New here, posting to keep track of the progress of the swap of my 96 single cab shortbed Dakota. The truck started life as a 1owner 4cylinder/5speed 2wd, I got it off a friend for doing some work and I've driven it as a daily driver for about 30k miles. Swapping it to gain some drivability and have a bit more fun.

The first stage of the swap is a bone stock 6.0 lq4 and a low miles 4l80 reman transmission. I'll run that setup untill I work all the bugs out of the swap and then I'll be swapping a 550-600hp (at the crank) 6.0 that I'll be building on the side. The overall goal is a fun daily driver and a low 11 sec track truck. (I know that power goal is overkill.)

I've got some GM ported ls3 heads sitting already, ls3 intake rockers, arp head bolts, headgastets and a high volume oil pump. Still need a big cam, big converter, supporting mods ect.

I'm undecided on if I will just refresh a 6.0 and run the stock bottom end or throw pistons at it to get into the 11's on the CR. Still lots of thinking on what to do to that engine.

Today was the first day I have actually worked on the swap, got the 2.5 and trans out, swapped in some v6/v8 Dakota engine mounts(frame side) and bolted on some engine adaptor plates I made. Slapped the engine and trans in as a unit and it fit well, marked the plates and bolted the rubber mounts to them and the engine is mounted, I'll be making a trans crossmeber tomorrow and starting on the smaller stuff like exhaust, cooling, transmission linkage and fuel supply. I've got the week off from work so I hope to get it all wrapped up by next Sunday. I have my stock GM harness out at lt1 swaps getting simplified for a 3 wire hookup, should have that by next Friday (I hope!)

I'll add some pictures tonight when I get me some WiFi. My name is Alex BTW, my other ride is a 94 single cab dually 4x4 Ram with a Cummins/48re that has done a best of 11.3 and 1082hp/1985tq

 

This is going to be bad ***!! Welcome to the site! The MA crew is growing! Is mass the new Texas?







In Texas that might legit get me shot... So let's keep that quiet.

 

This summer should be fun with all these LS toys.

Thanks to Rob^ and Graeme for getting me on this site, and helping with the advice for the build.

Cut the stock trans crossmember apart today and hacked it a bit to get it to work with the longer 4l80. Not my best work but its light and it gets the job done. I have a driveshaft measument now so I'll.get that made tomorrow. Got the power steering hooked up to the stock Dakota rack, looks like I only need to plug the hydroboost return on the stock Chevy pump.

The exhaust looks like its going to be zero fun because there is very limited clearance on the passenger side and both manifolds spit the downpipes into the frame more or less.


Anyways, pictures. Sorry for the crappy snapchat pics.

The truck...

Yanking the 2.5



The engine adaptor plates, not drilled yet in this pic.


Oil line block that I cut the lines off, removed the relief and plugged with ORB-6 plugs.

The engine sitting in the

Crossmember

 

Looking good. It's always exciting to see something besides a gmt800 on this site. Plus I have a soft spot for dakota's. Sucks that it just got so cold up here... and I have a feeling its gonna stay that way for awhile.

I'll be up wednesday, get it running by then!

 

nice project, the engine bay has tons of room. what headers are you going to used? I might be buying a 04 crewcab ram that my neighbor has over 200k on it and install a ls motor on it

 

I'm starting the build with stock truck cast manifolds into 3 inch stainless stock truck piping. I was going to post here and ask people what 17/8-2 inch headers would be best for tucking close to a 4l80 trans. I'll post some pics of what I have for room soon.

Spent most of yesterday getting piping made to just get the exhaust over the trans cross member. Those pipes are so tight that I ordered stainless vband clamps for each side to make the downpipes removable from.the rest of the exhaust.

Driveshaft is being made now to adapt to the stock Dakota axle, that is going to be money wasted once I put some power down, but whatever.

 

you may end up being better off with car headers. I'm sure some of the exhaust experts will chime in.

 

Lots of room on the drivers side, besides the steering column.



Not so much on the passenger side

 

man my s10 had less room then that. I would try stainless works 1 7/8 long tubes. here are some pics of my motor when I was mocking the headers up and this headers are made for the 4l80e trans.

 

Those are the first long tubes in anything close to a 2 inch primary that I have see that look even close to working. I'll try a set of those, thanks.