about is that eddy uses lead donuts that slip onto the ends of the collectors on the headers to help mate with the down pipes... and everyone knows lead sucks in every way imagenable.. gibbys are all steal donuts.. im ordering mine next week.. me and Vic are gonna have words

 

Send yours my way. I don't care what they look like

 

I still wonder if the issues Shott had were just due to the ti-tech coating. I have the silver ceramic coating on my Edelbrock headers, and they are holding up very nicely, approaching the 1 yr mark. There are lots of others who have Edelbrock headers on this and other forums, and I have never seen any negative comments regarding corosion with the silver coating. Others with the ti-tech coated have said similar things as Shott though (like Amanda for example), so leads me to think it is a problem with that particular coating. I would say overall Edelbrock headers are probably still very good for our trucks (along with Gibson, JBA, and mopar), but maybe just avoid the ti-tech coating (if you are planning to get coated headers).

I don't care for the lead donut either, but those have also held up well so far, and if they should fail, replacing with new lead ones or even steal ones would be very simple.

Shott, keep us posted on how things go dealing with Edelbrock. I am interested in this topic since I have been so happy with my headers. I am hoping mine continue to perform well, but if they don't, I will want to follow your lead when dealing with Edelbrock.