Dave Maxon's 2000 Dodge Dakota Sport
I bought my little green truck new in San Antonio one day before a 2000 mile trip to Seattle. It came equipped with just pretty much the basics, 3.9 L V6 engine, automatic transmission, AM/FM Cassette Radio, and Air Conditioning. The trip to Seattle convinced me it needed a little more performance in spite of a speeding ticket near Lubbock on the way.
Once I arrived in Seattle I added a 3” Cat-back exhaust with DynoMax Turbo Muffler, and a Jet Performance Stage II Performance Chip. That helped a little but once I finally managed to make my way to a new position here in Fort Worth 8 months later, I decided I wanted to go racing and wanted MORE POWER! Besides, nobody else was racing V-6 trucks and I felt there was some untapped potential here still.
Well, I discovered there isn’t a lot of performance parts available for V6 Dakota’s , but a few V8 parts work. So, over the last couple of years, I’ve added a 48mm F& B Billet Throttle body, 1.7 Crower Roller Rockers, pushrods and guides, Jacob’s Pro Street Ignition, ASP Custom 2800 Stall Converter, TransGo Shift Kit, JBA Ceramic Coated Headers, 4.10 US Gears, a PowerTrax No-Slip Differential and Mickey Thompson 11.5X15X 28 ET Streets. Oh yeah, a Nitrous Express EFI kit and a Jacobs Nitrous Controller.
All that managed to gain me about 2.5 seconds in the 1/8th and about 3 seconds in 1/4 mile. So far it’s run a best 9.05 @ 73 mph 1/8th mile and 14.28 @ 94 mph 1/4 mile. Not to bad for a 4200 lbs. V6 truck, huh?
Dave Maxon