Repair-It

But the motor finally gave out at 172,000 miles. Started eating coolant, steaming out the tailpipe, and running like crap. No doubt a head gasket failure.

Not that it was a really great motor to begin with. From new, it used about a quart of oil every 1,000 miles, and got a stellar 13 mpg over it's lifetime, making a whopping 180 hp at the wheels.

Times have changed.

Originally Posted by casias View Post

That's a pretty good price. Just be ready for the haters. Dodge guys hate this project. If it is an R/T, they really get pissed.

oh for fuck sake even they will tell you there's nothing special about an rt dakota. It's a factory sport truck with a 5.9 and rt decals, that's IT! The 5.9 put out a laughable 250hp. What a joke.

I had a yellow 5.2 5spd reg cab 4x4 sport. Fun truck for it's size but those magnum motors suck the big one. Sucks on gas, sucks on power, aftermarket sucks, just sucks IMHO. I would know, owned several.

Cool project.

I had a 97 Dakota with 318. Nice truck but low power constant trans problems and ran low 16s stock. 14s would have been a welcome change.

I'm about to get started on a projec that will piss of the dodge boys for sure.

This is an awesome swap, I'm glad i stumbled upon this thread. I was a Dodge guy myself 98 RC 318 5spd and 2001 Durango R/T but i got so tired of the lack of aftermarket support from chrysler. They treated their software like it was a top secret dept of defense project. I watched guys like bigbigird, the crazy Hawaiian dump 20k_ to get their trucks into the 10's. I'm glad i switched to a duramax and soon a notch LSX. I haven't looked back and i could care less about the SRT platforms. Chrysler screwed the pooch years ago and now they are trying to play catch up, F em

Nice build! I was looking at an LS swap with an 85 Corvette, and ended up executing it by selling it, plus my Mustang and a motorcycle and buying an 05 Vette.

The truck just passed 30k miles without any trouble at all.

The original ly6/6l90 drivetrain has 160k miles now, and hasn't been down for one day.

I did take it to the track and ran 13.4 at 103 on 30 psi street tires, full street trim with the AC on. This was with a canned diablosport tune.

Chris Henry Motorsports tuned it after that, and it now runs neck-and-neck with our 2005 GTO on the street. So maybe its a little faster now. Certainly pulls and drives better since tuning. He did wonders with the 6-speed automatic. And we were able to keep it on 87 octane.