Hi and thanks for being here, I just bought a great 2 wheel drive 94 Dakota here in Seattle and have been doing some work to it to try to get it back to its former glory, well I was looking and someone has an ad up for a set of headers off of a 98 Dakota with the same motor as mine, they are equal length headers to just replace the manifold and I was wondering if they would also work on a 1st gen Dakota.

Here is the listing for reference.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/pts/3103740170.html

Thanks

 

Welcome to DF!

I believe the main difference between first and second gen is in the electronics. The headers should work (assuming you have a V8).

I'm sure someone else with a little more knowledge of the V8s will chime in and correct me if I'm mistaken.

 

Those headers appear to be eith jba or gibson. They both are very good headers and are not true equal length but the primaries are dyno tuned. Those headers will work on your Dakota but im not certain that they will bolt right up to your existing y pipe. The only difference between those and a set for 95 and below are that they 96 and up do not have the egr port on the passenger side header. I bought the 96 model Dakota headers for mine and just plugged the egr pipe where it bolts to the header/manifold. Your truck wont throw any codes and you wont loose any power. The only thing I noticed was the real rich smell because the egr isnt connected allowing the unburnt fumes to be run back through the cylinders. If you dont jump on them headers quick they wont be around long. Hope this helps you with your question and decision making.

 

Thank you so much for the information, I didnt even thought of something like that but am glad that I didnt jump into it without asking. well a luck may have it today someone listed the correct set of headers with the port for the egr valve and I was able to talk him into the same price as the other set. So I was able to pick these up for $75.

 

double post

 

You're mistaken on how the EGR works. It's sole purpose is to reduce NOX emissions by allowing exhaust gas back into the intake to displace the air/fuel mixture and reduce the combustion temperature. If you're smelling a rich exhaust, you have another problem. On the Dakota's with an EGR, you're only pulling exhaust gas from one manifold. So if it was designed to let unburned fuel back into the intake to be burnt, you'd only be doing it on one side so you'd still have unburned fuel coming out your exhaust from the other bank.

My Dakota is a '94 and I installed a 5.9 out of a '98. It had a non-EGR intake, I went to emissions and failed NOX. I put the EGR intake on from the '94 5.2 I removed and passed.

A.J.

 

AZ I see what your saying but if you run the exhaust of just the passenger side back through the intake then it will reduce the emissions because it is making sure the exhaust gases are burnt again. My truck had a little rich smell before the headers because of the mp pcm and when I installed the non egr headers I could tell a small difference in the rich smell being a little stronger. I am still running the egr intake as of now plus im not running a thermostat during the summer months. So between the mp pcm, egr intake, fastman 50 mm tb, and no thermostat allowing the engine to run cooler the pcm is running the truck just a little on the richer side than normal plus I have removed the cats. So there really isnt anything wrong with the truck ive just done some things for more performance and that is why I can tell a small difference in the exhaust smell. But your are correct on how the egr works but at the end of the day it is cycling a portion of exhaust back through the intake to be burnt again.