hey has anyone ever put headers on a Dodge Dakota R/T (or anything Mopar with a 5.9 in it)? im getting headers regardless, i was just wondering what was involved.
In my street legal performance class I had the chance to work on an R/T 5.9. We put headers, full exhaust, intake, throttle body, computer, and nitrous. Gotta tell ya… nothing but nitrous made any horsepower or torque at all until we added the computer. We dyno’d the truck after every mod and every mod except nitrous lost power on that truck. As soon as we put the aftermarket computer in there every mod made tons of power and we got that truck up to 424 rear wheel torque after some minor tuning. I highly suggest getting a chip or an aftermarket computer before any other mods.
thanks for the advice…a computer is in the plans because i have heard that a Mopar aftermarket performance computer goes a long way in those trucks. thanks!
there is a guy in rochester with a copper/burnt orange 5.9… he runs mid-low 12s… his brother is on here… terry
werd^ I remeber that truck at the track, nice looking truck too. :tup:
I was a avid fan of the 5.9
I had a 1994 Grand Cherokee with a 5.2L, thinking of a 5.9 swap
5.9s respond to mods VERY well, assuming you have a ECU that knows wtf is going on 
Mopar ECU did wonders for my truck.
I had FIPK gen II, Mopar headers, hiflo cat, exhaust, ignition.
Good times
i see that Mopar performance has one for a 99 dakota R/T but not a 98…after consulting the dodge dealer, they said that the one for the 99 will not work in my truck but they could not tell me that 100%. do you know if this is true or not? if so, who else makes a decent ECU for my truck? thanks!
Hmm, I don’t know off the top of my head, have you tried more your-car-specific forums?
i posted on a coupple dodge forums, but havent gotten anythig back yet, so we’ll see
allright, after posting on mnay dodge forums, i found a place that eill re-program my ECU, because for whatever reason, Mopar just decided to stop making performance ECUs for 98 Dakota R/Ts. so anyway, this leads me to my next question: what are the pros/cons of getting my ECU reporgrammed vs getting one of thoe Hypertech programmer things?
hypertech=a waste of money
best thing theyre for is to raise the speed limiter, no significant impact performance wise. Youd be better off getting your ECU reflashed for the money IMO
EDIT: i thought Mopar ECU’s varied year to year. I dont think a 99 ECU would work on a 98
^^ yeah i found out from a place called KCR Performance that the ECUs are different. apparently, Mopar did make one for a 98, but for whatever reason, they stopped making it. this place will re-porgram my ECU for about the same ammount of money as a hypertech programmer.