1996 Dodge Ram motor

KUNTRYAUSTIN

MEMBER
1996 DODGE RAM
203,000 MILES

Okay so I took my truck out to the mud holes about a week ago and played for awhile I hit 1 hole full of water and the motor sputterd and died I got it to start back up and it ran fine till I got about a mile down the road then it started to overheat and the top speed was about 20mph fineally it got so bad that the top speed was 5ph and black smoke poured out the tail pipe I pulled over and called a buddy to pull me 30 miles home and now the truck will start but will only rev to about 1500 rpms I have pulled the plugs and turned over the moter to blow any water that may have been in there out and replaced the plugs and plug wires the truck now only revs to around 1500 rpms and then sputters and makes a low pitch growling noise and it overheats in about 10 mins of idle what is wrong also it has the 5.9 magnum 360 motor

1 Reply

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
33,916 POSTS

If you drove the truck five feet there can't be any water in the cylinders. Probably the first thing would be to have your mechanic measure the exhaust system back pressure to see if the catalytic converters are restricted. You may be able to tell that too from the sound of the exhaust. It will be more of a steady hiss instead of the "putt-putt".

The black smoke from the exhaust means there's way too much fuel going into the engine. The MAP sensor has the biggest say in fuel metering. Look for a vacuum hose that's knocked off. The next thing is to connect a scanner to view live data to see what the Engine Computer is seeing. Also check for diagnostic fault codes. If none are set, you might also consider high fuel pressure due to a crushed return line from the engine to the tank. Fuel pressure is not monitored by the computer so there are no fault codes related to that.