Got a '97 3.9L Dakota Sport 2wd Automatic, stock everything except the pair of airhorns under the hood :-P
Pretty much- I'm not happy with how she rolls....too freakin slow. I understand this model only has in the range of 170 something HP, what can I do to help her out for under 1k and keep the gas mileage (horribly sucky) in the tolerable range?
Thx!

 

First 2 and cheapest things I would do would be air intake and exhaust.

 

Any suggestions as to where I can get a good intake, and what kinda exhaust?
Thx

 

You can also consider getting a chip. Go with a flowmaster, or borla exhaust. And also get an aem intake or something cheap...


Hope this helps Dave Williams!

 

Flowtech/summitt/headman i do beilive all make headers for the truck and you can also get them online at summittracing-- or ya could go to jegs.com and get an order filled
later

 

www.summitracing.com has a smaller crank pulley the claims it will add 15 HP. I doubt you'll feel anything but hey it's a start I guess. It's only $50 and you can use the stock belt.

 

I know something that will give that 3.9 some big ballz go here. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.bullsballs.com

 

first of all flowmaster is not the best for horsepower. they use baffles that the air has to move around. air carries momentum. just like a car. everytime you turn(air too) it slows down. Flowmaster is the the best. Magnaflow has a straight through design and will yeild more performance. but to make more power you need to add 2 things, gas + air. Now, intake and exhaust is the air department. But you can only go so far with that. eventually you need to add more fuel, then fuel economy goes down. Its going to be hard to make more power without lowring your MPG. so intake, header, exhaust and a chip or piggy back computer is really your only route.

 

porting the heads is one way to free up some power flat tops is another route power chip supercharger but free horsepower usually harder to find but possible flowmaters help quite a bit on mine but it needs a cam to breath better or maybe higher ratio rockers intake is one route i went noticed a slight improvement but the intake manifold on the dakota 3.9 sucks and nobody offers one aftermarket. If they did iwould guess at least 20 hp off of a dual plane replacement like the old school chevys have and better gas mileage but for the most part 3.9 is pretty weak i know i have one, and i got a 360 to replace that pos

 

cold air intake and exhaust man, those are the cheapest things you can do, maybe run some higher octane fuel. Oh and a throtle body spacer could help you out to. If you can get a set of long tube headers those also free up some horses