I am preparing to tow a full size truck over the mountains on a 16 hr drive. I need to upgrade my engine. First things first, I want to change my gears down to about 355's or so since the highway is fast (70 mph up-hill 6% grade). I am running 35" tires, lifted, and have a manual 5-speed. What do you think I'll need for Horses 350-400?!?

I am looking at the HX-40. Will that fit my year?

What upgrades will I need to bring my HP enough to complement the bigger turbo(injectors etc...)?

should I Intercool?

Thanks.

Tim

 

A good set of injectors. Fuel line upgrades. Turbo upgrade. pyro. boost gauges. bhaf or better. and a fuel pump almost maxed out. and a better lift pump

WannaDiesel told me to buy the injectors before I buy a bigger turbo and that was the best advice i have ever gotten. So i would take his advice and buy the injectors before you get the turbo that way you know what turbo you are going to need.

But if you don't have gauges right now i would get some

And you will probably need a clutch upgrade if your looking into them horses.

Check out the stuff i have in my sig, that got me up to where your looking at

Im sure you would either want water/meth injection or throw an intercooler on it at that HP to keep it cool.

 

Like Dean said, gauges first, you'll put that thing into meltdown so quick it won't be funny.

I guess your running 4.10's right now, why do you want to drop to 3.55's. Is it something you want to do regardless or is it for this trip?

A good stock clutch will hold 300-350 hp if driven sanely, no 3rd gear launches, etc....

Dean, your truck is intercooled so it has smaller injectors than the 89 non-intercooled trucks. That's why wannadiesel recommends going larger on them first.

What kind of trailer and what kind of speeds are you going to be running? I know your going to be on a 70mph highway, but you might be speed limited due to your trailer tires. I hate changing tires along the road, going 80 with a 93 dodge diesel on the trailer will get you some blowouts and these are good 235-85-16 load range E tires.

My 93 used to tow with POD's, piston lift pump, upgraded H1C, maxed IP, it used to lay down 350ish and 860ish in torque on the dyno, but towing you could only run about 30lbs of boost otherwise the exhaust temp was out of control. And if your running with a turned up tweaked, timing advanced pump I would try not to exceed 1100* for long periods of time because your cylinder/piston temps are hotter with the timing advanced.

 

If you are going to tow the truck, rotate/grind your pin, 366 spring and a bhaf. If you are going to play....everything else.

 

Roger that You'll never be able to use 350hp at the wheels while towing without melting the engine down.

 

Yea, I have at least 4.10's. I drive mostly highway and I top out around 75 mph. Not that I go that fast often but even at 65 I have the gas pedal almost fully pegged.

 

Around here,(norcal) towing past 65 will get you a ticket, quick. the big rigs are allowed to get into the low 70mph range, but chippy's don't like smaller rigs doing it. Remember you got to stop that heap, our brakes suck. the mods listed in your sig should be sufficient for power, check out a pacbrake, in my mind one of the most important mods for a non 1c truck next to water/meth or intercooler. My truck has seen a LOT of mountain towing, without a pacbrake, and it sucks.

 

Ok I will throw my .02 in here....

You don't need all that extra power or torque if you can split your gears and add a over drive past 5th.............But we all want it any ways

I run a GV (GEAR VENDOR OVERDRIVE) and also have 4:10 Gears and couldn't get much past 65(stock tires and wheels)

Have been to 100 mph once, with the GV No i was running empty(no trailer)
It's certainly not the cheapest route, but the best route in my opinion.

Flash.

 

I've heard a lot about the different gauges. Does anyone know of a good set of gauges. And what exactly is a pump tweak?

 

Your sig says you have a 3200 rpm spring, 75mph with 4.10's with 235-85-16's should run you right around 2500rpm, you can run that all day as long as you temps, exhaust and water stay in check. I think you need to check your throttle travel, if you almost have the hammer on the floor at 65 then your probably not getting full travel to the stops. With mine I sometimes would have to drop out of OD and running 70 I would run 2700rpm with no problems.

I have a mess of gauges in my rig, I have westachs and isspros. 1 isspro and the rest are westachs.

This deals with almost everything you can do to these trucks,
This is "THE STICKY"


Both of these links are in "THE STICKY", this is just 2 of the many that are in there.
http://dodgeram.org/tech/dsl/more_power/Power_ve.htm

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...d.php?t=158962

 

I have Stewart Warner and like them. They have white backgrounds and the bulbs are easy to swap out to different colors. Right now I have white, red, green, and blue. Blue is sweet looking IMO.

For towing go with good flowing exhaust and intake, intercooler, and 1/8"th timing bump. Plus grind your fuel pin and crank the fuel screw a little. With the stock injectors you should be close to 280whp with those mods. Then later to drop EGT's a little more get a HTT III compressor upgrade.