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Plenum is DONE!

5K views 58 replies 19 participants last post by  prvtav8r 
#1 ·
I spent the last two days tearing into the infamous plenum repair job. I put the Hughes pan on and the design looks to be an enormous improvement over the stock pan. I also put new valve cover gaskets on, did a little mod to the keggar intake, new water pump, all new coolant hoses and a few other little odds and ends as i went. Now i'm ready for some football and some :drink:

Just wanted to say thanks to all for everyone's write ups and info about the job. It went like clockwork. I took plenty of pics so if anyone's looking to do this job i will be more than happy to send some pics just let me know.

:dtrocks: :rck:
 
#2 ·
Sweet, I need to do this soon!
 
#4 ·
well i drove it for about twenty mins and it seemed to run quite a bit better. i'm interested to see how it does once the pcm learns how it runs. its like 2 below here so i didnt feel like getting too excited driving all around town. i'll update how much improvement there is in a couple hundred miles.
 
#5 ·
i just bought a spare intake and tb tonight as soon as i get them ill do the mods and install them the old girl need it bad ive just been waiting to find the parts cheap enough 50 bucks for everything includeing injectors and fuel rails
 
#6 ·
awesome to hear. I actually just ordered my hughes oem stage 1 manifold (decided to spend a little extra so that I will have the best setup for towing). Cant wait for it to come in so I can get it in there and see how she runs. hoping for a little better than 8mpg, and maybe even be able to break the tires loose once in a while.. lol.
If you dont wanna post pics up here, shoot me an email with the pics: kennylarowe@nycap.rr.com
thanks

Kenny
 
#8 ·
Here are a few pics along the way...i have more that i took of just how harnesses went over and under each other but these are a few of the bigger ones. Like i said, I did my water pump too, so I had the fan and fan shroud off, which is not necessary to do this job. It actually worked out great for me because i could actually fit between the front of the motor and the radiator standing on the ground. Everything was at about mid chest level to work on so i didnt get sore leaning over into the bay to work on it. :D

The first pic shows the a/c alternator bracket off just getting front open to the manifold. one of my heater hoses has been leaking there for a while, so there was a lot of nasty grime to clean up from that.

The second pic shows what i did with my a/c compressor. I read you can actually leave the compressor and alternator bolted on and just undo the bracket. Then you can move the whole assembly over to the fender like taht to save some time and steps.

I took my valve covers off to put new gaskets in, which is also not necessary for the plenum, but this shows what the passenger side looks like.

The fourth shows the same picture pretty much, just showing how everything is set up on that side. (I took so many pics in case i forgot something.)

The fifth shows everything off, ready to take the intake manifold out. I didn't disconnect my fuel rails, i just pulled out the injectors and zip-tied that whole assembly away, next to the brake booster.
 

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#9 ·
The six and seventh pics show my lifter valley with the manifold just off. I put aluminum foil over the valley and paper towels in the ports to keep debris out while i cleaned. I had a vacuum in the lifter valley i turned on while i was scraping the old gaskets off which really kept it clean in there.

The eighth and ninth show the old plenum....Yeah i know it was gross.

The tenth shows my intake with the plenum pan off. Again, i know it was gross. It definitely put away all doubt about whether or not i really needed to fix this.
 

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#10 ·
The next pic is an almost cleaned up manifold. It also shows the start to shortening my runners. I just like the difference between this pic and the previous where it was all oily.

The next shows my new Hughes plenum pan installed. I didnt use any rtv or anything on it because the directions said not too...I was skeptical, but hey I have heard nothing but success stories with this product so i went with it.

The last two pics show various points of the reinstall. I actually didnt take a pic of the final project completed because my camera batteries died....i'll put more of those on the parts list next time...I will post the engine compartment pic in the next couple days.

If anyone has any ?'s on this job feel free to ask me or look around this forum there is a huge amount of info. I have quite a few more pics showing how harnesses/hoses/wires are routed(which actually helped me on reinstaill). It was not a hard job at all and worth the effort i think. Again, :dtrocks:
 

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#11 ·
Excellent Job Truckman .:tup:

enjoy your new found power . :gr_patrio
 
#12 ·
Thanks for the pics, the pictures of the cut runners is a huge help, i've heard of people talking about modifying their runners but i wasn't sure in what way.
 
#13 ·
With the runners, basically the more you take off the more high end(high rpm) gain you will see. There is a pretty good debate about how much low end you lose, if at all when you take a lot off. I only took off about 3/8 inch because anything will help. I never really see high rpms so i didn't need that gain, and I didn't want to lose any low end. Even if you don't cut any off, just smoothing everything up in there will really improve air flow.
 
#15 ·
#17 ·
question.... i guess. Im semi new to this weird dodge thing so...

Ive read the plenum cover warps or the gasket fails etc. and the oil is forced into the plenum thus causing the engine to burn oil or not run properly correct.

Then while you're in there you might as well do some work on the runners i guess
 
#18 ·
sounds like you have the general idea of it.
 
#19 ·
Ditto, thanks for the info and pics. this si on my spring list if the truck stays.
 
#21 ·
Yeah thanks for the help Silver. It's not quite as pretty as your engine compartment, but it works now.
 
#22 ·
Thanks also Truckman...My '94 is a new project, so one more thing for the to do list. :)
 
#23 ·
One question about this fix. My truck has 155k mile son it, and this has never been doen that I can tell. Shortly after getting the truck, I noticed it started burning oil in an accelerated fashion. No blue smoke on start up, no noticable smoke like if all the oil I'm burning is from one cylider. But I am losing oil at about 3 quarts per full gas tank. in other words, ALOT. I've also noticed some slight power loss. So I am thinking its time to do this before Xmas. If this works, that means the new engine I was planning can be benched and instead, I can do the 6" lift.

So what say you DT'ers. Should I be hopeful, or jsut keep on plannig the new engine?
 
#24 ·
well look down your throttle body to see how bad the oil is pooling up. if it looks pretty gross, i think you could bet this fix would really help and save the cost of putting in an entirely new engine. my .02
 
#25 ·
It looks preety grimey, no oil pooling that I could see. But it looked worse than yours. much more grimey, and darker. I think I am going to go ahead and do this the beginning of next week, if I can get the parts ordered and here in time. How long did it take to get the parts, or did you get it at a parts store.
 
#26 ·
i ordered the hughes kit on a sunday night and got it friday morning with just ground shipping. it was from Illinois i think to CO. everything else i picked up at parts stores.
 
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