Terry's 99 Dodge Dakota R/T

Welcome to my Dakota R/T page. Since purchased on April 17th, 1999 I have done the following performance modifications: Mopar Performance Big Valve R/T heads ported by Hughes Engines, port matched and plenum ported Mopar Performance M1 MPI 4 bbl intake manifold, Hughes 1.6 roller rockers/springs/lifters/pushrods, Hughes cam , Neal Chance 2400 stall torque converter, 4.56 ring and pinion gears, Keystone Restyling ram air hood, K&N 14x3 FilterCharger and X-Stream air flow top, Fastman 51.75mm throttle body, Mopar Performance PCM, Marren Motorsports balanced 19# fuel injectors, Mopar Performance headers, 3" single exhaust consisting of a Random Technology high flow cat and Dynomax Race Magnum muffler, Kenny Brown X-brace and custom driveshaft loop , ASP underdrive crank pulley, 180 degree thermostat, Magnecor KV85 competition ignition wires, and an MSD 6A ignition and Blaster SS coil . The ignition can be switched from MSD to stock in less than thirty seconds . I also upgraded the front brakes to PowerSlot rotors and Raybestos Quiet Stop ceramic pads.

For appearance I have installed: NRAuto white face gauges , clear front signal lens, Mopar hard tonneau cover, Street Scene roll pan and hidden hitch, and a BedRug carpet bedliner. For convenience I had a C.R. Laurence power rear window slider installed. This accessory gets used every day, and I highly recommend it to all Dakota Club Cab owners.

For traction at the track, I preload a set of CalTracs traction bars and mount a set of Real Pro 6 15 x 10 racing wheels with Mickey Thompson 26 x 10.0 ET Drag slicks. On the front I mount a set of Real Pro 6 15 x 4 racing wheels with Mickey Thompson 26 x 4.5 ET Front tires.

For both appearance and handling I am running a Hotchkis performance suspension, which consists of front coil springs, rear leaf springs, front and rear sway bars, and Bilstein shocks. This lowers the truck 1" in the front and 2" in the rear.

My best 1/4 mile run to date is 13.603 @ 99.35mph at Coastal Plains Dragway in Jacksonville, NC on October 28, 2001.

With all of the mods above, the truck pulled 325.3 hp and 334.8 ft-lbs of torque at the wheels in Jacksonville, NC on June 9, 2001. As you can see by comparing the results to the previous run below, the heads and cam resulted in a gain of 66 hp at the wheels, and a modest 24 ft-lbs of torque. You'll also notice most all of that power came at the top end, which is to be expected with the M1 intake manifold and ported heads. The cam is also geared towards the high end.

Before the heads and cam, the truck pulled 258.7 hp and 310.0 ft-lbs of torque at the wheels in Jacksonville, NC on December 9, 2000. Notice the loss of low-end torque compared to the dyno run below in May, most likely due to the M1 intake manifold and larger exhaust. Also note the other dyno run on this graph from a few weeks earlier. That run was with 24# injectors. Notice the A/F ratio at the bottom, which bottomed out below the 10.0 limit of the dyno. Going back to the stock injectors after having them balanced, the A/F leaned out to the 12.0 - 12.5 range and hp and torque was restored across the entire powerband. One other thing I found out during this day at the dyno was the Quick D intake could no longer handle the air flow requirements of the engine. With the Quick D I pulled 250rwhp compared to the 258rwhp with the throttle body open. A K&N Gen II also pulled 258rwhp, showing it did flow enough. You can see those results here.

Before the intake manifold, injectors, headers and exhaust, the truck pulled 223.4 hp and 327.0 ft-lbs of torque at the wheels in Charlotte, NC on May 20th, 2000. The other run displayed on this graph is my best run of 1999, prior to installing the PCM, roller rockers and crank pulley. There was an increase of 10 rwhp at the peak 4200rpm, and 18 rwhp at 5000rpm. Also notice the increase of 25 ft.-lbs of torque.

If you've looked at all the dyno graphs above, you probably noticed the earliest one looks different. This is due to different graph scales used by different dyno shops. In order to better illustrate what the heads, cam, M1 intake manifold, roller rockers, and exhaust did for the engine, I used MS Excel to plot the rwhp from each graph onto one single graph using a common scale. With this graph you can see the dramatic difference made in the top end with first the M1 intake manifold and then the heads and cam.

To those considering an ignition upgrade, an early dyno run with just a few mods showed a modest improvement with the MSD ignition and Blaster SS coil over the stock ignition. There was a 3.5 rwhp increase at the peak 4200rpm and a 10 rwhp increase at 3500rpm. You can see the results here.

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This is one of the first pictures I took of the truck, after intalling clear marker lenses.