top down on a balmy summer night heading to the beach. Bass thumpin in a rare truck.. does it get any better then this?
I dont think so... This is my dodge dakota convertible. One of about 1000 made in 90 and 3500 overall from 89-91. When i got the truck it was in a pretty sad shape. With a ratty top, 175,000 miles and other ailments it was time for an improvement. Then its time to apply my skills. First thing i did was to add 2" of lift to fix a tire rubbing problem. Next I added a nice billet grille. (which broke and now i need to fix) and then it was time for some boom. Originally i had 4 pyramid subs lying arround, a legacy amp, and a kenwood flip down color changing cd player. so i built a nice box for the bed and then painted it with roll on bedliner as well as the bed for a nice uniform look. This served me well for the time being. but the weakness of the sub section and the kenwoods intermitantly winking out from time to time got me going on a new system. First to correct the crappy cd player problem i bought a sony cd player with the cool flip arround display. this corrected that problem. Now to set my sights on the bass section. the pyramids and legacy amp got the heave ho for 4 JL audio w0's and a concept 1800w monoblock amp. So now i had the boom. I also added 2 5" blow through holes from the bed to the cab for the bast bass transfer possible. now i had the boom but it needed more. so i went neon crazy :-D.

thats the bed.
I mounted 2 red neon underbody lights under the rails and they come one any time the headlights are on. Its all covered by a pace edwards roll up cover which the JL's rattle to hell and is going to be replaced with a hard fiberglass cover once i get the money for it.
Interior
The interior is in pretty sad shape. sad enough to not deserve a picture hehe. anyways. after i did the v8 conversion with all the modifications all the factory gauges with the exception of the volt gauge didnt work. so i installed a autometer 5" tach on the flat spot on the dash pointing twards me. on the pillar i put a faze oil preasure and temperature gauge to keep me informed of the vitals. other then that not too much to look at.

uh oh...
this dakota has been through a couple engines now. it started life with a tbi injected 3.9 which means it had a hard time going uphill. and at almost 180k miles of hard towing it was ready to throw in the towel. as well as the transmission. so i tossed the 3.9 and got a 318 out of a 92 truck from the junkyard. which i rebuilt with the exception of the pistons. after i rebuilt that i decided to go with the mopar M1 intake as i really didnt feal up to dinking arround with the fuel injection stuff. then i topped off that intake with a holley 600cfm vacuum secondary. (which caused a headache and a half. ill get to that in a bit) with the fuel dilevery portion set i set my sights on the ignition system. which again the factory stuff wouldnt work. ohwell. so i got a mopar performance magnetic trigger distributor and a MSD 6a to handle the coil controll. (which also proved a pain) no to the pain stuff. as i drove this truck arround with an exhaust leak some of the symtoms went unseen which caused some major problems. the first and only noticible problem was a nasty nasty stumble off idle. which i later found out is because of the roller cam in the motor. turns out roller cams make more vacuum then standard flat tappet cams. and this was causeing the secondarys to open waaay too soon causing a really rich mixture. but this whole vaacum thing messed this motor up even more. the other thing it messed up was that this extra vacuum cause the distributor to be super super super advanced on aceleration. which caused detonation which blew the head gasket which caused me to take the heads back off and find a nice chunk missing from #7 piston. ohwell. and right now the truck sits btu stay tuned theres more

THE MORE!!
ok folks. after the 318 blew up i went and got a 360 short block and installed it in the truck only to find the flexplate that i ordered didnt bolt up to the converter. and with 4 days till i had to move to arizona i decided that it wasnt going to happen and let the truck sit for 3 months while i moved to arizona. now that i have the cash im shipping this thing out to arizona to go full on balls to the wall nuts to it. while ive been gone i snagged up a 8.0 v10 and hopefully it will go into the dakota instead of the 360. and at 488ci thats 128 more ci and 2 more cylenders. theres a ton of things im going to have to do to this truck to get it to fit but ive got quite a few tricks up my sleeve. so stay tuned!