I don't know anything, and I need to know everything.
 

Is there a book on trucks for dummies? I don't understand much at all when it comes to trucks and diesel. I got my dodge ram 2500 from my Grandpa who died, and now that I have it, I wanna work on it. It's a 1997 dodge ram 2500 2wd SLT Laramie. Don't know the first thing, and I can't really find a good guide online. Thanks for reading.

LOL, online guide? You are here my friend......... Seriously, if you really want to learn, between an honest to goodness Factory Service Manual ( 35 bucks here ),
1997 DODGE RAM FACTORY SERVICE CD-Geno's Garage
and this forum, there will be precious little that you won't quickly learn. :spit:

So, spend a little cash for the FSM, and spend a few hours reading the 12 valve forum, and ask about anything you don't really understand........ We only bite on rare occasions.[whistle]

You are a fortunate young man! Tell us about what you do know about the truck. Did your grandpa do any upgrades to it? One way to tell is to go through any receipts he may have saved. That's the only way I found out my truck had had the pump turned up with a TST plate.

He hasn't done anything to it, bought it from some guy, and gave it to me when he died. I honestly don't know anything. Don't know any Acronyms, nor any abbreviations, including FSM. I Googled it and found "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster"

---Edit----

Nevermind, I just read what you typed right before FSM, my bad.

You are WELCOME here and no one will make fun of you...well OK maybe just a little but with a smile when we do ;)

Ask away, we all started out knowing little as well and you couldn't have found a friendlier group to help you out :)

Well, What can make a truck faster? I know ECU's, a bigger supercharger, engine swap, but thats about it.

The Cummins doesn't have a supercharger, it has a turbocharger. Forget the ECU. Forget the engine swap.

Ok, youngster, here's your first lesson. Diesel engines are different than gas engines. A gas engine runs on a specific, very narrow mixture of gasoline to air. If the gas to air ratio is either too lean or too rich the engine won't run right and suffers various problems. Thus with gas engines the only way to get a lot more power is a larger displacement engine--a Chevy 283 V8 doesn't make as much power as a Chevy 409 because of this. Capiche?

The diesel engine is different. It can run from an extremely lean mixture to an extremely rich mixture--in fact the more diesel you pump into the compression chamber, the more power it makes. Unburned diesel fuel simply blows out the exhaust stack as black smoke.

Thus there is no spark plug in a diesel engine. The compression itself creates so much heat that the fuel ignites as soon as it's squirted into the combustion chamber. This squirting is done by the INJECTION PUMP. Grandpa's '97 has a Bosch P7100 injection pump, which is the one that EVERYBODY wants. Earlier Dodge/Cummins engines and later Dodge/Cummins engines ran different pumps which are not as reliable and not as good. The P7100 can be "turned up" to pump more fuel by purchasing any of various aftermarket injection pump plates, which allow the pump to pump more fuel. Be aware tho, if grandpa's Dodge has an automatic trans, and if the trans is stock, you won't be able to turn the pump up too much or it will burn up the friction material in the torque converter, and you'll be rebuilding the trans in short order.

Remember that injection pump? Here's a number that will make you appreciate your pump: In a normal gas engine the pump for the fuel injection might be 30 psi or so. Maybe a little higher. In the Dodge/Cummins, P7100 the pump pumps anywhere from 14,500 psi. to 18,000 psi. Can you think what that means? It means you better have damm clean fuel going into that pump because you don't want any smidgeon of dirt to cause any scoring. The P7100 operates to extremely close tolerances, and any dirt will screw it up fast. So change that fuel filter often.

Also don't run the truck with a dirty air filter--the engine needs clean air. Clean air and clean fuel and your truck will run a long, long time.

Holy Molly, Thank you.

Yep, and the FIRST thing you need to do is get a decent set of gauges for your truck. Using nothing but stock parts you can easily melt down your engine. These things are seriously detuned from the factory to protect the rest of the truck.

You will need Boost Pressure and Exhaust Gas Temperature ( EGT ) at the minimum.....

Next, you need to tell us if this is a manual trans truck or an automatic. If automatic, before you go too far, you will have to decide if you put in a fully built trans and converter or just a converter and a valve body....... But with the auto, much above stock will just kill the trans.

Finally, your first mods will be cheap or free, but we really don't want to give you too much until we are sure you won't just kill the trans and let it kill your enthusiasm for a diesel......they get addictive pretty quick, and shortly thereafter fairly expensive.

What kind of budget will you have for your truck?

With good care and feeding, you have a truck that will last as long as you want to keep it. Follow the filter/oil change advice given above. It is not uncommon for these engines to reliably run 450-500 thousand miles or more. My 08 now has 261000 on it and seems to just be getting right. My last truck, a 98 which I sold when I bought the 08, is reaching for 350,000 and is still going strong. (Sold it to a friend).

My '95 has 342,000 on the Odo, and still wallops the heck out of rice-burners at stoplights.

OK, taytay, here's your first test: Go out to your truck and find the fuel filter. Report back here how you think you might remove it, and report back what you think the thing on the bottom of the fuel filter is.

The truck is has an Automatic Transmission, and my budget is around $1000-$1500? Definitely will do more in the future, but this is what I will be getting soon to work on it.

About the Air filter, I found it, and I think that thing is like the cold air intake tube?

And the Fuel filter is kinda in the front, and It needs to be unscrewed to be taken off? Sorry, I'm kinda sick, so I'm off my game :l

I think you have mistaken the oil filter for the fuel filter, but I might be mistaken. The oil filter is on the passenger side of the engine toward the front of the block. It's about 9-10 inches long and about 4 inches in diameter. The fuel filter is about the same diameter, but shorter and is not on the front of the block. Try to find the fuel filter again when you're feeling better and report back here.