Well, heres my lil baby.

Its a 91 Dodge dakota sport, 4x4, 318 etc etc.

I picked it up last summer for a mere 1500$

I just hit 400K on her, and then the ODO froze.. lol

She had a few options on her, the light bar and lights, fog lights etc.

I pretty much picked her up cuz hte price was right, the deal was right, adn i needed a truck to haul the quad about, and my poor lil nissy was on its last legs n all..

As it is, it had a rear slider in it, but it was smashed n broken. part of the deal was the old boy at work paid to get it replaced, and I decided i'd rather have a solid window vs the slider. I mean c'mon, its got 4 other windows that open, and a sunroof.. lol

the other thing i had to do was replace both mirrors. One had been knocked off, and in the first week i owned it, one of the cables broke in the other.

New ECU (Warrentied cuz it had jsut been replaced not too many miles ago, and a new alt, (Also warrentied) due to missdiagnosis.. (Thought alt was pooched, turned out to be charge signal from ECU.. lol)

at any rate, its had a front bushguard/winch bucket mounted to the front, as its poor front end had already met with 2 deer.

I have just recently added a few lights to it as well.

the only other thing i've done is switch out the aftermarket stereo for an aftermarket DVD/divx/vid player.. lol Have a 7" screen mounted in there temporarilytill i get time to put the 14" lcd up on the roof. (I spend alot of time travelling with the kids, and the video and PS2 is a nice distraction for them etc.)

anyways, kinda looking to do a few more things to her, motors starting to get tired and all that, someh, ya know.

the body is in mint shape, has a fancy bumper on the back. Some grill insert thingies, slotted for summer, closed for winter, altthough its got the winterfront on her as well.

but thats about her. I have several other vehicles to play with from time to time, notably and 82 AMC eagle wagon.. but we wont got there.. lol 4K later and just took teh tranny out of her not long ago and still needs a couple fixes.. lol

I love the Dakota. Load the Warrior up in her, and its absolute fun and freedom!

Its kinda funny, first vehicle i ever had was an old Cordoba. anow after 14-15yrs, my same original license plate has made its way back to a 318!

anyways, pics or ban right?

Enjoy!











In the last one, you can kinda see the eagle and the nissy in my driveway inthe background..

~L~

 

Nice truck for $1500. Wow 400,000 miles really, i hope mine last that long. Is that rust on your brush guard or deer blood? LOL Now it looks like all you really need is some new tires to make that 4x4 look a lot tougher and get to the places to use that ATV.

 

haha, no, thats rust... been thinking about pullingit off, sanding her down and either spraying it or powdercoating it black.
Likely end up just painting it black.. simpler and cheaper..

as for the tires, they still do just fine. On occasion i'll take it down the quad trails and such itself (we have miles and miles of atv/snowmobile trails up here.) I've yet to get stuck, and they've proven to be very good in the snow and ice.

we had over a foot of snow dump on us a week or two ago, and never had a problem getting around, did circles around the grannies in thier cars, ad soccor moms in thier vans, and laughed as i went around all the 2 wheel drive units fighting for traction and momentum.

I generaly put on around 2-3K klicks in a month, highway driving, so overly aggressive tires arent realy in my interest. Although, on the other hand..hehe, i agree would look better!

As it is, i am currently looking into getting another engine to build up for her. this ones getting tired, starting to leak around the valvue guides, making for alot smoke when she sits and idles for a bit..

just gotta figure out a few things.. i'd like to build up something a bit more "Awake" than the stock 318.

one hitng thats got me confused is when you go and look at intakes, it never says anythign about TBI. I pressume the TBI has a pattern and blts on in place of a carb??

the other thing is i was looking at some heads on Summit (Good place to go and get a feel for what sorta parts and options are out there)

they had some that were for 318/360, with the bigger volumes and valves and flow. however, ive also read that using 360 heads will drop your compression down to useless.

Im not to clear on how these heads would work out on the 318, or if theres maybe 2 versions of em.

or perhaps theres the option of using different rods and pistons to bring the compression back up etc.. still trying to figure through all this.

of course the other option is get a 360 to start with, or even switch over to a newer MFI setup engine, but i dont feel like doing that much wiring etc. id rather a more build engine and drop in sorta deal.

then once i get all this worked out, I'll bug the old guy at work, (very experienced mechanic and engine builder, race engine builder (You should the 350s they have built up for the sprint car DROOLS) but i'll bug him to help me pick out a good cam n rockers etc (im not to knowledgeable about that aspect of it.)

essentialy, if i hit 300hp + i'd be happy.. 4 or 500 would be nice, but im also not interested in a crazy and/or super expensive build.. lol

anyways, thats pretty much me thinking out loud.

these were 2 of the heads that caught my atention:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/RHS-20301/

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/DCC-5153849/

the second one is crazy expensive tho, and not so sure its worth it.. there were one or two others i was looking at as well.

Im still confused on the whole intake thing and what the stipulations are for using with TBI...