DML'ers
Gary Pinkley: Hotchkis Product Engineer provides info about his
1997 Dakota truck modifications in the Oct. 2002 issue of Truckin
magazine.
The article was 'Hotchkis Hot Lap Day' and it listed that
you have now a 5.2 liter V-8 with all the performance goodies.
The real eye opener was the Viper manual 6 speed gearbox,
Viper brakes front & rear and Fikse 19 inch wheels.
Please provide some insight on the engineering standpoint
of the Viper manual 6 speed gearbox and front & rear brakes.
The easy one to tell you about are the wheels. I originally bought them
when I did not have the fender flares on the truck, so I have a 1" spacer on
the truck to run them with the flares. They are a Fikse FM/10 19x9 w/ 7"
backspacing in the front, and the rear is a 19x10.5 w/ 9.5" backspacing.
Keep in mind, that I added a 1" spacer to get the wheels to look proper
with the Flares.
The front brakes: This is a tough design to do, You have to highly modify
the Dakota spindle and build an adapter plate to mount the viper caliper in
the proper spot. Basically, you chop off the factory cast brake caliper
sliders and clearance for the large, 4-piston viper calipers. Then you need
to design a mounting plate that ties into the dust sheild bolts (also, drill
and tap them for larger 10mm hardware). Be forewarded, if you do this and
use the stock 17" R/T wheels, they will require 0.68" thick wheel spacers to
clear the Viper caliper. I have heard, that an early viper spindle (first
or second year) can be adapted to the dakota with only a little work. I
have not done this swap myself, and cannot say for sure that this works.
Caveat Emptor.
The rear brakes: These are not quite as bad. You have to fabricate a mount
for the caliper back there that mounts to the original drum backing plate.
You will have to pull the axles to do this. Also, you will have to turn
down the OD of the wheel flange on the axle to fit inside of the Viper brake
rotor.
The 6-Speed: This is not for the faint of heart. This is a very involved
process. Originally the trans was modified, at Chrysler's encouragement,
for a 2000 Quad Cab 4.7L project truck that we did back in 99. It was built
to simulate the exact packaging of a stock dakota 5-speed, and we jumped
through a lot of hoops. We started with a Viper T56 transmission. The
input shaft was sectioned and then welded together with a 5-speed one to
give the truck style splines. The Bellhousing, from a V-6 AX-15, trans was
machined down and a new trans mounting plate was made and welded to the
bellhousing (we call this the FrankenBell). Chrylser also wanted us to move
the shifter to the factory location hole, so the shifting mechanism was
modified, and moved forward. Right now, I have the trans out to redo the
modifications. I am planning to make the bellhousing work with the factory
viper input shaft (I didn't trust the welded shaft for high horsepower and
torque applications). I also, am planning to return the shifter to the
viper location, as I want the shifter moved back towards the driver. That
way, I can get a shorter throw on it. My truck is a 97, so I have the
trans-mounted speedo gear, so I am having a box built to convert (and be
able to re-calibrate) the speed sensor signal to the Dakota signal.
Hope this helps all of you,
-Gary Pinkley
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:05:16 EDT