[RamSport59]

What do yall use as far as Spark Plugs, Cap, Rotor, Wires. And also is there any cheap performance gains to do to a 360?

Thanks

 

[Dsertdog56]

Ol' Dd gonna do a bit of expounding here, so pay attention. 1st I'm gonna apologise for being a weeeee bit long winded. 2nd, I'm gonna give you 20 plus years of parts knowledge in as condensed a form as i can.
Lets start off by saying that:A You get what you pay for, and B You can pay too much for too little. We in the trenchs behind the counter call it "marketing"
I'm assuming here that "tune up" means Dist cap,rotor,plugs , and wires. Im also guessing your ram has over 50k miles on it, and you want to make some sublte modifications that may improve performace without draining the ol' wallet.
Well, heres my fantasy tune up.for your ram.
A: Dist cap and rotor. Remember Accel is Echlin (NAPA) and both aren't cheap. Niehoff is the bare minimum, Borg Warner(NASCAR) are right there with quality. Those are offerings from Checker,Schnucks,and Kragen. In Autozone avoid Wells and insist on Conrad. Look for copper or Brass terminals.
B:Wires. Again, be careful. A lifetime waranty is usless if you replace 3 sets of wires in 3years. Your time is money! Thus, I'd avoid Autozones red wires, but maybe not Bosch. Again MSD and Accel are top dollar, MSD is Mother Mopars wire of choice. Checker and probably Advance carry Nascar and the Autolite brand. I get few waranty claims on those.
C: Plugs. Heres where marketing gets clear out of hand. I haven't seen a 6 dollar spark plug yet that long term lived up to all its claims. Your factory plugs lasted this long, take the hint and use something similar.
Thusly heres my personal tune up. Nascar cap and rotor, Autolite wires and plugs, and a new Accel super coil. Thats a good low dollar upgrade. If youve got a little more cash stashed,abetter way to go would be accel 9000 wires, or MSD wires a Msd box, and a blaster coil. Good Luck!
Al :

 

[RamSport59]

Thanks, I'm going to look into a set of autolite plugs, msd wires, and the borg cap and rotor. Is it worth switching to the MSD Ign System? What exactly will it do for me?

Thanks again,

 

[Ian_Wallace]

Change your air filter K&N, I have one. I noticed a bit of a power increase and like a 1/2 mpg gain as well.

 

[does it matter]

if your going to go with an aftermarket ignition. the crane fireball is it. has a stronger spark than msd, and also is digital and not analog. and they cost about the same price. every now and then jegs offers the crane ignition with the free coil. i dont remember which supercharger company(s) it was but included the crane into the kit.

 

[Tweaked]

if you don't mine the work try the taylor 8mm spiral pro's only catch is you gotta put them together. they worked pretty well w/champion truck plug. I also ran a accel cap, rotor & coil. The truck seemed to have a little more snap to it.

 

[Dsertdog56]

Well it was plain as the belly hanging over ol' Dd's jeans he'd stirred up an interesting discussion. Undaunted, he tryed to order a BW HD cap n rotor for his truck, only to be completely shot down in his attempt! Emmbarrased by the computers refusal to even Id the #s, I could not choke down a long low growl that backed all the current stores patrons away from the counter, but even invoked a look of terror from the manager present.
Anyway, Im hoping that Advance.com can help me. As far as your ? on the MSD system, I know Jason runs one, and I have used one also in another vehicle. I'm sure the Holley system is a fine one, I, like most people my age am leery of 1s and 0s(digital), and that includes this computer! Im also not sure that the Holley and Accel systems are multi spark like the MSD which is the advantage to running one. Multiple spark impulses at low rpm do wonderful things for smoothing idle, increasing torque, and conserving fuel. I might also remind my fellow Dodge owners that Mother Mopar was the first OEM to run an analog Ignition starting in 1972. MSD is also Mopar performances system of choice. Again tho, this is NOT meant to be a "paws down" on other systems. Im actually considering Accels system for my ram if its OBDII compatible. BTW so is MSD.

 

[Dsertdog56]

Found a place that carries the BW caps and rotors and thier very reasonable. Its called Speedtweaks. Check it out at speedtweaks.net.

 

[woody]

Another good alternative to the Autolite plugs are the Champion "Truck" plugs. Those tend to get good reviews on other lists I'm on.

DesertDog, what are the "manufactured" gaps on the Autolite 5224s? I'm running those now and think that they might be a hotter plug, or a larger gap than the Champion 12YC whatevers I was running (stock).

Those with Jacobs and MSD digital ignition boxes have reported that they have a much smoother idle, slightly better mileage, better response, and MAYBE a bit more oomph down low, but the Ram's first bottle-neck is elsewhere.

I'm thinking it's the intake and y-pipe, the more I've been researching.

But those aren't cheap fixes.

And I know there's BorgWarner caps available...

 

[Dsertdog56]

Well thats an interesting observation on those Autolites...I think I will check that out tomorrow (tue) and let you know wed what I have on the gap. I'll have some other observations on your exhaust, might even throw in some fancy ol' engineering lingo, stuff like Gas balls, pulse width, and pressure differentiation, but on second thought, Ill try to be as short, factual, and entertaining as possible.
Dd

 

[woody]

Hmm. I didn't go through with the dual-major in Computers and Mechanical, just got the 0's and 1's degree.

But I've had enough basics to probably follow a discussion using engineering terms for exhaust systems.

I just convert them to electrical systems. Both resonate, same (general) math, I'll be ok.

 

[BignBlue]

Woody:
I have champion truck plugs in my 94 5.9L and it helped smooth out the idle alittle and are gaped at .025". The nice thing Dodge dealers sell them over there counter for 94&up trucks, in Canada awayways I don't know about the dealers in the States?

 

[Bad95Ram]

first of all.. to the post above this one.. why in the world would you gap at .025? why why why?? ok,
I just did all this to my truck last week. I used a mopar performance cap and rotor kit. accell super coil, taylor spiro-pro 8mm wires, and champion truck plugs(#4071)and gap them at .035, contrary to what the guy previously said, the taylor spiro-pro 8mm does come custom fit for your truck already put together. Truck definettly idles alot smoother and I can tell a nice difference in throttle responce.
My recommendation would be to stay away from autolights, they arent very good. They might be good in ford engines, but I hate them. Also, there is no need to waste your money on an ignition. The stock igniton has plenty of power.

 

[Bad95Ram]

also use some seafoam. And check your pcv valve (its the the small valve on the passenger side valve cover with a hose running to it)take it out and shake it, if you hear it rattle its good, if it doesnt rattle when you shake it, then replace it. Also being a 95 you might want to replace your o2 sensor. Also some fuel injector cleaner, I have heard good things about chevron techron. Buy 2-3 bottles, run your truck to 1/4, put in a bottle and 7-8 gallons of gas, run it down to 1/4 again, then another bottle and 7-8 gallons... The fuel injector cleaner might not be needed though, my dad tells me that the seafoam will take care of the fuel injectors, what do you guys think?? And lastly I would pick up some throttle body cleaner. clean up the throttle body a little bit.

 

[BignBlue]

Have you ever bench tested a plug? You use a test box which you can adjust MAP, coil or mag output power and you can see the actual spark the plug is making. Myself, I do this all the time on aviation eng's which produce 500hp @ 2500rpm and you don't want a bad spark! With a gap of .025 the champion plug had the best all aruond spark. I'm just telling you what I gapped them at, not telling you to do so! My truck also has a complete stock ignition system. Upgrading very soon.

 

[BignBlue]

Onthe avove test box the adjustable MAP on the box is set at PSI, so you basiclly set your plugs to the compression each cyln is at.

 

[Dsertdog56]

Wow! All this shake up over spark plugs! The marketing guys must be having a field day with y'all! Well first aways I did a little gap checkin last nite at work, and pretty much observed that all the plugs are about pre-gapped at .040 (except the one I dropped)! Also it appears that Mother Mopar did not jump on the platinum bandwagon and issue Platinum plugs as Original equipment on Magnum V-8s. As all you hip guys know, platinum is a harder than steel metal that can take some more abuse from higher voltage electrical systems. The plugs may last longer but whats the reason if your wires and cap/rotor are shot?
I have had some real good results with champion truck plugs in my mud boggin ram charger, but I also upgraded my entire ignition system as well.
Now heres the Quandry. Autolite markets thier platinum plug AP5224 at $1.99 while Champion gets $2.49 for thier truck plug #4071. The champ plugs have a look and feel of an aviation sparkplug,with all that gold lettering, and black insulator and probably cost more due to the MASSIVE chunk of copper inside them.
I'd guess tho, based on what Mother Mopar uses,Regular ol'99 cent plugs would work! Uuuf da!
Speaking of Autolite the brand, and its affiliation with Ford, motorcraft is now the official Ford OEM replacement. Autolite, in its many guises, was at one time owned pretty much by Bendix corporation, and or thier holding companies.
I can't speak for others, but I've been running Autolite plugs in Mopars since 1977, and they always did thier assigned task. I wish enthusiasts would be as concerned about the quality of thier caps, rotors, wires, etc.
Now lets talk exhaust..since the mode of translation is electricity...lets pull out my Electricity for Idiots book (a much lower grade than Dummies)so I can relate.
Ok, Lets say your exhaust system is a simplewire circuit. Every time a cylinder exhausts it generates voltage and amperage. The voltage is the carrier right? Now the cool thing is that each time a volt is created, it does something non electrical---it helps pull the same voltage out of the next exhausting cylinder! Thats called scavenging. The problem is that all these volts(on a ram)get caught up in a GIANT resistor at the end of the Y pipe wire called a catalytic converter. Just like an electrical system, this creates heat, back pressure etc. Since we cant modify any of these components easily, lets see if we can assist things after that.
Remember the term scavenging I used? Lets see if we can on that a little. Since we can't break up the head pipes, lets do a pressure drop after that giant resistor. thats pretty non electrical, but itslike putting a bigger wire after the small wire. The pressure drop in the air when the exhaust pulse hits the larger pipe actually helps pull out the next exhaust pulse. Back in the 60s and 70s this was called "extraction" by the Volkswagen guys.
This means simply, by increasing the pipe size after the converter, we can improve our flow thru the exhuast.
Now heres the marketing trap. Dual systems that use very small pipes and mufflers areMORE restrictive than the stck system. Think BIG when choosing an after cat system.
Thats all for now, folks!
Dd

 

[woody]

The effect you call scaveging, we'd call resonance. Hit it with a pulse, and the next pulse either arrives on a return shock-wave or in the vacuum left by the previous pulse.

Similar to how dual-runner intakes work (2 runners per cylinder, at different lengths for low/high rpm resonance).

So you're saying that only use the cat for backpressure, and let the rest of the exhaust be as low flow as you can go?

 

[Dsertdog56]

Son of a gun! the resonanace thing wasnt in my Electricity for Idiots Book. Yes, what ol' Dd is trying to say is that you can tune your exhaust by allowing your system to "extract" the gases by lowering the backpressure a might. This can have a real good effect on low and mid range torque. Honestly, the stock exhaust works fine for most of the rock climbing and crawl speed work I do off road.
Im inclined to believe that the stock aircleaner leaves a bit to be desired. We 5.9 owners need to remember the same exact parts also feed the 5.2 motor.
I just cant justify the cost of one of those fancy FIPK systems and dont want just a K&N filter, thats money out of the FIPK budget. All I can say is, Its your cash, spend it carefully. Good Luck.
Dd

 

[Bad95Ram]

thats good for me then. I am running 3" pipe from the cat thats split off into dual exhaust with no muffler.

p.s. - I got my champion truck plugs on sale for $1.50 each.