Hey guys, longtime listener, first time caller. I got on the list a
couple weeks ago and you guys are driving me nuts with these stories &
mods (not that I mind).
I got a 99 Dak CC 4x4 Auto (yeah, I know, I know...) 318. I've loved
Daks since....a long, long time. And the new design is probably the
best-looking truck on the road right now (except maybe the Humvee, but
that's in a class by itself). One of my roommates last year got
basically the same truck I have now, I saw it and was totally hooked.
As soon as I got my job offer and accepted it, I hit the road truck
shopping. I was driving an 89 Toyota Coroll-over (owned by my parents)
and went to, I am not kidding, EVERY Dodge dealer within 50 miles of
Albany, NY. Time was of the essence, as I only had a week (was home on
spring break). Finally, at the last dealer, I found my baby. Walked
in, told the salesman what I wanted, and lo and behold, they had just
rolled one off the truck 2 days earlier. That night was the absolute
latest I could have found the truck and gotten the loan and paperwork
taken care of in time to get back to school.
Long story slightly shorter, I returned to school without that POS
Toyota :) The only option I don't have that I kind of wanted was the
overhead electronic console with the compass, thermometer, etc. I can
live w/o it though. I can tell w/o a thermometer if it's hot, ok, cool
or damn cold. Good enough for me.
Back in May, after a VERY buggy drive, I threw on a bug deflector.
Other than that, my truck's stock, but I'm thinking mods now that my
money situation has stabilized and I've settled into my new job and
apartment. Here's my list so far:
180 t-stat - How easy to swap it out? Noticable performance difference
(from what I've read here, sounds like it)?
New filter/intake - I looked closely under the hood when I got home
tonight, and discovered they're suffocating my engine! Whose bright
idea was it to put the air filter intake (for lack of a better word) in
the right fender, with no clear airflow? Was this done so cleaner air
got in there, or what? Makes no sense to me. Seems to me that the
engine is having to SUCK air from in there, rather than being fed air.
Recomendations? I hear real good things about K&N, anything else that's
hot? Seems like it's an easy install. Mileage/performance increase?
Tonneau - I was looking at that trick hinged soft tonneau, but was
warned away from it by a shop here in Syracuse, they said the frame bent
REAL easy if you opened it with snow on top (and there's lots of snow
here). But my brother's shop out near Albany says it's their most
popular cover. So I'm confused now. Hinged or regular? What brand?
Real experiences? I don't want to go with a hard cover, as there ARE
times when I need to move things taller than the bed, and taking the
hard covers off looks like it'd be a pain.
Stereo - I got the base 4-speaker deal from the factory, the salesman
talked me out of getting a CD player from DC, said I could do MUCH
better getting something later on (and, looking around at Best Buy and
Crutchfield, he was right). Any favorites? Does a CD changer really
fit under the front seat (I'm either getting a changer right away or
setting up the stereo ready for one, I'm sick of tapes!)?
I've been checking out those Gibson cat-back systems too, but I'll wait
till my muffler croaks. Any other relatively cheap/easy mods I should
look at? And how much of this stuff do I have to mail order? We have an
Advance Auto Parts and Pep Boys around, plus a custom shop,
Installations Unlimited, which I wasn't thrilled with the one time I
poked my head in. Any other good places in the area?
Does anyone know which of the 2 dealers in the Syracuse, NY area (Sam
Dell in the city, and the shop in Fayetteville) is the better one?
And where around here can I take this bad boy and open it up? I haven't
seen the high side of 80 for more than a few seconds at a stretch, and
have yet to nail the throttle from a standing stop.
-- -andyhttp://home.twcny.rr.com/andylevy/ --- andylevy@bigfoot.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic. ----------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:17:46 EDT