Dakota Sport with a 5.9L engine? Why?

[cnassiri]

Ok,
I've finally verified it.

A year ago I bought an ugly teal green regular cab '97 Dakota Sport from a friend that had bought it new. The truck is ugly with it's teal paint, but it was dirt cheap, very low miles, and I needed a pickup. Plus it had what I thought was a 5.2L V8 in it.

When I had it serviced, the mechanic asked me why I had swapped in the 5.9L motor. I thought he was nuts and ignored him. Last week I had it serviced again, and at a different shop, and the guy told me it was a 5.9L motor! After some research, I've verified that it is indeed a 5.9L motor. The guy I bought it from got it new, and never touch the motor (it only has 43,000 miles on it). So he never swapped it. It looks like it came from the factory like this.

So far this is the only regular cab, regular bed Dakota I've ever seen with a V8, let alone the 5.9L V8. At my insurance company, they ran the vin, and it comes back as a 5.2L regular cab, sport model.

What the heck is going on here? Did Dodge ever install the 5.9L motors in Dakota sports? Does anybody out there have a Regular Cab, Regular Bed, Dakota Sport with a V8 in it - 5.2L or 5.9L.

One guy told me that there used to be a drag race class for pickups, and Dodge manufactured 50 - 100 of the light-weight regular cab Sports with 5.9L motors, and sold these directly to professional racers. According to him that explains the terrible color, that I've never seen on any other Dakota in any trim level. He said that Dodge knew the racers would re-paint the cars anyway, so they just painted them in what ever color they had laying around. Sounds very far-fetched to me, but is this possible?

Do I have a one-off refugee that was destine for the race track but some how got into the publics hands? The funny thing is, I use it to haul around hi-po race motors that I build.

Another thing: This truck seems VERY light. I went to the dumps where they weigh you before and after you dump your load. According to their scale, the truck only weights about 3200 lbs with fuel and me on board. That would make the truck about 3000 empty. Is this right? Seems very light, but it would explain the performance I get out of it.

It has a lot of trouble getting traction, even with the traction bars I fabbed for it, but I've beaten two 5.9L R/T's by a good margin. Even counting the fact that it has a 5.9L (260 hp?) motor in it, it seems to run much stronger - like its got 300+ hp

Can someone that knows what they're talking about help me out? Has anyone ever heard of this before?

Thanks
Cyrus
Owner - Torque Vendors Racing

[CanucksRT]

Uh, Dodge only released the R/T edition from 98-03, of the Gen III Dakotas, they didn't release the R/T edition for 97 and 04 (being the first and last year of the Gen III).

Ok, your confused that an R/T is a Regular Cab/Regular Box? Um, a lot them are (mine is), they all have Regular Sized Boxes, and come in either Reg Cabs or Extended Cabs.

You can get the 5.9 in Crew Cab Dakota, but it isn't an R/T.

If it's tagged Sport, it's not an R/T, it probably just has a 5.9 swapped in (a lot of people do this).

The R/T has some other stuff that differ it from a Sport.

The V8 motors (4.7, 5.2, 5.9), come in many different sized Dakotas, with the exception of the 5.9, you can get Dakotas with V8s that have long boxes, crew cabs, reg cabs, any way you want it. So I'm not sure why your surprised to see a V8 in a reg cab. I mean it doesn't matter if a trucks a reg cab or crew cab, they have V8's in all sizes.

Although the weight thing is crazy. I have an 02 Reg Cab R/T, the sticker claims it's 4100 lbs (check on the drivers door), and that's what all stats on the internet will say too.

Are their any mods to it? Stock 5.9's come with 250hp (at the crank), some of the earlier 5.9's come with 245 hp.

If you are beating stock R/T's, than I doubt it's your motor, it would be the 1000lbs less than other R/Ts, however I think you should get it checked at a more reliable place. Take it to a truck scale, don't worry it's ok for people to weigh their vehicles, I'd just do it when theres no Commercial trucks using it.

Give me more info. What year did your friend buy it? Maybe he got it later, like early 2000, than they swapped in the 5.9 and changed the odometer. Sounds odd for a 7 year old truck to have only 43k on it. Also, did you blow away the other R/T's, or was it close, maybe they can't drive? I need more info, that's all for now.

[bad360rt]

Like CanuckRT said, the 5.9 wasn't available in '97, so it would seem that the previous owner swapped it. If that's the case, they could have used the 380hp crate 360, which would definitely account for the increased performance. What is the 8th digit of your VIN? That's the engine code, if it came with the 5.9 from the factory that would be a Z. I've seen the teal green color you have before, but only on a couple of trucks, I agree, it's an ugly color, but that's personal preference of course. 3200lbs sounds really light, even for a sport, but I guess it's possible if it was stripped down pretty good. Is it an auto or 5speed? You should take it to the track and see what she can do

[CanucksRT]

I don't really believe it's 3100lbs, that means your truck weighs less than a Viper, a Corvette, an NSX, I think the scale you used is warped.

A truck being that light, something sounds wrong, check to see if it's been stripped down? A simple example would be to check if theres a spare (no this wouldnt account for missing 1000lbs, but its a start )

[BleedDodge]

Why do they tell you it's a 360? A label? Engine markings? What's the proof?

[cnassiri]

To answer a couple of questions: It definitely came from the factory with the motor like that (5.9L). I know the history of the truck, my friend bought it new along with 5 other 4-cylinder Dakotas for fleet duty in his business. He got all 6 trucks through fleet sales, and they arrived still wrapped in plastic with 0 miles on them. My truck, the only V8, never got driven because of the gas mileage, and the hack delivery drivers he had kept getting speeding tickets in it. It became the back-up truck that was only driven when one of the others was in for service. He's not a gear-head, so he wouldn't have done the swap, so I'm confident it came from the factory like that.

The vin says its a 5.2L motor.

The engine markings, and the label under the hood says it's a 5.9L, so I'm confident it's a 5.9L. Two Dodge mechanics looked at it, and I verified it, the markings make it a 5.9L.

Both the R/T's I raced were modified, at least I could see and hear that they had aftermarket exhaust. I beat both by a good amount.

The truck easilly beats GT's and a few 4th gen Cameros, when I've managed to get the rear to hook up - traction bars help a lot, if you don't have them get them, BIG difference! BFG drag radials also help a lot too. I load the converter up to about 2400 rpm and drop my foot off the brake and it will hook hard if I'm lucky.

The only engine mod I've done to the truck is adding a Edelbrock air-filter (the $20 chrome triangle shaped air filter meant for a Holley carb bolts right up), makes the truck sound a lot meaner too, it sounds like it's got a more aggressive cam in it.

I just thought of another question: Did any of the Dakota's come with LSD rear-ends? I'm fairly positive, it's got a limited slip diff. It always hooks both tires, and burns off both tires in a turn, and gets really squirrely like an LSD would. Was that a factory option? If so, how do I check?

I'm going to the truck scales tomorrow to see what it really weighs
Cyrus

[CanucksRT]

Well I'm stumped, as I said the '97 Daks did not have 5.9 as an option. Check the label on your drivers side door, tell me when it was made, and the weight specs.

And you have Drag radials on this thing? Do you use it for track use?

The R/Ts you raced, taking off the cat, or a simple performance muffler will make the 5.9 sound stronger than it is, and perhaps they were crap drivers compared to you. And if your using Drag Radials on the street (dont know why you'd do this, but to each his own), than that would also help in beating those other R/T's.

Oh, did your friend pay more for this truck than other 5 he purchased (since they were 4-bangers)?

As it stands, if it's a 97, than you have a one of kind truck, either Dodge/Chyrsler made a huge error at the factory and your friend got really lucky, or somone jacked the truck, replaced the motor, stripped some wight, and made it a track ready R/T wannabe

[cnassiri]

Ok, mystery solved.

First I've got to say thanks to everybody that helped me, it looks like you guys were right, the motor was swapped.

Late last night I got a hunch, and I went and looked at the ECU - sure enough it was a Mopar Performance Parts ECU, not the stocker. I knew that had to mean two things: first the motor has been modified, and second, the guy that sold it to me wasn't telling me everything.

I talked to him today: He 'forgot' to mention that the oil pan on the original motor had been punctured and the engine was run without oil until it froze - he didn't explain why - so he had it replaced with a 'pull out' motor. I guess he didn't want to tell me that when he was selling the truck to me.

According to him, Dodge wanted a huge amount of money to fix the motor, so he found a shop that had a complete 'pull-out' motor for $3500 installed.

I went to the shop and talked to the owner. Apparently he replaced my original motor with the motor out of his modified R/T, which was getting a crate motor. Turns out to be good and bad news for me. Bad news: the R/T motor he put in my truck had 88K miles on it... bummer. I've added 10K since I got the truck, so I'm driving around on a motor with at least 98K on it not 53K like I thought.

Good News: He did a lot of internal mods to the motor including ported/prepped heads and a cam (that explains the need for Mopar ECU). The only things I didn't get when he did the swap were the exhaust headers and the exhuast system.

He estimated the setup he had was about 330 hp. The stock exhuast manifolds I have on there now, and the single pipe and converter are probably killing about 30 hp.

So now I've got a very fast Dakota Sport, with a lot more miles on it than I thought ... don't know whether to feel happy or sad about this.

Anyway, thanks for all your help.

BTW - BF Goodwrinch Drag Radials are common on the street, they're not good in the rain, but they're not like running a slick or something. I have them because I got them used, but with almost 90% tread left for $35 per tire. I couldn't turn a deal like that down. When they wear out - and they're wearing out quick in the back - I'll replace them with something a little more sensible.

Until then, if you see a puke teal green Dakota sport ,with the rear bumper smashed up under the bed, ( a fire truck backed up into me last week), make sure you take a close look before you race it. If it's got fabbed ladder bars hanging down in the back, it's me, I'm ugly but I'm fast.

Cyrus

PS. Does anyone have the entire rear bumper assembly for a '97 Dakota ..... it's the 5.9L model heh, heh, heh.

Cyrus

[imabballer]

I'm glad that's all cleared up. About your weight, you can't use dump scales to check your car weight. A lot of times they don't even calibrate them before they start using them. The only thing their used for is checking the difference between when you come in and when you go out. They are not reliable AT ALL to check curb weight. As a matter of fact most of them are just older commercial scales that didn't work good anymore. If you want a reliable number you need to use the same ones the truckers are using.

[CanucksRT]

^

Yeah I wasn't exactly sure if you could use them, but all of my friends told me you could, but I doubted them.

I'd be happy with your truck, since you street race every now and than, it's gonna be a lot more fun. I wouldn't worrry about the higher mileage, as long as it's been taken care of. If the guy was using Synthetic motor oil, you better keep using it.

I'd say the only downsides are, your burning a lot more gas than that truck would stock, and if he put those mods on that motor really early, and rat bagged the crap out of it, well you get where you get im going with this.

[shy_nicole22]

I have a 2000 Dodge Dakota 2WD R/T that has a v8 5.9L in it. You would be surprised how many people believe that I put it in myself because apparently small trucks can't have power..