If we had to pick one of our favorite trends, it would have to be the blending of old and new styles. What's cooler than combining the look and character of the musclecars from a generation ago with the performance and driveability of modern vehicles? Terry DeLong of Avilla, Indiana, sees things this way, too!
If Terry's name sounds familiar to you, it could be because it's appeared on our pages several times before, either through his own rides or by getting credit for helping others. But we have to say that all the vehicles we've seen him associated with in the past, this '92 Dakota is our favorite.
Terry owns Proglass, the company responsible for most of the vintage-style, fresh-air hood designs for Dodge trucks on the market today. It's no surprise, then, that he needed a shop truck to haul his goods. He's also been a Mopar nut for most of his life, so he made the simple choice. After acquiring the used extended-cab Dakota, he drove it for about a week before deciding something had to change.
First on the list of things to go was the six-lug bolt pattern all Dakota owners love to hate. Swapping a set of '87-'90 rotors fixed that problem up front, while an 8 3/4 rear from a '71 Duster, housing a 3.91 Sure-Grip, took care of the problem out back. Terry says other than adding a set of shock mounts and losing the antilock brakes, the Duster diff is a bolt-in, and doesn't even require the mounting pads to be moved. Terry moved the stock leaf-spring mounts up 3 inches to drop the truck, and added 2-inch lowering blocks to drop it even more. DJM lower control arms were narrowed 3/4 inch by Bias Engineering in Mendota, Illinois, and Terry narrowed the top pieces 1/2 inch, to tuck the 15x7 '78 Magnum GT Rallye wheels, shod with 225-60x15 BFG's, inside the stock wheel openings. The same wheel combo wears 275-60x15 BFG's out back. Thats a ton of work just to put old-style factory wheels under the Dakota, but the look is well worth it.
Naturally, one of his fresh-air hoods had to go on the truck, and the '70 SuperBee style seems as if it originally was designed for the Dakota. A Top Gun aluminum flush-mount tonneau covers the bed, and one of Terry's Pro Finish (a Proglass brand) roll pans finishes it off. Terry squirted the truck, then had Bob Rittermeyer lay out the side panels, which Terry painted with House of Color hues. Bruce Bowen airbrushed the plasma-cut Dakota emblem on the tailgate, and the exterior was done.
Under the hood, Terry combined old with new more powerfully than anyone we've ever seen. Because he wanted the superior flow of Magnum heads, Terry set about building a 340 MPI Magnum. Starting with a '71 340 block, the bottom end was filled with 0.040-over TRW 8.5:1 forged, two-valve relief flat-top pistons swinging from the stock crank and rods. An MP 280-degree duration/0.474-inch lift cam activates Rhodes variable duration lifters, Crane custom length pushrods, and Crane 1.6 Magnum roller rockers. The only modification to the stock 318 Magnum heads was a three-angle valve job before they were bolted in place. An M1 single-plane intake was drilled for injectors, and the stock fuel rails, injectors, and throttle body were bolted up, with an adjustable Nitrous Express twin Gemini-plate system and 100 hp nozzles. On the front of the block, all the stock Magnum accessories including A/C were retained, and JET underdrive pulleys were added to modify their speed. JBA headers flow the spent gasses out through a custom 3-inch exhaust system. The folks at Nitrous Express say the stock fuel pump is enough to cover 500 hp, so Terry left it alone. The truck oil pan had to be massaged, as the stock 340 has a two-piece rear-main seal instead of the later Magnum one-piece, and this required some cutting and splicing between the two pans.
Terry wanted to retain the stock computer to control all the equipment, and the ignition system nearly gave him fits. The main problem was the stock ignition's crank trigger, mounted on the back of the block. He needed to keep the computer so it could run the stock fuel injection and timing. Terry wanted to use the biggest clutch he could, so he started with an 11-inch, 143-tooth Ram crank-trigger fly-wheel. It wouldn't fit in the Lakewood scattershield, but a 130-tooth flywheel would. Unfortunately, nobody makes a crank-trigger flywheel that small, so Terry had JD Rod Service in Muncie, Indiana, cut the Ram's flywheel and fit it with a 130-tooth ring gear. Mating that to a 10 1/2-inch clutch was no problem. An MSD 6A box and separate retard module for the nitrous enhance the stock system.
The Dakota is a shop truck, its first priority is towing Terry's 20-foot enclosed trailer throughout the country. The 3.91 gears make starting easy, but at highway speeds, things would get hurt in a hurry at 1:1. To counteract this, Terry installed an aluminum-case three-speed OD manual from an '85 Ram. The only parts necessary to convert from automatic to manual trans-mission were a Quarter Master hydraulic throwout bearing, Hurst shifter, clutch pedal assembly, and a custom fiberglass floor hump. Terry didn't even have to change the truck's computer.
It works, too! Terry's best quarter-mile time to date was 13.90/108 mph at the Sport Truck magazine shootout in California (which he drove to from Indiana). Traction off the line is a huge problem, once that's sorted out, Terry's shooting for 12s. As for the truck's primary purpose in life, it gets 10 mpg pulling the 3,100-pound (empty) trailer at 80 mph, fully loaded, and 20 mpg without the trailer. Not bad, considering every "expert" in the world told Terry there was no way his engine combination would work, especially with the stock computer!