Hey guys, my 03 Ram has been running rough. By rough, I mean at highway speeds, it would feel kind of clunky like something was wrong with the differential, but at the same time it would feel like it wasn't breathing properly. Well I took it too the dealer after I changed the diff oil and found a small piece of metal in the bottom of the differential. After replacing almost the entire guts of the differential $1500 later it still seemed to do the same thing. I cleaned and recharged my K & N filter and replaced the spark plugs and wires, and now its running worse than ever. I changed the wires one at a time and labelled them as I took them out so I'm sure it's not that. When I took the air intake off, I did notice that the throttle body was dirty and I used throttle body cleaner to clean it up. I has dawned on me now that I remember seeing an article on here about cleaning the throttle body and killing the sensors if one uses said cleaner. It idles fine around 700 rpm, but when I hit the accelerator, the whole dang truck vibrates, it backfires, and it feels like it's coming from the engine. Any suggestions on what might be the problem? BTW I took it back to the dealer so they could check it out, but I'm not looking to spend a wad of cash on it since it's about 3 payments away from being mine.

 

Go get a compression Test.... sounds like a very bad misfire to me.

Might help us to know what engine you have in that truck too....

 

Oops, my bad, it has the 5.9L V8

 

Check your plenum, distributor cap/rotor, plug wires, plugs, and cat.

 

+1 on this... very good starting point, especially if you do not have a Check Engine Light, with DTCs present.

 

Which, even on 3rd gens, a blown plenum does some weeeiiiird chit.