last summer I swapped the front rotors/brakes to powerstop ones on my wifes Dak, brakes were good but not great... flushed the lines with fresh synthetic fluid and still acted the same. talked to some techs about it and one of them suggested adjusting the rear brakes. found out that there is an access port on the back of the rear drums. poped off the little rubber gromit and there's the rear brake adjuster. cranked it down some and took it for a spin and wam, nice brakes now. I think I adjusted it a little tighter in there as well but what i'm getting at is if your brake suck check your rear shoes for adjustment. this took me about 5 minutes to do with a small screwdriver.

 

I'm gonna have to check this out Steve thanks for the info. I upgraded to ceramics but they still don't feel like they have the right stopping power.
*EDIT* How much did you turn it BTW?

 

I cranked it down until I started to feel some tension... her's were pretty loose. made a night & day change in braking.

 

Cool I'll look into that this weekend I was planning on pulling the drum and cleaning my brakes anyway as well as the rest of my truck since I went offroading a couple weeks back and haven't been able to clean it to the level I wanted it to be.

 

Would this be the same on the 05+ Dakotas? My Dak has crappy braking. It's nice, but not extraordinary.