I just want to know if anyone with a 97-02 dakota has the same problems as me. I have a 98 dakota with a 3.9l v6 and it sucks, it sucks on gas, it can barley get up to speed, and it just doesnt have any power at all. Does anybody have these problems with these dakotas? please tell me.

What's the horsepower rating for this truck, and also what are the gears that are in it? Auto or manual trans.?

Do you keep it tuned up and are you on top of maintenance?

How are your spark plugs / wires, fuel filter, air filter, distributer cap and rotor etc.?

My 3.0 V-6 in my Ranger is definately not a power house. This engine only has 150 H.P. Sometimes it runs pretty good and sometimes it runs like total crap and I don't know why. I'm the kind of person that is on top of maintenance, ( tune-ups, preventive maintenance ).

The hp rateing is about the same as your ranger, its in that area, auto trans, just got new distributor cap, rotor, plugs, plug wires, new air filter, new fuel filter. I know that its only a v6 but its so rediculous its not even funny. I have done every part of a tune up on it and still runs like crap. Im think the truck just sucks. Might put a 318 in it.  

How many miles are on the Dakota, and what are the axle gears? I would figure that a 3.9 V-6 would have much more horsepower than my mickey mouse 3.0 V-6 that's in my truck.

After you put the Flowtech Raptor Muffler on the truck, did you put a tailpipe on it?

When I first re-did my exhaust with the Flowtech Terminator Muffler, I ran it with no tail pipe on it for a month or so because it sounded so nice ( deep & throaty). It eventually got on my nerves, because it was so loud in the cab. of the truck. After I had a local muffler shop custom bend a new tailpipe for it, it ran much better and it still has a nice sound to it, but much quieter.

Sometimes I do miss that loud and throaty exhaust though. Without a tail pipe, you will reduce low-end torque and power.

A 318 V-8 sounds like a very good choice if you can't get the truck to produce any good (get up & go ).

Good luck with it.

A guy I worked with had a 2WD club cab 3.9L dakota that was getting worse milage than my 4x4 Durango with the 4.7 v-8.  

thats one thing with mine is poor gas milage, I think that 3.9l just sucks.  

Maybe the gearing in the axle/axle's are to high.

This would make it a real slug especially with an auto. trans.

I will check into it.  

I'm not familar with those engines, but it must not be an overhead-cam engine. It' like the crappy 2.2 engine in my dd '02 S-10. I have to turn off the A/C to pass someone on the highway! This 4-cyl. eats as much gas as a V8 too!  I drove a Toyota with a 4-cyl overhead-cam engine recently. I belive it was a 2.4 engine. If I hadn't seen it, I would have swore it was a small V8 or a big V6, at least! The amount of power this factory 4-cyl put out was unreal compared to my crappy S-10  2.2 power plant.

The really funny thing is that all of these perceived "modern" engine improvements have been around since the 1800's! - Overhead cams, hemispherical combustion chambers, fuel injection, power scavenging exhaust systems, etc....

It's stupid that we can't have these features on the common engine in these so called "modern times". All of these features are considered 'high-end options' and sold at a premium to the public.

I've heard the new foreign 5-cyl engines on the new Colorado's pretty crappy too. They finally dumped the old 2.2 dogs when the S-10's were redesignated Colorados.

I think that Chrystler is secretly merged with the oil companies. They are building some of the coolest vehicles on the market, "PowerWagon, Rubicon", But every thing they build sucks gas like it has a hole in the tank.

I thought the did away with distriduter caps in the 80's. I could be wrong I was just under the impression that after the 90's had started the distributers had gone the way of the dinosours, and had been replaced by electronic systems.  

no I deffinatley have a distributer cap. also my cousins dodge ram gets good gas milage. it has the hemi in it with the 4 cylinder cut-off on it.  

my brother's 3.9 dakota also gets lousy gas mileage.  My father's 4.7 duango however gets something like 17-19 MPG!  I think the problem is not in the engine, but the size and weight of the truck.  That poor little 3.9 has got to work pretty hard to drag that much truck around.  My 01 Ram has the 5.2 and gets 9 MPG, just as a comparison. 

I think your absolutley right, that makes perfect sense. I guess I just have to deal with it know.  

I have realtively the same problem as you with my Dakota my truck is a 88 though with a A-500 4 speed overdrive automatic unfortunately i was built with a 3.21 ratio in the gears leaving much to be desired and is standard on the V6 and V8 could always switch out gears with 2wd truck that comes stock with a 3.55 ratio or find a 4x4 like me that came with the optional 3.90 gear ratio that helps a bit if you have a auto try switching it out to a NV3500 5 spd manual which is in my near future plans and as some as possible find the money to install a 5.2L 318 in it and it should get much better gas mileage with a low gear ratio in the trans and the axles plus the engine has to work alot less in the small truck .