Re: Dakota R/T vs. GMC PSSSSyclone

From: Jon Steiger (stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu)
Date: Tue Jun 16 1998 - 20:51:13 EDT


At 11:00 AM 6/16/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Dakota vs. pssssssyclone, (pssss, the sound your intercooler and vacuum
>hoses make when they leak, also the exhaust note while the hoses leak) a
>pressurized 6 against a normally aspirated 8? lets see how they compare in
>about 80K miles. Actually, I wonder how many more ponies you can get out of
>that little bowtie? Im sure theres about 100 low hanging ponies on the 360
>ready to "pick" from Dodges catalogues. 280HP for a 4.3L seems pretty
>maxxed already.

   Nope, not by a long shot! :-)

  My '91 VR-4 was only 3.0L, and it pumped out 300HP. '92 and up got
320HP on the same 3.0L. Hennessey sold a 7 stage upgrade ($10,000) for the
VR-4's and R/T Turbos which included stuff like bigger injectors, more
boost for the turbos, etc. At stage 7, those 3.0 liters were producing
460HP with 16lbs of boost. 4.3L still has a lot of room to grow. :-)

   Course, that's a Mitsubishi motor which was purpose-built for
this application. I don't know anything about the Chebby motor. Maybe
its HP potential wasn't as great.

> Anyone like turbocharged power bands? Not me...

  Yup!!! You're bound to get a little turbo lag in 1st; take 'er up
to 6 or 7K RPM on each shift, and you're back to about 3,000 RPM at the
beginning of the next shift... As the tach goes higher, the power
just keeps on coming! Like riding a tidal wave. :-) Plus, you can
drive around town and cruise on the highway under almost no boost at
all if you want to, and get almost 30MPG. Turbos do have their advantages!

>does chebby provide more HP for the cyclops?
>Would you want to tow a trailer with a turboV6? Im not sure...

  I'm not sure either. However, lots of big haulers, dump trucks, etc.
are TurboDiesel's, so turbos have obviously shown that they can be
used to haul. Probably a very different setup though. Towing was
definitely a no-no in my VR-4; said so right in the owner's manual.

>Actually, I am disappointed in Dodge's HP rating for the 360. With their
>360 cuin crate motors dynoing @ 300 and 380 HP it seems a few more ponies
>were available than installed in the 2000 R/Ts for 98. Then again, If we
>had a factory maxxed out motor in the truck what kind of fun would we have
>"upgrading" the performance?

  True enough! :-) Maybe if Ma Mopar ever makes a contender for the
seemingly defunct ponycar market, we'll see a stock 360 with horsepower
figures a little closer to those of the crate motors.

                                               -Jon-

  .--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------------------------------.
  | Affiliations: DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA. RP-SEL |
  | '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (15.29@88.58), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
  `----------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'



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