5.9 Magnum motor back alive

A while back I posted about my engine work, what started out as a burnt exhaust valve (looks like crack in head as well) morphed in to my idea to put a new cam in, which unveiled cam bearing damage, which then lead to finding main and rod bearing damage. Well my engine is back together and running excellent!
Towing cam thread
Cam bearing findings

My thrust bearing was hammered and a few rod bearings around it. I think there was trash in there since day 1 as the motor is spotless otherwise. Cylinders were still showing crosshatch and carbon ridge came off with WD40. I also pulled the pistons and cleaned up rings and lands with WD40.
- I went with Clevite bearings all around. Cam bearing install went very well, had to reattempt 2 that were slightly off in the oil hole, but we took our time and none got damaged and cam went in perfectly, no tightness. All other bearings checked in spec with plastigauge.
- Put on these heads from Jegs Jegs USA Magnum heads
- MP timing set.
- Hughes lifters and plenum plate.
- UTAwesome spec cam for towing, Comp Cam along with the intake shield.
- High volume MP oil pump and new distributor shaft.
- 4 hole injector set KSuspension injectors

Runs awesome now and totally woke up this truck. Granted I was kind of running on 7.5 cylinders with the burnt valve for a while, but change is extremely noticeable. Exhaust note is very different, even my neighbors asked what I did. Just awaiting the PCM tune from Marty to match the cam. Right now using my older tune I had for a few years now.

Glad to hear it runs good.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news about 1 thing though but I bought a pair of those heads and they looked 100% exactly like the chinese fleabay ones with a very rough casting and even smaller, rougher than stock ports. I guess they get away with saying they are made in USA because they put the valves in them here.

Hope not. While I am not an expert, the casting of this pair looked good quality and machining work looked good to me. I didn't see the telltale China cast into or whatever I see on the casting between the spark plugs on the ones I have seen online. Side buy side they looked very close to the ones I took off. I guess time will tell, but would be very ticked if these were not made in US.

Thought I had a pic of the combustion chamber, but can only find after I painted and put the heat shields in.

Did a little further digging, and the Made in USA thing isn't totally correct as stated above. These are ProMaxx heads from looking at the warranty paperwork and I contacted them. Castings are made in China. The machine work and assembly are done in their facility in USA, so I guess that's the loophole. They said its the same foundry that has been used for last 15 years from when they were Alabama Cyl Head.
So, while these appear to be working well now, I am disappointed in the marketing used to lure me in. Will see how they hold up the first season of towing soon enough.

Right on.

Any chance you can upload a video of it running?

What was your total cost for all of this?

Cost.... For the major stuff above and all the gaskets, bearings, mopar waterpump, mopar sensors in intake, belt, hoses, tensioner, idler pulley, etc. Round about $2600 (edited, forgot my injectors for about $180).

I have a couple of quick videos:
Exhaust note
Inside cab

if you want something else, can do this weekend.

I wouldn't worry about durability, just performance ain't quite gonna be what it could but unfortunately not much other options besides running cracked heads (I have actually never had problems from this) or overpriced eddelbrocks with their ever decreasing quality.

Got the tunes from Marty today.
Seat of the pants dyno says, wow!!
Noticeable difference from 25 to 60 mph. It pulls very strong in this range, which is exactly where I need the help with towing.
Need to do some trailer testing this weekend so I can see under load. That is, once I do my bearing maintenance, which gets old real quick x4 wheels.
I have a question back to him on base idle, as it sounds/feels like it is slightly higher. I didnt have a scan tool with me to read, but the lope of that motor is burned into my ears after 25 years, and it sounds higher.

I wasn't quite able to make out that lopey idle from your video.

If I remember right my stock Magnums idle at 650 or so.

I'm curious how wild the cam, heads, and compression can be that this Fellow can work with the factory fuel injection?

I would not consider this a lopy cam as this is for towing. It does have a nice note to it.
If you go to the videos on his YouTube channel there are some examples of the more aggressive work he has done.

That is still a hdy roller cam right?

Correct. He spec'd a cam for towing application, that also uses stock pushrods and springs.

The factory computer is way more flexible than some people who never messed with it (and some who have) would lead you to believe. I ran a 410 stroker, heavily ported heads flowed 60 CFM more than stock magnums on the same bench, 11.5ish compression, 231@.050 .575 lift cam 110 LSA, M1 single plane ported to match heads, plenum opened to look like a real squarebore, long tube ceramic coated headers, 460 ferd injectors, full dual 3" exhaust with crossover, 4.56 gears... ran awesome with the stock tune, fuel trim numbers were close enough it didn't even set CEL, it shifted too early and gained quite a bit with an SCT tuner but it was actually fine with the stock computer, still had brutal TQ with the stock tune.

A lot of it is in how much the MAP sensor sees at idle. A 410 cid with a 110 lsa cam with 231 @ .050 is probably right on the borderline of it's adaption. I'm sure the compression ratio helped too. The bigger injectors also helped I'm sure. Did you bump up the fuel pressure also?

What did you use for a ‘carb’ thinking of doing this in my early truck. What year pcm?

Got to do some testing with new 93 octane tune and towing my travel trailer. Gets up to speed much more effortlessly now. I do notice the 2 to 3 up shift holds a bit longer now, but can get used to it.
Main concern was pinging and there was zero. So I am very happy and satisfied now.
Oh and he does raise base idle now to 750 rpm, so I was right that it felt higher.

Took a video of idling as it was requested.
Idling 1
Eng bay

How is this Marty guy? Need to look him up.

Never talked on phone, always thorough email correspondence. Very responsive, he is in UT, so time zone differences.
I would checkout their youtube channel to get a better feel for the company. Utawesome Performance

Thanks

Stock fuel pressure and pump. I heard there was some hillbilly way of raising the fuel pressure butt never got around to trying it, I think it was something about squishing the fuel pressure regulator to put more sspring pressure on it or something.

It was a 99 Dakota, it did not have a carb, I heavily ported the stock throttle body was all I ever got around to.