hey guys, im new here. i landed an extremely good deal on an 05 dakota a few months ago. my previous vehicle was a honda civic, and of course, like most young civic owners, i couldnt leave it stock. and now i feel the same way about this sweet little ride. as the title suggest, its a v6. i understand that this engine isnt performance based by any means, but i feel like it has more to it than what meets the eye. sadly, i cant find any real performance parts for it. i understand its the underdog here, but i cant seem to find anything but poorly constructed cold air intakes. and that just wont cut it.

im a pretty crafty person when it comes to building stuff for vehicles, so thats the approach i plan on taking. i do have a few questions though that i cant seem to get answers to.

1.) a friend of mine used hp tuners to tune his 5.9 rt dakota. has anybody here tried doing that with the 3rd gen v6 model, or is that program useless when it comes to newer model trucks?
2.) how much wiggle room does the stock ecu have? this question relates to the first question. im sure the computer will compensate for a cold air intake and a set of headers if i build some, but if i decide to go farther in to it, i dont want to go so far that it starts doing more harm than good.
3.) cam options. i cant seem to find any information on this at all. which isnt a big surprise, but i cant find a single article where anyone has even tried upgrading the camshafts. my idea here is to find a stock set of cams, and have them ground to a different profile. but this also corresponds with the first question, if i cant tune it, than its useless. but i feel like a slightly more aggressive profile will really wake the 3.7 up.

If i can get slightly below average 4.7 power out of it, than i will be happy. the truck does exactly what i need it to, get me to work and back, and an occasional trailer full worth of scrap metal. my issue here though, is that its gas mileage is horrific. from what i understand, the 4.7 model gets better fuel economy than the 3.7 does. which doesnt make a bit of since to me. why would they put a smaller less efficient engine in the truck? also, when i go to pass grandma ann (hypothetical person. its for visualizations sake) who drives 30 miles an hour down the highway, its passing ability is so small that its almost not even worth doing.

so heres my plan.

im going to get a stick of 2.5-3" exhaust pipe from my local exhaust place, and bend it so it routs its way around the engine bay like the stock intake, but take it a little further and go thru the intake hole, and make a shield to protect the filter from water rocks, and anything else that could damage the filter and engine. then put a thermal barrier coat on the inside and outside of the pipe so engine heat doesnt heat the air up before it reaches the intake manifold. from that, i can see a slight bump in gas mileage and a small but unnoticeable bump in power as well. from there, il look in to other things i could do to give it a little bit more piece by piece. but, it all falls on the first question. if theres not a program i can tune it with besides those silly hand programmers than im not even going to bother with any of it, and i will just wait it out until i have this one paid off some and trade it in for the v8 model. if i can in depth tune it, however, than i plan on changing everyones perspective on this little v6.

thankyou to anyone who can help me out on this little subject.

 

There is 1 tuner option out, and Tunners for the 5.9L RT (Gen2) are not compatible with any Gen3 Motor, Neither are any Gen2 tuners.

The 3.7L get like 1mpg better, or is suppose to then the 4.7L.

Putting a CAI on doesnt make much difference at all, Maybe like your saying with heat shielding it all and a new exhaust it might, but with the stock 3.7L tune, probably not much.
I dont worry about CAI to much, since its never to hot here anyways.
I just removed the OEM hat and flex pipe and put some pipe in so the air-flow is better.