Your best bet would be to get a 2.5 turbo-charged late 80's/early 90's car (K-car, Daytona, Sprit, Shadow) and swap over the engine, computer, and wiring harness and call it a day. I put a 2.4 SRT-4 engine in my '88 Caravan but I went FWD to FWD and my SMEC (PCM) was already tunable because I was tuning the 2.5 turbo engine that was in there previously. I think it would be an overwhelming task to put an SRT-4 engine in a Dakota and make it work but not impossible as long as you have deep pockets and mad fabricating skills.

 

Thanks for that man I've been looking into all that but I think I'm going to go with a 318 just seems way easier and I was told by Dodge that the 5spd trans I have in my 4cyl is the same used on 5.2L that were 5spds though rare to find, just need to change over the V8 clutch kit. So that saves me some cash there and when I find a Dakota with the motor i'll legit take everything lol.. The SRT 4 sounded like a badass plan and if I had the resources would do it but my engine is dying and I'm doing body work this spring so while it's laid up for that it's the best time to do all this which is why I'm researching now.