Has anyone done this to a Dakota, or is it even possible?

 

umm, yes??? i have seen in done to a 1st gen dak b4(almost bought it but turned out to have tooo many miles on it) i honestly dont see why not if you have the time/ money to make it worth while

 

are you talking about just the air cleaner? yea lots of people do that. it wont do you any good though unless you just want the look of it.

 

wink2873, why do you think this wouldnt do anything? it has got to be better than factory. nascar cars have basicly an open air filter. if its good for them, its good for anyone.

here is an interesting link... http://www.dakota-truck.net/UPGRADES/FABM/fabmdml.html

 

NASCAR systems don't use air cleaner elements open to the engine bay, and neither do OEMs -- and for a reason. You're just going to pull a lot of hot air from under the hood into your engine. The NASCAR setup has a lot of shrouding, and pulls air from the base of the windshield, a very high pressure area. That's not the case with a standard open element air cleaner like that. The OE setup pulls air from the front fender area. If you want to get any type of improvement, you need to plumb "cold" air to the engine. Most "cold air intakes" are not -- to the contrary, they're "hot air intakes" because that cone filter pulls a lot of hot air right off the radiator area. The filter has got to be heat shielded very well and/or placed IN the fender to make it worth while.

 

ahhh ok, great explaination. thank you, and that is the reason so many people go out and spend over $200 on a CAI and get nothing from it. i actually did a ram air type thing and got quite a noticable power increase from about 1500 rpm's...

 

Yes, that is often the case. Most CAIs are actually HAIs (Hot Air Intakes). If you've just got a cone filter sitting there where the air box used to be, it's not a good thing. That said, we put a K&N FIPK (Fuel Injection Performance Kit) on our old '96 Grand Cherokee (also with the 318) and it seemed to help, but only at the upper end of the RPM band. That kit also included a pretty rigorous heat shield, and placed the cone filter as far forward and tucked up behind the driver's headlight as possible. Most of the ones you see on eBay with a chrome pipe and a filter on the end = junk, at least in my experience.

That'll work well -- that gets air that's as cold as possible (coming in the front grille) into your air box. I'm actually putting a K&N cone filter on mine soon. It's a smallish cone that I had left over from another job. It fits ALL THE WAY into the right fender, through the access hole for the passenger side headlight. I'm going to mount it in there, and seal the hole with some rubber shielding. It'll be much better protected from the hot under-hood air than the stock setup was (it had a snorkel over there, but not much of one). The only thing that'll be "ghetto" is the tubing I'll have to use to connect it, which'll be something like dryer hose. I may eventually buy one of those CAI kits, just for the manufactured intake pipe. I'll still keep the filter in the fender.

You can also make your own intake system with parts from a place like this: http://www.siliconeintakes.com/

A system like that is not going to be optimized for high RPM power, but (at least in my case)we're just talking a small V-8 engine that I never really rev past 4000 RPM. My main goal here is to replace the stock intake box, which has bowed out some on one side, so much that the filter doesn't get a good seal.

 

I was looking some more through that silicone intake website, and I'll be able to make a pretty simple system, with fewer bends and restrictions compared with the stock accordion pipe and air box, and do it for under $100. I'll also try to find a conical PAPER air filter, as I really don't care for the cotton-gauze stuff like K&N. I know some Ford products (like the Ranger) take conical paper filters as the OE setup, but they don't have a flange/snout on the end onto which you could clamp a pipe. It might be hard to make work right.

They also have some short-height foam filters onthat websitethat would fit REAL easy in the right side fender, but I've never used foam before, not asthe main filter media.

 

Saw another site, http://intakehoses.com. They sell plain rubber parts, more economical and probably more appropriate for this application. They also sell the aluminum tubing. Nice.

 

what this guy did is probably the closest thing that will give you some good performance out of it.
http://www.4x4offroads.com/2002-dodg...adcab-4x4.html