Since the 3.9 in my 98 dodge ram is crapping out on me, I've found a wrecked 98 dakota with a good 5.2 engine, both trucks are 2wd automatics how hard would the swap be? Could I use the wiring harness off of the dakota or would I have to modify my existing harness? Lastly, could my V6 PCM be flashed over to handle the V8 or could I use the Dakotas PCM? I imagine the 5.2 would be a huge improvement over the 3.9

 

I did a 5.9 swap from a 5.2 and searched a lot. There is info out there. I did run across the 3.9 is like a 5.2 minus two cylinders. Motor mounts etc. I don't have any info for this swap but judging by threads I've found but it has been done a few times. Good luck.

 

I wonder if you can use the Dakota harness. I have no idea. I've parted out a Dodge Ram truck before, and you can dis-connect the engine part of the wiring harness up near the firewall on the driver side. I wonder if the Dakota one would fit... You can check the part numbers in the parts manual in the DYI section to see if the numbers on the dakota part you have match the RAM part number. I don't know if the connector on the PCM is different for the v6 though, that would be an issue. If it's the same connector, then I'd suggest getting it flashed.

If not, I believe I have a wiring harness that came off a 1997 Dodge Ram with the 5.9 engine and auto trans. PM me if interested.

 

I bet the dakota harness will drop right in, along with the engine, and probably the trans. I don't know what trans was in the Dak though, wasn't it a 44RE?

 

I'm not to sure about the transmission, hopefully my 6 Cyl transmission will work since I just had it rebuilt and beefed up a little bit 2000 miles ago, I went last night and picked up the dakota so as soon as I clean my shop up a little bit I'm going to yank the 5.2 and freshen it up a little bit and I'll start my swap, the 5.2 has 97,000 miles on it so hopefully it won't need to much, I just need to decide if I want to do some high performance mods to it before I drop it in my ram.

 

You are likely going to need the engine harness, PCM and transmission from the donor truck to make the 5.2 swap work. Please post back your experiences so that we can all learn from it.