Welp, I'm officially doing a gear swap soon. I ordered the gears and install kit this weekend and will have it all by Wednesday or Thursday, might be able to drop the truck off somewhere on Friday and have new gears in by next week if everything goes as planned!

I went with 4.10s, I was seriously considering 4.56s, but with the recent news of me moving to middle of butt@#$! Missouri, I figured I don't want to be revving so high at freeway speeds, since my highway driving percentage will skyrocket.


Oh, by the way. I was able to GPS verify a speed run. at 125mph the truck shifts in to 5th and will not climb any further. This gear change may help that, being at a lower speed when it shifts into 5th will lower the drag and perhaps give that hemi the freedom it needs to climb to a higher RPM to make power again, and perhaps let me top out 5th gear, or at least get to the 140 limiter!

 

Jealous....d@mn I miss my Dak......

 

Dusty05 from Michigan is selling his 05 hemi dakota 4x4 for book value if you want back in the club :P

 

Bingo, 4.10s are in! I am supposed to take 'er easy for the next few miles. It's hard to do that lol. But I will. Already i can tell a bigg difference in how the truck behaves, it moved quickly through the gears now and seems to have a lot more tug while doing it. I'll be able to do some other tests in a couple 100 miles.

 

good luck Preston. beat the **** out of it next week

 

Congrats on your Home Page coverage of swap thread!

 

Thanks Bruce! I hope the word gets out and more people start doing swaps of their own, that would be awesome.

 

i have not had time to read the other posts sorry. but ill say this while the engine is out put BRASS soft plugs in, and seal them with JB-weld. just an old guys idea.

 

Gotta say I m inspired, usually I just lurk. Are u still using the 4.7 PCM? How did that work out? Seems to be doable. I m thinking a mild 5.7 build cause I wanna use my 6mt. Gotta blow the 4.7. That might be hard.

 

Are you talking about the freeze plugs? I don't think the original ones will be an issue.

Yep I'm using the 4.7 pcm, and it runs great. It's very doable, I was very surprised how (relatively) simple it was. With you being 4x4, it adds a bit of complexity to the mix. You have to modify the oil pan and pickup tube to clear the differential, and when making the drivers side mounting plate, angles become much more important since the diff mounts to the isolator.

As far a mild build, the "sidewinder" cam seems to be a popular one, as it gives a lot of low end grunt over the stock cam, and won't be hard to have tuned, that or the comp 260. Most other cams shift the power band upward were it helps with racing.

Blowing the 4.7 will be hard, you might go through lots of other parts before the 4.7 dies. Unless it mysteriously over heats, and drops a valve seat.. But you didn't hear that from me.