Street Truck

[JeremyJ]

It comes as a pre-bled assembly from the factory and wasn't designed to be pieced together. I get what you're saying, though. It could theoretically be replaced, one piece at a time, but I'm not experienced with bleeding clutch hydraulics. I'd rather not deal with it at this point, but that may change if this new setup blows out on me.

While I was waiting for new parts, I did a thing.



Black is kind of like hitting the easy button when it comes to wheel finishes. I really contemplated a weird color, but I couldn't bring myself to do it this time. I've never had a "murdered out" vehicle before and I wanted to see how this would look. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied. Appliance epoxy remains my go-to black wheel paint. It goes on thick and shiny, is easy to work with, and looks great afterward. It's also pretty tough in my experience. This should hold me over until I can afford some proper aftermarket rims for the truck.

[Midnight_Rider]

Yes. Me likey.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

Looks "killer" Very nice truck. There is a black dakota same gen as yours, rolling around my town with those same headlights. But its in very poor condition with lots of body damage. I will try to snap a picture when I see it again.

[JeremyJ]

These headlights don't look terrible, but they function like garbage. They leak and are turning yellow. I already have some new corner lenses for it. I still need to get some of the actual headlight housings before I can switch them over.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

Yikes, that is not good. I think they look great. I know my blk housings on the neon are horrible too at night.

[JeremyJ]

My new Luk master/slave setup showed up from a new vendor. It's the same fucking unit as the Dorman. Again. This means RockAuto didn't send me the wrong part after all. This was a fear I had; that multiple manufacturers changed over to the same part for cost cutting measures or whatever. I think I'm just going to install it and hope that it works longer than a few weeks this time. I did manage to find a Mopar unit online, but it's pretty expensive and I don't want to deal with more returns right now. I bookmarked the page for future reference. If this unit fails, I'm going to fork out the cash for the Mopar parts and be done with it. For now I'm just going to wing it with the inferior replacement. Wish me luck.

[occasional demons]

Good luck Man!

I guess using a Dorman replacement with a heavier than stock pressure plate is out of the question. If I use my spare Stratus clutch in my '01, I'll be looking for Mopar parts for sure, or be sourcing some DSM parts for the slave.

Yep, I have a NIB V6 Stratus modular clutch assy sitting on the shelf in my garage. The pedal effort is a fair amount more than the neon/PT clutch. Everytime I get into my Impreza after driving the '99 neon for a while, I think the clutch is broken, because it takes zero effort to push it in.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

No luck with the Luk Hope it holds up well this time around. A part like that shouldn't just fail that fast.

[JeremyJ]

I put it all back together and we're good to go again. For a little while, at least. I washed the truck and took it for a drive to the exhaust shop, where I scheduled an appointment to get some new pipes installed next weekend. I snapped some pics in an empty lot on the way home.







On the way, I also noticed a new feature for the truck. I call it the Smoke Screen. After idling for a minute or two, it emits a nice puff of smoke from the tailpipe once I start moving again. Apparently, I need new valve seals. Add that to the list. The heads have to come off now, which is going to be a pretty large job. Especially since its a SOHC motor. There are three timing chains that need to be aligned upon reassembly and it looks a bit daunting. I'm not looking forward to it. Assuming it doesn't get much worse, I'll probably save that job for the fall, so I can enjoy the truck more this summer. I really wish I had the funds for a Hemi swap right now. That would be so much more rewarding than fixing this 4.7.

[occasional demons]

SRT swap it.


(The obligatory neon site plug)

[JeremyJ]

There's a semi-local guy with an SRT swapped second gen Dakota. I've never seen it in person, but he's been at some Neon meets here in WA. It only runs 14s, which is disappointing, but I think it's still stock turbo. The truck is pretty beat, so it's not much of a looker. Cool project, though.

[JeremyJ]

The truck settled down another half inch in the front and was resting on the tall bump stops that came on the control arms. I swapped them out with some pancake style bump stops that I had left over from another project. Here's the truck with the suspension hanging and the tall stops. You can see that there's not a lot of room here.



Here it is with the shorter bump stops.



And here it is lowered onto the ground with the shorter stops. There's not a ton of suspension travel in the front.



Definitely helped the ride in the front. I don't know why the bump stop mounts are so tall on the control arms. Probably to keep the tires off of the fenders. I've contemplated cutting the mounts off and remounting the taller bump stops directly to the arm, but this was a whole lot less work. It'll do for now.

Next up: exhaust time!

[JeremyJ]

The exhaust on the truck has two cats; one at the end of each manifold, 2" pipes that lead to a restrictive Y pipe, and then a 2.5" pipe that leads back to a huge muffler. This past weekend I had the 2.5" section replaced with 3" pipe, a Magnaflow muffler, and a turndown. It sounds amazing. It pops and burbles like an SRT-4 then screams V8 noises at full throttle. It sounds so good. In the next couple of days, I'm getting the cats and 2" Y pipe replaced with 2.5" straight pipes and a high flow 3" Y pipe. Then the exhaust will be complete.

Magnaflows tend to sound deep and mild when cruising, but then really loud and aggressive when pushed. This is the perfect mix for me and so far, it's turned out great. I'm going to attempt a video once the rest of the pipes are installed.

[JeremyJ]

I ordered new seats for the truck. The ones in there sit up too high and they're flat as a board. I wanted something sporty, so I ordered a set of Corbeau Evolutions. Black with red stitching. Unfortunately they aren't in stock, so I'm going to have to wait about six weeks to get them, but they will be worth the wait.



The only thing I don't like about them is the fact that it says "Corbeau" twice on the seat. I asked about deleting the second logo and changing the stitches to black, but that would make them special order and take up to sixteen weeks! I'm too impatient for that, so I decided to stick with the default setup. They'll look great either way and they'll do a much better job of holding me in place. Plus, Corbeau actually carries bolt-in rails for my truck, which makes the install a breeze. No fabrication needed. I'm excited to get these in.

[JeremyJ]

I had the rest of the exhaust redone this past weekend. Off the manifolds, it had two cats, 2" pipes, and a super restrictive Y pipe. I had it all replaced with 2.5" pipes and a high flow Y pipe that runs to the 3" section that was installed a couple of weeks ago. Not a single section of the OEM exhaust remains. What a difference it makes. I felt a huge seat of the pants gain with this new setup. It feels really good. Not only that but the sound is amazing. There's nothing like the scream of a V8 at full throttle. Like I said earlier, the Magnaflow keeps things bearable while putting around, which prevents the truck from being obnoxious to drive regularly. I really like how it turned out.

For the motor, I think I have a solution for the time being. It has developed a few leaks and it smokes after idling for more than a minute, meaning the valve seals are going out. Seeing as how it has 190K on it, it's about time for a rebuild, but I'm not too keen on rebuilding this thing. I'd really like to do a Hemi swap, but that's going to cost me around ten grand and I just can't afford that right now. I think a good compromise would be to swap in a 2008+ 4.7. In 2008, they re-engineered a bunch of the components and bumped the power from 235 to 310, and the torque from 295 to 335. That's a really healthy bump in power for what is essentially the same engine. I can find complete engines with low miles, for less than three grand online.

All that I'm going to have to do to make it work is extend the injector harnesses by a few inches, purchase a TB adaptor (they switched to DBW in '08), and have the exhaust rerouted to the manifolds, since the new manifolds exit at a different angle. That's it. That's some pretty minor fab work, really. With this exhaust, a proper intake, and a tune, this thing will feel pretty quick for what it is. All for relatively cheap, too. It won't be a Hemi, but I think it will feel pretty good considering the smaller investment.

[occasional demons]

I don't recall what year my buddie's truck was, but it had the 4.7. It had over 200,000 miles, and the only reason he let it go was due to the PCM connector corroding, destroying the harness and PCM. It would have been more than the truck was worth to have someone replace the harness/PCM. He isn't mechanically inclined...

I guess whatever year it was, this issue is specific to that year.

He never complained about power, he was pretty happy with it, not being a Hemi.

I think a radiator and water pump are the only other things that he had to replace. None of the other 4.7 issues that you hear about. Considering about all he does is have the oil changed at the recommended mileage, the 4.7 can't be too bad.

Like anything else, severe neglect and abuse will destroy anything.

Can the Magnum PCM be tuned?

Obviously you won't make those numbers without at least the same tune as the factory 4.7.

[JeremyJ]

SCT used to make a tuner for this year of truck, but they don't anymore. I think the only option now is the canned tunes from Superchips and Diablo. I was planning to pick up a Diablo handheld to install their 91 octane tune and adjust the speedometer calibration for my shorter tires. I hope it plays nice with the 2008+ engine. I don't see why not, since the factory computer probably advances the timing and other small tricks to get the increased power out of newer setups. There are a few guys running the newer 4.7 in their older Dakotas and Durangos on the stock PCM, without issue. They still claim to feel a big increase in power.

Also, I got a better image of the exhaust work. It's really nice. You can see the 2.5" primaries that go through a fabricated Y pipe and into the 3" rear section. I ordered a cell phone mount that should be here tomorrow. I will hopefully have an in-car video of the sound to share soon.

[JeremyJ]

Let me attempt a video share here.

https://youtu.be/w2uEzNm7z6w

It's just a quick idle/rev video. It's not the best, but you can get an idea of what it sounds like. Deep V8 noises, followed by snap, crackle, pop. I need a GoPro or something to get a good driving video of it. The sound at WOT is so good.

[occasional demons]

Sounds awesome!

[JeremyJ]

When the body shop repainted the tailgate, they decided not to paint the backside of it. I made the mistake of telling them I was going to put bedliner on it, so they just skipped it. I finally got around to lining it over the weekend. I chose PlastiKote after watching a series of videos where they performed durability tests on a bunch of different DIY brands. I wanted something that wasn't very shiny and that was durable. This one checked all the right boxes, so I ran with it.

I taped off all the edges, sanded with 120 grit, and sprayed about four coats on it. I think it turned out well.

[Midnight_Rider]

That looks good!

[JeremyJ]

I've been chasing a random squeak coming from the front end of the truck for a couple of weeks. It seemed to have started after the exhaust install, so I was convinced the exhaust was rubbing somewhere. I kept putting the truck on ramps, crawling under, and shaking things around. No squeaks that I could recreate. It was getting worse and I noticed a clunk going over a speed bump about a day ago. Yesterday, I bounced on the door sill and shook the truck. The squeak happened on the driver's side, but not the passenger side. I lifted the driver's side, removed the wheel, and did a nut and bolt check on all of the front suspension parts that I could reach. It was then I noticed that the top nut and large washer that hold the shock to the body had actually vacated the premises. I have no idea why, other than maybe I didn't tighten them enough. I still find it odd that they'd back off that much on their own; it's not a short shaft.

This was definitely the source of the clunk, but is it causing the squeak? I don't know yet because I had to order a new shock. I might have been able to contact Belltech and get just the nut and large washer separately, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have an extra shock on hand. Plus, the threads on the top of it might be messed up from rubbing up and down on the inner fender hole this whole time. I should receive the new shock by the weekend and I'll find out if it's causing the squeak or not, shortly thereafter.

[JeremyJ]

I installed the new hardware for the shock and all is well again with the truck. No more squeaks, which is great. Fortunately, the threads on the shock weren't all chewed up, so I could reuse it instead of replacing the whole assembly.

Seats should be here on Wednesday.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

Truck sounds very good! Great sounding V8 for sure. Tailgate turned out perfect.
I say do the 4.8 swap, seems like a great power output for the price.

[JeremyJ]

Seats are in!

After waiting more than a month, they finally showed up yesterday and I immediately went to work installing them.



They went in without issue and they fit great.





I'm a big fan of Corbeau seats. They are great seats for the price. They cost twice as much as the cheaper seats, yet half as much as a set of carbon Sparcos, so they're somewhere in the middle. Miles ahead of the shit you find on eBay. They also carry rails for about a million different models, which is super handy. The company is in Utah and they're really easy to deal with. These particular seats, called the "Evolution", sit super low and have high bolstering. They're perfect for my truck, because the stock seats sat too high and had no bolstering. These fix everything while classing up the interior quite a bit. They feel great.

My next project involves some matching vinyl to rewrap the fabric on the door cards to match the seats. Then I have to redo the headliner with some black cloth. I've redone a headliner before, so I'm pretty okay with that. The door cards may be more challenging, though. It's a small area to cover, but I really want it to turn out looking OEM, so I'm going to be picky with the outcome.

[Midnight_Rider]

I like the headrests- I didn't know that the rear glass is so close to your head!

[JeremyJ]

Yeah, it's a pretty small cab. The seats are pretty much all the way back. I don't think someone much more than six feet tall could comfortably drive this thing.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

Those are sick! Love the new seats. I bet they were quite a bit lighter then your factory seats too correct?

[JeremyJ]

Not really. I'd say they were about the same weight. The new ones are 25 pounds without brackets, so they're not the lightest seats out there. I could have gotten some fixed-back buckets and shaved some weight, but I chose comfort this time.

[sidepipe87]

The truck looks great! I love that generation Dakota and especially in the regular cab, short bed 4x2 configuration. Do you plan to add a Xenon or Cervinis tailgate spoiler like your signature shows? I always liked those. Regarding lowering the rear more, have you considered a bolt in C notch to gain more space?

This HellKota was at Carlisle this past weekend and it was an incredible build if you haven't seen it...

https://moparconnectionmagazine.com/fiv ... n-omalley/