Took my Dak out into the field behind my house because I had found a roll bar I plan on throwing on, and it starting smoking wicked bad. It was only on for about 5 minutes but when I got it back up to the shop it looked like I was having a fire. What could this be?

 

Sounds like a valve seal went bad or a piston ring broke since it started smoking really bad all of a sudden

 

Okay I was talking to my uncle and he said it's probably a piston ring. But the valve seals are cheap so I don't spose I shouldn't take and replace them while I'm doing the piston heads...

 

Before you go tearing the motor down you can check the compression and if it is a ring then it will have very low compression on that cylinder. if its a valve it will have decent compression but will slowly drop. Id try that before you tare it down.

 

Say it was used as a work truck and fairly well beaten on, what are the chances of the piston ring being busted? The 3.9 six banger is fun but maybe upgrading to a bigger engine should be my concern..... keep the 238 around just to tear apart and put back together for a later project I have

says on craigslist there's a guy selling a 318 out of a 94 Ram w/ the 5 speed, 318, and a 4wd transfer case (which is good because the aluminum cone on mine is snapped clean off). Mines an Auto but a transmission swap wouldn't hurt either!!!!

 

The v8 swap should be fairly easy. Just get a mopar performance pcm for it and i would find a stock v8 auto trans. Itll cost more to convert it to manual then it will to buy the stock auto. Then all you have to do is add 2 wires to your harness for the 2 extra injectors.