2000 Mexico RamCharger

[SixGun]

Hey Ryan,  looks real good!  As for the mystery dirt, maybe your Mexico RC is sneaking out of the house.  Baaad Pancho....

[rjtx667]

Maybe the wife is sneaking it out?   Naw she knows better lol.

It was a little dirty when I got it from the glass shop, I am trying to find something that is ok to use on the new paint but still looking. I washed it with water only yesterday but it did not help as much as I hoped.

I got the plastic cover that goes under the windshield wipers, seems I am missing a bolt there too so I am going to have to track one down.

I drove it around a bit, and downloaded a DB monitor on my phone. Going down the road at 60 it ran just under 90DB of noise, most of it being road noise. When I got back home I started working to remove the old "sound junk" that was on the floor and wheel wells.

What a PITA    Its going to take a while to get it all off, once I do I will take another ride and do another DB test. After that I will start applying the sound deader and then re-test once more.

For a base line today on the way to work the Durango at 70 was about 80 DB.

[Dodgestrike]

it looks great ryan , I see you figured out how to mount the glass again 

[rjtx667]

it looks great ryan , I see you figured out how to mount the glass again 

Yeah I am not sure I am real satisfied with how it was mounted, but they did what they could. If the painter had done a better job keeping it clean around the window they would have put it in like the durango without any rubber showing... but the edges were not clean enough to do that. 

I also have a few other spots I have found, so here before long it has to go back to the body shop so they can make this 90% great paint job a 100% great paint job.

[rjtx667]

So the parking sensors and camera's came in. I played with the parking sensors just to see if they really worked, and they do !!!!

Now I have to figure out how to mount those suckers. 

I also got the backup camera mocked up. I think it will work pretty good once its done.

The glare off the glass makes it hard to see in the pic, I need to take more pics but can't just yet.

[rjtx667]

So Saturday and Sunday I did more scraping getting the old junk off, man it weighs a lot too.

I got about 1/2 of it done, the passenger side is all cleaned up! I had to give my blistered hands a break so I took the dash off so I could work on the wiring and the sound insulation under it. I got the wiring harness of and fixed up the new one,  I now need to get the new wire harness back onto the dash and get the dash back in.

Before I do I have to finish the sound insulation on the driver side firewall, the passenger side is done on the firewall and some of the floor and wall. I am trying to do the whole cab + some so we shall see.

On the doors I put 2 parts on them on the outside skin to try and help vibrations, I did the same on the back wall sticking a few patches here and there to help. On the wheel well inside the wall I have it 100% covered to try and help reduce noise. I will do the same on the inside. I am also covering up most of the holes in the inside wall with the mat, it should help some with sound and some with heat.

I think once I am done putting it on the floor I am going to have to put the old carpet in just to be able to drive it around, otherwise the glare and reflection will kill me.

I hope to get the dash back in tonight (the durango had to park outside last night and that made for a cold morning for me lol) Then it will be either scraping or applying the insulation... its hard to put it on in this weather, I stole the wife's blow dryer and once I apply it I have to heat it up to get it to stick good. It takes a little time, but it works pretty good.

I will say it does stink to feel the de ja vu of being dashless again lol

one last thing I wanted to vent on... what was Dodge thinking on these trucks, the sides (as you can kind of see in the last pic) drop like 3-4 inches when the floor meets the wall. all sorts of junk can get stuck there, and I am shocked there are not rust issues there... Ok end rant 

[rjtx667]

Hmm I could be in trouble.


http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/3547394737.html

going to look at it tomorrow. If it is anything like what he describes I am sure I will have a new toy for a short time. If I go through with it, then the 2000 will very quickly have a transplant performed on it.

When I talked to the guy he said he dyno'd it at 398hp, not sure on the torque but he is going to find the dyno sheet for me.

[crazzywolfie]

as long as it runs good, no funny noises and is fast i would think it is a good deal. i would guess that 398HP is at the crank because i know people on other forums running turbo's on there 318 and they are only putting out  290RWHP,  375RWTQ.

[SixGun]

Just be sure to take it on a serious test drive.  Sounds too good to be true.  Hopefully, it's all he's advertised. If it is, sounds like a great swap.  Is this thing gonna run on the computer?

[rjtx667]

I have serious doubts about the engine still. I know I priced out building a kick ass engine... 5k!!!!

granted he did not do everything I would have for that 5k, but he did a lot.

He did not blueprint the block or any other stuff, he worked on bearings and a little to the crank, honed it and called it done.

He has (yet to be verified) R/T heads. He ported and cleaned them up. Not sure what size valves. Those go for $800 bare if you can find them as they are no longer made. I have looked at the indy heads which I think are suppose to flow better and cost about the same bare. Now if you want them built and ported to the max your looking at 1600 give or take.

He got a decent comp cam which is 400 or so retail, looking it up I was a little surprised he did not go bigger, but I think he was limited on valve clearance due to the R/T heads.

He got the M1 intake, which I already have, thats 600 or so

The pistons he used are "eh", no Keith Black here, but run 200 for the set.

He has the Mopar Performance Valve covers, figure 200 for those.

So thats 1k right there just in parts, and you still need oil pump, water pump, seals and gaskets, bolts, etc so say another 300 right there? so 1300, he said he had 1900 in the engine so that leaves 600 for machining cost which could be reasonable since he works at a machine shop. oh forgot the shorty headers, those I bet were 200-300 so that cuts the machining budget in 1/2.

I think I am going to go look it over, verify the R/T heads and see what it looks like, smell the oil etc etc. Going to ask him if we can do a compression and / or a leak down test. then if all that looks good I will test drive it and go from there.

The issue is, even if the motor is just "eh" is it still a "deal"? I just figured up 1600 worth of parts, not that I would be able to re-use the seals. Throw the $800 pair of R/T heads in there and there are parts to make it a good deal even if its just an ok engine.


Richard, you want a 5.2 magnum for your truck instead of a TBI? 

[rjtx667]

been fighting all week trying to get that pic uploaded 

apparently it was too high of a resolution for the software to handle?

Anyways this is what I did sat lol when it was not raining I pulled it out, washed it, dried it and took pics  I am sure my neighbors think I am crazy.

its running and driving, but with "issues"

The bright lights stay on all the time?
the power door locks don't work

I cut a wire to "fix" the bright lights but nothing else found so far. I believe I have a ground getting power somewhere as there are other "odd things"

Its back at the body shop to get the sensors painted and installed and a few touch ups done. Should have it back this weekend to hopefully do some more work on it.

[SixGun]

Richard, you want a 5.2 magnum for your truck instead of a TBI? 
[/quote]

Quit tempting me Ryan     or I'm gonna need a bigger garage. 

[rjtx667]

Richard, you want a 5.2 magnum for your truck instead of a TBI? 


Quit tempting me Ryan     or I'm gonna need a bigger garage.

Don't worry that was in good humor as the 5.2 is going back in the dakota which I may already have sold?

And yes that means I bought the truck. its programming (tune) was done very strangely and seems to well sux. But from a dead stop you can burn the rubber past 60 on the gage and if you floor it at 20 it will spool up and break them loose again. He did something with the fan clutch and it seems like it is engaged all the time, not sure what is up with that.

We did compression test and 4 cylinders (2 per side) all were 120-121 and looked good. It ran good and sounded good... very loud but good. The 4.10 gears are way stupid as your doing almost 3k rpm at 70 MPH!!!

Once its in the ramcharger with proper gear ratio and no stall converter, fix the fan clutch it should do real good for what I want.

[crazzywolfie]

you should have got said burnout on video to share. you know everyone likes watching a good burnout video.

[rjtx667]

you should have got said burnout on video to share. you know everyone likes watching a good burnout video.

that might be arranged this weekend