All right guys hear me out...This is how my weekend turned into a mess. My family and I decided to take a short 3 day vacation up north this weekend and we took the camper. It's 2003 Hornet travel trailer that weighs about 4900 lbs dry, and I tipped the co-op scale at 5200 full before I left. I know this was going to work my truck hard, but it's done it before so I thought I was good. I'm pulling with a 1999 Ram 1500 Club Cab 4x4 with the 5.2L. It has parts of the factory tow package, basically everything but the wiring harness for some reason. On the way up north the truck ran great, I managed a good 60-65 all the way, except hills of course. The way home was the problem. As I was getting up to speed it didnt sound quite right. The shifts weren't happening normally, and I was running about 3500 RPM's and doing 45-50. At the time I was bucking the wind so i didnt really think much of it, but as I got back down around Green Bay I started to have problems. As I got on to the highway I started heading up to 65 but no matter what I couldn't get there except going downhill. I averaged a steady 55 on the flats and 40-45 on the hills, sometimes slower. I was in the middle of Packer traffic so that really sucked but I didn't have much choice. It almost was acting like it wasnt using my highest gear. I pulled the whole trip out of overdrive, like i always do but I can always do 60-65 at around 2500 RPM's. Either way I watched my gas gauge drop like a rock and had to listen to my mother complaining that my truck sounded bad, and to back off on it. It was a long ride!! I did drive back to school tonight and my truck ran fine, with the exception that the shifts were harder than normal, and I had to tap the gas to get it to downshift when needed, otherwise it would just dog down. Anyone have any ideas what happened to my truck??? Is this the way that dodges react to towing? Has anyone had experiences towing something this big with their Ram? Help and opnions would be very appreciated. I've put a new motor in it already so I don't want to dump it. Its my dream truck!!

Evan

P.S. Thanks to everyone who read through my ranting, its been a long day!! []

 

Oh and before I forget....Does anyone have any tips or mods that would help my towing power? Thanks

Evan

 

did the CEL come on??? sounds like something got up under there and ate at your engine. could be the cat... clogged or busted.

exaust, headers, intake, supercharger, those would all help..

really sounds like your CEL should have come on. i'd check to see if you trew a code.

i'd reset the pcm too (take the positive or negative lead off the battery for 10 minutes)

see what happens after that.

 

Nope, no CEL this time...and no codes either...If it was the cat I'd be really happy....mainly because thats cheaper than a new trans. How do I go about seeing if it is the cat?

Evan

 

see if you can shake it a little and see if it rattles.. then you know it's something there and you need to replace it. in otherwords nothing should rattle in the cat. second way to do it.. at least steve05ram swears by it is to check the temperatures of the inlet and outlet of the cat. using a no touch laser thermometer.. (harbor freight and auto stores have them)

those are two ways that i know of... just make sure to do the first test when it's cool.. and the second after it's warmed up. sitting still of course.

 

I'm sorry to hear your truck reacted that way on the way home from your camping trip. I hope you are able to find out what is causing your truck to act that way. Regarding towing mods, everything Crazy1Snow has mentioned are good towing modifications. Other towing mods to consider are Fastman 50MM throttle body, Superchips, and definitely gears. 4:10 or 4:56 gears would help considerably with towing. I tow quite a bit with a 26' Outback trailer roughly 5300# dry weight and these mods have been very beneficial. Hopefully this information helps.

 

yeah i forgot to mention the gears... wasn't sure how far you wanted to go into it. seemed like it was still your daily driver too. but gears would definitly help but will also hurt the cruising.

 

You might look at your throttle valve cable. Mine started shifting wierd when it broke. Another thought is give it a day or so and see if you get a code for a speed sensor. My truck freaked out on me one night and wouldn't shift out of 2nd, I was sure the tranny was screwed. The next day I got a check engine light and it had a code for the vehicle speed sensor. I replaced it and cleared the codes and it shifts fine now (knock on wood).

For towing mods, you want as much low end as you can get. A good cold air intake, 180 thermostat, hypertech programmer and a free flowing exhaust should help. Theres lots more you can do, just depends on how far you want to take it. Heres a site that has lots of good tips.

http://www.v8performance.com/tipsandtricks.htm

 

I could see it being the cat. When mine craped out I had no CE light. I'd get that checked pretty quick, you can do it yourself for free. You can either do it when its at temp with a temp gun like Steve sugests (The inlet should be cooler than the outlet) or you can do it my way which is very unscientific and pretty sketchy, and probably doesn't work very good When its COOL (or you'll burn the crap out of your hand) crawl under and wack the cat and see if it rattles or anything. You can also take out the pre-cat O2 sensor and seeif that helps a little, when you do this the exhaust cas can get out the hole where the O2 goes.

Also give the dealer a call and see if they'll check it for free under that extended warrenty thing.

 

Theres an extended warrenty???? Never heard of one on the CAT. I'll have to get out there and bang on it today. Maybe something will rattle. If I check it with the temp gun, the inlet should be cooler than the outlet? or is it the other way around? Thanks guys!!

Evan