I went out today and bought a Dakota SLT Quad cab. I needed a truck to tow my car to & from the track on occasion and as my every day driver. I was wondering where to look on common modifications & more information on the truck. Any input is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!!

John

 

Spill it, John, give us the details!

I assume it's an 02, what engine, 2wd/4wd?, etc.

It'll help us figure out what to recommend.

I love my Dakota. I'd love it more with a blown 408 stroker and 3/4 ton running gear underneath it, but whatever.

I just got back from towing a rather heavy race car to the races in mine. It's a great tow vehicle.

 

Yeah, I guess a few details would help[sm=goodidea.gif], so here they are:

2002 SLT Quad Cab
4.7 V8
4wd
auto

Also, what gear ratio did Dodge throw in the Dakota?

& Horatio, what kind of car are you towing?

Thanks!

 

Typically they put either a 3.55 or 3.92 in, you should be able to verify by looking at the sticker in the glovebox or if you crawl underneath and look at the axle there should be a tag with numbers stamped on it held to the diff cover by one of the bolts, or look at the front axle and there should be a sticker wrapped around the axle tube.

I'm the crew chief for a rally team, so I drag a 2002 Subaru WRX wagon around. The car weighs probably a bit over 3500 lbs, and the current trailer is 1900 lbs. It's a ~18' tandem axle tilt-bed with a ~2' beaver tail.

With just the car and no gear in my truck it tows awesome. It'll hold 60 on just about any hill without too much work. The race this weekend we left her service van home and loaded up my Dak with a bunch of stuff and it still did really well.

6 spare rally tires
1 trailer spare
2 control arms
1 cv shaft
4 brake rotors
1 ~10x20' easy-up tent
1 10x20' heavy rubber tarp
5 fuel jugs (going up, 3 were full and one 1/2 full)
1 big aluminum floor jack
2 tool boxes
2 small bins full of small parts and fluids
1 gallon coolant
3 chairs
2 light pods (4 8" diameter driving lights)

It was a quite heavy load for my poor truck, but it still kept decent speeds when I wanted. On the flat it would still do well over 85 without complaint, and on the hills when I wasn't trying to stay behind another competitor it would usually keep 55-60mph too. We went up to Merritt, BC up in the mountains and going up the big 8% grade I was following another racer and he was doing 19mph so I had some troubles with heat - the grill seems to be a bit too small for low speeds and high loads. I could have gone faster but we were driving together in case anybody had a problem.

I've got the 5.9 with shorty headers and a less restrictive muffler, a 4.7 obviously won't have quite as much grunt, but it's still an excellent motor and will do really well.

Oh, I also installed a set of Hellwig overload helper springs to help with some of the squat. It still squatted a bit in the back, but nowhere near as much as without them.


So what car are you going to be towing? Does your truck have the factory tow package? They're pre-wired for electric trailer brakes which makes installing the controller stupid easy. I ordered the pigtail from the dealer and just spliced the controller to it and plugged it in. Genious.

 

Thanks for the info! Your Suburu weighs the same as my car. I have a Mustang Cobra that usually sees the drag strip, but will be taking it out the road course more now.

I will check the gear ratio, but I am definitely hoping for 3.92. How are these trucks with 4.10's? Does it help significantly? It doesn't have the tow package, so I have to get that done within the next few weeks.

As far as mods... is it pretty much like every other vehicle... gears, intake, exhaust & a tune?

 

Pretty much. I owned my 4.7 back in 99 and there was nothing out for it, and I haven't kept up on what's currently available because I've got a couple of 5.9's and a 5.0, so I'm not going to be much help on the performance side of the 4.7.

When you do the trailer hitch, get a big tranny cooler as well. Heat kills these auto trannies and you'll really want to spend the $ now instead of cooking the tranny later.

The Subaru isn't mine, I'm just crew chief. The owner's site is here: www.subiegal.com

Rally is pretty hard on the cars so we probably take more in the way of tools and spare parts than you'd wind up taking, so that'll help out with the weight for you. I'm not really sure on the weight of the wagon, but they're about 3300 or so plus the extensive roll cage that's put in, minus the seats. I'd wager that the wheel/tire combos weigh between 50-75 pounds a piece, they're insanely heavy for how small they are.


If you don't have the 3.92 you're probably going to want to put different gears in it, especially if you tow in hilly terrain. I've got the 3.92's in mine and it'll actually pull a lot of the smaller hills in OD without downshifting. I don't imagine that with ~10% less gear it would have as easy of a time of it. The difference between 3.92 and 4.10 isn't great enough to offset the cost, imho, unless you're switching from a 3.55 (then the price is about the same either way).

I've got a 91 5.0 that I would like to take to the strip, but I don't think I'd be allowed to race. It doesn't have a roof anymore, or side/rear windows, and it makes a fair bit more power than stock.