I blew the motor in my 92 Dakota and puchased a replacement motor. The motor I bought was out of a 96 Ram 1500 Van. The place where I bought it said this was a interchangeable motor with my year Dakota. Looking at my Haynes book 89-96 was the year range, so I figured that this was correct. My old motor had a cam and performance computer in it. The new motor is stock. After replacing the motor I had a spark knock problem, figuring that it was a timing issue I purchased a stock computer for the 92. Since this I have had a progressively worsening hesitation problem when driving at steady speeds which goes away when accelerating. I noticed that the 96 motor is a MFI while the 92 is an EFI. Checking the difference with this I also noticed that the injectors are also different. I changed the injectors back to the originals for the 92 motor. This did not help. I changed the rotor and distributer cap. This did not help. I changed the fuel filter, spark plugs. Neither helped. I called the parts store they said the computers are different for the 96. If the motors are interchangeable do I need to take the old intake, injectors, throttle body, etc. off of the old motor? This does sound reasonable since the fuel rail was different and several other things were also different. Please if anyone has the answers let me know I'm at my wits end here. Although there are some other things that may cause this, wires are only 3 years old HiPo set, coil maybe going, am cleaning injectors.

 

The engine is interchangable. The sensors and injectors and everything else will need to be the origanal equipment. The Intake should be the same.