surfer5567

so let me start off by saying what i have. the truck is a 2001 dodge ram 1500 with a 5.9 liter magnum in it. its an auto and 4x4. now im lookin at some possible engine upgrades cause this thing is a pig. i mean for a truck its not too bad but its SLOW! i was looking at strokin the 360 to a 408 but its quite a bit of money, the gas mileage would REALLY suck and its not as easy to make power out of it. the thing that got me lookin at an ls1 was i saw this months hot rod mag and with a few bolt ons and head work they got 530 hp out of it. thats insane!!! thats what i want, no, need for my truck. now my question is obvious, how hard will this be? will it be possible for relitively cheap? this truck is going to be a daily driver so its goin to need to be reliable and get decent mileage(for a truck) too. i mean im getting like 11 on the highway which really sucks. if not an ls1 does anyone else have any suggestions... i dont have a problem bastardizing something either. if it works it works...

01PewterWS6

If you want to keep the 4wd it will be some work, mostly just fabbing mounts and gathering all the parts, your best bet might be to get a wrecked truck so you have the body harness to go with the engine harness if you use the tranny/transfer case out of the donor truck....
Otherwise its going to be a PITA to get all the parts together you need.
It does sounds like a cool swap though and youll have to fab up motor mounts/tranny mount and guages, but shouldnt be THAT bad.
Good luck with it!

surfer5567

out of curiosity what type of mileage does an ls1 get? and the harness you talked about, do you mean a spare dodge or chevy harness?

01PewterWS6

Milage depends on mods/gears, etc...
Id say 14-18(maybe a little more if you stay out of the throttle), just depends..

For the harness I mean the body harness(if the tranny conncetors arent on the engine harness down to the tranny, havent messed with a truck harness) from the truck you are getting the LSx from, either 5.3 or 6.0 and the transfer case/tranny to go with it...

Bo185

It can be done but would be EXPENSIVE!
Sell the dodge and buy a Chevy truck bolt a 6.0L you'll be money a head in the long run! If you don't like the Chevy get a late model dodge with a hemi than!

AndreS

iTrader: (6)

if swapping is what you want....
the 5.7l or 6.1l hemi is the easier swap into the dodge by far. mopar performance is coming out with a 6.4L 510hp crate engine as well.

with equal mods the stock hemi will put out in the 500+ hp range too. look at the november issue of hotrod mag. the 6.1l found in the SRT models had a reinforced block, forged internals, better flowing heads & more. the bonus is it will bolt up to your current transmission, so you don't have to swap that out & then find adapters to your transfer case, if you can use it, and have driveshafts shortened/lengthened to fit.

FAST has a computer to run the new hemi i believe, which would allow you more tuning than sthe stock computer will... unless there is some software to reprogram the PCM similar to hp tuners or ls1 edit.


another factor that you may not be looking at could be gearing... what differential gears does the dodge have? what tire size are you running? if your running bigger tires on stock gears, no wonder the thing acts like a slug. the factory gears are set up for hiway efficiency usually.

01PewterWS6

**** a Hemi, if youre buying another truck, want good fuel milage, buy a diesel.

<-433RWhp, 950trq, 22mpg.

surfer5567

i traded in a 05 dodge cummins for this 01 sport magnum because of a few reasons. gas prices, insurance and car payment. was just too much and i have other things that i would rather do then pay for a 37K truck. so then a new hemi would be better then an ls1 to swap in? in terms of price wise.

Bo185

YEP, if you want to stay with a dodge, IF you want on LS motor my a CHEVY!

kossuth

iTrader: (12)

Eh, you are expecting too much from this truck. I have pretty much the same truck 2001 Dodge Ram 4x4 A4 with a 5.9 and 3.55's in the rear. I get about 14 right now and about 10 pulling. Have you watched to see if you have oil consumption? How about spark knock when you are getting after it? I know mine is a oil burner, but it's not a oil burner from rings, it's because the intake is a POS on those trucks. There is a TSB out there for the 94-00 trucks with a 3.9, 5.2, and 5.9 where the plenium gasket blows out and the intake sucks up oil from the lifter valley. If you have it bad enough it will kill mileage and power because the knock sensors in the truck are retarding the timing. Dodge revised the gasket design in 01, and there isn't a TSB out there for the 01+ trucks (which means it isn't covered under the TSB). FYI, you take it to the dealer they put a new program into the PCM which reduces the ignition tables to reduce the knock retard, but this also reduces power IE the death flash http://www.dodgeforum.com/m_354081/m.../tm.htm#354975. They did this because they couldn't keep the gaskets in the trucks. The good news is that it is only about $80 to fix the right way. http://www.apsprecision.com/ go to engine parts and billet plenium and that is what you will need if you look down inside the TB and notice oil in there. Also, a ported TB will help you out some. Those that put a fastman ported TB on the 5.2's and 5.9's supposedly sometimes gain 3-4 mpg, none have claimed they have lost mileage. I don't have one on my truck so I can't say one way or the other. http://www.thefastman.com/ I also had a 96 with a 5.2 but otherwise same options and it got about 18. I would also look at general tuneup things. Has the tranny been serviced lately, (tranny maintance is something you want to keep up on with those trucks particularly if you pull.) What about the differentials, service those. Do you have a brake dragging? Stock sized tires? I'm a GM fan, but I will tell you this. The -- through 01 dodge trucks were some of the toughest SOBs you will ever run. I've used mine on the farm quite a bit and pulled loads I had no business hooking onto IE 12,000 lbs flatbed loaded with 12 large round bales. I would look into this forum here for some help. www.dodgeforum.com They know their stuff and can probiably give you some ideas.

surfer5567

yeah i just found that site a fwe minutes ago and have been lookin on there. the truck his quick for what it is dont get me wrong there. i havent heard any pinging and the tranny was "supposedly" serviced when i bought it. the engine oil was new and full so that should be ok. i put about a 1k miles on it since i bought it so ill check it again. i think when i change the oil im going to change everything in it. all fluids possibly to synthetic too. its got aboyut 51k on it right now just as an fyi.

kossuth

iTrader: (12)

Mine starts to burn about 1500 miles into an oil change FYI, then it starts pinging and such. I would definately keep an eye on that and also look for that sticker on your PCM.

AndreS

iTrader: (6)

i have a '01 ram 1500 with 5.2l, it has the 'death flash'... it does have some spark knock(irritates the heck out of me occasionally). it does fine for what i bought it for... pulling light loads up to 4k lbs. it gets about 15 mpg, 12-14 pulling a load.

i used to visit dodgetrucks.org... not much lately.

kossuth

iTrader: (12)

Yeah, mine starts to ping really bad once I have 1500-2k miles on it after a oil change. My gasket isn't blown per say but it is allowing oil to get sucked up past by it. I need to rip the intake off of it and do that mod, I just haven't found the inspiration to do it. You could probiably make that plate yourself for 1/2 of the cost really. Just get some plate aluminum and a new gasket. Take the old pan off and trace it with a sharpie and if you have a band saw just it out that way. I will probiably just radius the intake runners alittle and unshroud the injector bosses while I'm in there to help port velocity. I'm kinda interested to see if that would help much :dunno:

dogger

iTrader: (1)

that would be a cool idea. I like my old dodge minus the 360 auto tran's that it had. mine was a 96 that I took good care of but reliablity and hp suck so it went by-bys. as for gas miliage it was about hit on the head 14 to 18 about stock less if you do head's and cam type mods. if I realy babies it and I mean realy babied it as in 1-3-5 shift's at 2k and dogged teh motor I did get 21 mpg out of a tank of gas. I did that just for curiousity and it not something I'm going to do agian cause that's the slowest I've ever gone.

to make the swap work on your 4x4 though you'll need to have a tranny that can bolt up. nv4500 were avaliable in both dodge and gm and should be able to swap teh neccesary part's beyween the two to get it to work . another route would if you wanted to stay auto would be look up advanced adtaptor's or else a 4l80e however to make your 4x4 work you's need to find a divoriced np205 (dodge or gm but not ford)transfer case and have custom lengeth drive shaft's made up to work. if this is a daily driver though any route you try try to go will put your truck down for a longer time then you could affaord to be with out it.(aka a couple months).my bust advice to you would be try and save up a little money for a beater while you try a conversion weather it'd be ls or hemi so your not with out a truck while you try this though. good luck if you do try it I'd love to se some finished pics of the truck

XtremeDime

iTrader: (16)

on an fbody with a 6speed it gets around 30 on the highway. but u are alot heavier than an fbody.

Steel Chicken

iTrader: (3)

they make superchargers for those trucks, it would be cheaper and MUCH less of a hassle

knight17Z

iTrader: (5)

Turbo the 5.9? I've been wanting to do it to my 97 ram 5.2 for a while.