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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/21/2002
18:14:11
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 Subject: No more power.
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I have a 1999 Dakota sport 4x4 5.2, KN FIPK, and FMS injectors. I get about 10.5 mpg, if a really baby it I might get up into the low 11 mpg range. It also seems like it just does not want to accelerate. when I first got the truck about a year ago it ran just fine and got much better gas milage. It idles just fine but it sound like it is pinging when I try to accelerate. what might be happening? is the engine leaning out? is the timing off? could it be a vacum leak? Could the timing chain be streched? Trans dieing? It also seams to not have as much power as when I got the truck about a year ago.
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GlenC
GenIII
10/21/2002
18:30:40
|  RE: No more power.
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How big are the FMS injectors. They might be a little much for your engine... Just a guess.
Glen
'01, CC, SLT, 4.7, Auto, 3.55 LS, 4x4
MBRP cat back. JBA Headers. Kenne Bell supercharged.
My Truck
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/21/2002
19:13:09
|  RE: No more power.
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I got the #19 injectors. It was running poorly before I put them in though. I thought it might have been bad injectors but it did not make a diference. I checked to fuel presure and it is within spec, at least at idle. Plus, one of (the three) mechanics I took it to said it could be leaning out under acceleration.
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GlenC
GenIII
10/21/2002
19:31:24
| RE: No more power.
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Hmm, the 19's should be just about right. I dont know how you would fix the leaning out under accel. The way Kenne Bell fixed it with the supercharger, is to add 2 more injectors. Maybe the fuel pump isnt keeping up with the demand. Im just grasping at thin air here....
GlenC
'01, CC, SLT, 4.7, Auto, 3.55 LS, 4x4
MBRP cat back. JBA Headers. Kenne Bell supercharged.
My Truck
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/21/2002
19:57:35
| RE: No more power.
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I've been grasping at thin air for over three months now. Im about ready to just trade it in on a new truck but I want to hold out for the 5.7 when it comes out. Or I wait for the V8 Toyota Tacoma, Ether way I have to wait until they come out so I need to drive this truck, but 10.5 mpg x $1.55 a gallon at the pump (this week) is killing me.
I have replaced the cap, rotor, sparkplugs, both O2 sensors, the air filter, and Injectors. It idles fine, about 600 rpm, smooth. The (third) mechanic said if it was a belly gasget it would run rough, and idle rough, as well as lose power and milage. The power is gone, but it idles nicely. This truck has Stumped three mechanics.
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dano 360
Dodge Dakota
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10/21/2002
20:08:12
| RE: No more power.
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it sounds like you have a bad plenum gasket. are you using more oil then normal?
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afi360
R/T
10/21/2002
20:11:01
| RE: No more power.
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i started getting bad gas mileage when i bought my truck...then realized my right foot weighs about 500 lbs....so i guess 11 mpg isnt bad...but come on...id be really happy with 13 on the highway....and 70mph isnt all the fast..
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/21/2002
23:16:16
| RE: No more power.
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I drive the same exact route to work every day at the same time. I also have the console computer that shows the realtime milage. places where I got 18-20 mpg, I am now getting 14-16. also. there is a hill nearby that I always coast down. I would coast at 40-50mph the computer would peg 99 mpg (while in neutral) same hill, coasting in neutral, I push 70-80 mpg on the computer. Note the engine is at 600 rpm in both cases.
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DoitRT
Dodge Dakota
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10/22/2002
04:59:47
| RE: No more power.
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Trey ,If it idles fine with poor gas mileage ,You may have pluged Cats .
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Demon Dakota
DakotaEnthusiast
10/22/2002
10:30:15
| RE: No more power.
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I hate to say it, but there's no V8 Tacoma in the works. The new 4Runner and the Tundra will be semi-linked in design and engine, but the Tacoma will remain a small pickup with only a V6.
K&N Drop in AF
True Dual exhaust and removed third cat
HO Cams & HO Intake
Modified TB
Autolite 3923 Plugs
TPS @ .76 VDC
IAT Adjuster Mod
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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10/22/2002
17:51:11
| RE: No more power.
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I would put the stock injectors back in and repair the belly pan gasket. It is common for the gasket to go bad. In fact, I would say that is to be expected that that the belly pan gasket is going to have to be repaired at some point in time. That in itself can cause a drop in mpg. Going to the FMS injectors is a mistake with a stock truck like yours. I put 19# FMS injectors in my truck since I had modified the stock intake to flow more air and going on the assumption that what some were telling me that Dakotas came from the factory with 19# injectors. That the FMS injectors would give a better air/fuel ratio and make more power. Well, since installing them my gas mileage has gone down probably 1.5-2.5 mpg and it has killed the acceleration of the truck. If I drive with a heavy foot, it can get much worse gas mileage. Light throttle acceleration is not as good as before and full throttle acceleration is much worse. I know I need more mods before I can use these injectors. So they are coming out until I can use them. In a heavy 4x4 I can see where the decrease in mpg can be much greater. The installation of colder sparkplugs can help with the pinging like Autolites 3923's or 3922's. I run the 3922's with no problem.
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/22/2002
23:37:13
| RE: No more power.
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ok, I got the guage and saw the at idle I have 20 in Hg, at 1k 2k 3k rpm it is just a little higher. With idle-WOT-idle, it drops to zero and then up to 25 and the back to 20. Looks like it checks out. I am going to try it again when it is light out, and with my auto friend, he knows lots and is really good at this stuff. I think I still have the stock injectors, I will put them back in this weekend, I would like to have them cleaned and tested first though, where would I go for that?
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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10/24/2002
12:41:38
| RE: No more power.
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If you put the injectors up in a cool and dry place they are probably alright. Although every once in a while some will go bad. I had a set of 30# injectors that a few of went bad one time. If you have a couple of bad injectors, when you start it up the engine will run rough and stumble when you mash the gas lightly. If that happens, shut the truck down immediately and replace the bad injectors. Can cause the pump to go bad if you run it too long. Happened to me once when I put in a set of stock 5.0 Mustang 19# injectors that had been exposed to the elements. Didn't know better at the time. I think the whole set was bad though. One or two bad injectors shouldn't hurt the pump though if to start it up to try them out. I ran the engine several minutes that time with the bad 19# injectors. It was my stupidity. I don't think you will have any problems though provided they were put up. It is rare that they go bad if they are stored inside. It want take but a few seconds to find out once you start it up.
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trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/24/2002
21:53:06
| RE: No more power.
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I found the oem injectors, This weekend I will throw them in and see what happens. They have sat for less that a year so they should be ok, they all look good but looks are not what count
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GSMarquis
Dodge Dakota
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10/24/2002
23:32:15
| RE: No more power.
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Trey, i can help you with your MPG.....email me if your interested........21% off your pump price
marquisdurango@aol.com
www.marquis.gasupusa.com
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/26/2002
16:43:57
| RE: No more power.
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OK, I got the oem injectors back in, I checked fuel preasure, its dead on and 45 psi throughout the rpm range, and the vaccum is dead on at just above 20 in/hg. through the rpm range. Letts see what happens to the power and milage now.
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/29/2002
12:32:05
| RE: No more power.
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OK, I took the tire preasure up another ten psi and put in the oem injectors and gas milage improved about half a mile per gallon. I dont know what is left. Im thinging its about time to trade it in for a toyota tacoma. Lighter, smaller better MPG, and if I get the super on it, then its more HP than I have now!
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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10/29/2002
16:27:48
| RE: No more power.
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What kind of gas mleage did you get before that you considered good? Have you put larger tires on the truck? How many miles are on the truck? Have you replaced the spark plug wires? Give the computer time to relearn everything with the stock injectors. What grade of gas are you using?
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/29/2002
19:07:28
| RE: No more power.
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I got a new cap, rotor, sparkplugs, O2 sensors, and an FIPK, The tires are stock size. the truck has 45k miles on it. I got the truck a just over a year ago and it had 35k miles on it and it got an average of 14-15 mpg, now I get 10-11. I drive the same exact route to work every day with the same exact traffic. How much time does it take for the computer to learn the new injectors? The have be in for a few days now. I run with 87 octain Chevron, I tried 89 and 91 and there was no difference in performance or milage, actually, I got worse milage with 91. I have not replaced the wires yet, I have changed everything else, I gues I should do those too. oh, synthetic oil too.
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Dahemikota
Dodge Dakota
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10/30/2002
01:08:57
| RE: No more power.
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I think you should check out your catalyst. Happened to me. Bad mileage, no power. Check the exhaust back pressure. Use a guage that reads 0-30 PSI. Hook it up at the EGR valve. Pressure will increase as the load on the engine increases. Sometimes just reving the engine won't show a problem. You have to drive it to put a load on the engine. Engines under power have a larger volume of exhaust than an engine running free. ( in nuetral )
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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10/30/2002
12:43:59
| RE: No more power.
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What size are the stock tires? It shouldn't take long for the computer to relearn actually. With your 99, it should have already did that. I was thinking as far as the adaptive memory part of the computer's functions that adjusts for driving styles and conditions. That is the part that might take a while. What area of the country do you live and how is the quality of the gas where you live? I have seen where the gas would be responsible for the loss of gas mileage. There was a station around here that sold regular unleaded that was of such bad quality that would cause my car to run sooty. You could look at the tailpipe with the engine running and it would remind me of a kerosene lantern burning. I was driving a Grand Am at the time. I would normally go 325 miles on a tank. With this gas, I would only go 245-255 miles. That is how bad it was. I am beginning to think that the quality of regular unleaded has slipped to the point that people may have to ungrade to unleaded plus just to get the performance and mileage regular unleaded use to provide. I ran some unleaded plus the other day and noticed a slight increase in power. I don't know if extended use of unleaded plus over a period of time would increase mileage. I haven't tried it. I do know of several people around here that have experienced trouble with low quality gas and were spending money trying to repair their vehicles. A friend of mine that had a 4 cylinder Mustang got to the point that the car wouldn't very run well and had a tendancy to stall and hard to crank. After he had spent about $500 going to different mechanics trying to fix the problem, I mentioned to him to try buying unleaded plus or buying at a different station. You see, he was buying gas at that very station that had the low quality gas. After a month of runing a higher grade gas, the problem went away. Another thing you can do that will help the power of your truck is adjust the distributor sync. Go to the delalership and have them change it to +6. It will definitely help. It want hurt your gas mileage. If you don't like what it does you can change it back. While you are at the dealership, have them check the coil to see if it is putting out like it should. If it is not you can get an Accel or MSD coil that replaces the stock one in the stock location. And a bad pump will hold pressure at idle, but once you rev it depending on the load it will not hold. They can check that too at the dealership. With the number of miles on your truck, I wouldn't think your pump was bad or your fuel filter would need replacing. But, it might be possible. Check with the Tech and see what he says.
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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10/30/2002
23:42:23
| RE: No more power.
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Dahemikota - where exactly is the EGR valve and how do you connect a guage and get a reading from it when you are driving around?
Jacque - The tires are 31x10.5. as for the gas, I go to Chevron, I do go to the same Chevron every week thuogh. I should try a different station or different brand. what do you mean +6? advance the timing six degrees?
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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10/31/2002
12:51:28
| RE: No more power.
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What are the rear end gears you are running? I was refering to injector sync. It has nothing to do with the timing of the engine. When you change the injector sync, you are changing how soon the injector fires on the intake stroke after the intake valve opens. Most are set at 0 to -4 stock or at least the ones I have seen. A tech told me that having the sync det at 0 to negative 1 to 6 causes the truck to have a greater tendancy to ping and be down on power. He said that he thought that putting the fuel in the cylinder sooner helped cool the cyclinder off. I think that if you put the fuel in the cylinder sooner you allow the air and fuel to mix more evenly and thoroughly throughout the cylinder that allows for more efficient combustion. Everyone that has any knowledge of the injector sync and its effect on performance around where I live changes it to +6. It can't help but run better set at +6. I am going to use unleaded plus for a couple of weeks and see what difference it makes if any. A friend of mine says that what helped his RT the most as far as gas mileage is using a sparkplug with a exposed center electrode and an aftermarket coil. He uses Platinum +4's and a Jacobs coil. I use Autolite 3922's and I grind the ground electrode back far enough to expose the center electrode. All you have to do is take a pair of plyers and bend the ground electrode up so that it is far enough away from the center electrode that you can grind it back using a grinder. You have to be careful and take it off slowly. It is not too hard to get the hang of to take off the right amount. You want to take off enough to expose the flame of the spark produced. With the flame exposed you can get a bigger flame and better combustion. I have heard of claims of 10 horsepower from just this one mod along on the dyno when dynoing engines. My personal experience is that the Rapidfire sparkplugs are very good as is the Autolite AR plugs. I used Rapidfires in my last Dakota and the Autolite AR's in my brothers dirt track car. I am not sure if they are offered in a useable heat range for a Dakota. I will check. I think the Rapidfires are the best sparkplug of its type. But, I would just 3922's and grind the electrode back if it were me.
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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11/02/2002
11:04:21
| RE: No more power.
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That comment about if the belly pan gasket was leaking it would run rough and idle rough is not true. Oil gets into the intake and it contaminates the intake charge which causes denonation. Which causes the computer to retard the timing. Mopar has a new belly pan gasket that has steel wire in it that supposely permently fixes the problem. I have already repaired the gasket one time on my truck and it is leaking again. I am going to buy that gasket and fix it this time for sure.
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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11/04/2002
09:03:12
| RE: No more power.
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how hard is it to change the belly pan gasket? I have good vaccum in the intake, wouldnt that drop if the gasket leaked?
3.55 gears, mostly freeway so its nice. I am thinking about going lower though, what is it? 3.98 or something? its a 4x4 though so I have to buy two if Im gonna do it.
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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11/06/2002
16:35:54
| RE: No more power.
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Yea, I was thinking what a stupid question to ask you about the gears in the truck. I figured it was 3.91's. To have the same effective gear ratio as what I have (3.55's with 28 inch tall tires), you would have to have 3.91's with the 31 inch tall tires you are running. You said that the 31" tires are of stock size and height. Right? Get this. When I had the Snap-On Scanner hooked up the computer didn't let all the advance in until 1900-2000 rpm. To get optimum gas mileage, you need to be in that rpm range on the highway. At least that is what I figure. You may need to talk to some other people to confirm or deny this. I figure you are turning around 1600(guess) at 60 mph and at that rpm I was only pulling about 33-35 degrees of advance. At 65, I was pulling 44-45 degrees of advance. I have seen where other people have said that they get the best gas mileage at about 65 mph. I'm assuming that I remember correctly and that is with 3.55 gears. I think that you would benefit in both power and mileage with a switch to 3.91's.
As far as the intake is concerned, I am not sure about what effect it would have on the vaccum. I do know that it would have a condiderable amount of oil inside the intake. If it is leaking it will start to use oil between oil changes. There is a chance that the pvc valve is bad and it is sucking oil in that way. I changed mine the other day after I noticed oil in the intake shortly after I had repaired the belly pan gasket. I don't know if that is the problem or not. I thought I would give it a couple of days before I checked it again. Some people say that a light haze of oil in the intake is normal, but not a lot. When I repaired the belly pan gasket on my first Dakota, I didn't have any reoccurance of oil in the intake after that.
You need to decide what size tires you are going to run? If you think that you will go with some 33's or 36's later, I would go with 4.10 or 4.56. Some of the guys on the 4x4 guys on this site can probably tell you where to find that chart that tells you what gear ratio you have with certain size tires and can tell you what gear to run with each size to have the same effective gear ratio you have now. Like I say I think you would want to use the 31 inch tires and 3.91's for comparision. Have you tryed to talk to some of the 4x4 guys and get their imput on your truck? Some may have experienced the same thing you are going through. I know a guy that has a 95 5.2 Dakota 4x4 that gets 19 mpg. That is what he said. He was getting 16 when it was new and asked me about my gas mileage because he was dissappointed about his. If I am not mistaken, his truck has 3.55 gears. But, he runs the stock tire that came on a 95. Something like 235/75R/15's. It is 28 or 29 inches tall. I will see if I can find him and find out for sure.
You have to take the intake off to fix the belly pan gasket. It can be done in about 3-4 hours if you know what you are doing. I took longer to do it(probably 6 hours total). I started one night and finished the next morning. I wasn't in any hurry. You may need a buddy to assist you that is mechanically inclined. It wouldn't hurt to have someone around to help put the intake back on. You want to sit it down on the bead of silicone for the front and back gasket and not smear it to get a good seal.
Have you replaced the wires yet? A bad set of wires or something like that is all it would take to go from 14-15 mpg to 11 mpg. Later.
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Trey
Dodge Dakota
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11/07/2002
00:12:43
| RE: No more power.
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I have not changed to wires yet, I have the stock ones in there right now, what wires should I get? MSD? Taylor? Mopar? any other?
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afi360
*R/T*
11/07/2002
12:24:33
| RE: No more power.
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for the price, taylor wires rule...just be careful pulling them out, im stupid and i pulled the metal insert right out of the friggin boot.
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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11/07/2002
15:09:00
| RE: No more power.
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I have a set of Taylor High Energy wires. They are pretty good wires. I paid 22.95 + shipping. MSD makes a good wire, too. I ran some 8.5 MSD wires at one time. Stay away from Accel wires. Talk about boots coming off easily. Owned some 8.8 Accel racing wires. Had to make them up though. Boots are bad about moving when you pull them off the sparkplugs. If you can afford it, you might check out the Taylor SST wires. They are about 45 dollars and are made with braided steel to protect the wires from heat. They look good, too. I have not had any problem with the boots trying to come off with Taylor wires. afi360 must not know his own strength. Taylor makes another set that has steel braiding around the boots. They help with keeping the heat away from the sparkplugs. They are 95 bucks though. Had a friend that bought a set of the Accel Armor Shield wires. I think they are a good wire for 45 bucks, but I am not sure how well the boots are attached. They may be alright. I don't know. I think I would with go with the Taylor High Energy, SST, or 8mm MSD wires. The Taylors are less expensive while the MSD's may be a little better wire. For what you are doing, I doubt you could tell the difference though.
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Mike Galeoto
Dodge Dakota
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11/07/2002
16:05:46
| RE: No more power.
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Trey, What a nightmare your'e going through.
First I hope you fix your Dakota but I thought I'd
offer my suggestion if you don't and you sell it.
My last truck was a 4x4 Ranger club cab. With
the 4.0 and custom exhaust and a K&N it left
V8 Toys every time. They now make a Kenne
Bell for it and that would be fun. Very light
quick and mine would get 18-19 going 85 on
the hi-way. Buy the Manual 5spd only. The
auto trans is a turd.
I got 16 in town with the pedal down all the
time and it cornered better than my Dakota.
Very reliable and the best resale of all trucks.
Mine was a 99 and I sold it for 16K. WIth the
current rebates you can buy the Edge for 16K
Brand new. Mike
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Jacque
Dodge Dakota
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11/08/2002
12:14:19
| RE: No more power.
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Let me know if the wires help or not. I'm interested to know what is going on with your truck. If there is no improvement, check the coil next to see if it is putting out the voltage it is supposed to put out. Then check to see if the cat is getting hotter than normal. If the cat is hotter than the exhaust muffler, then I would be thinking that the cat may be clogging up and need replacing. If so, get a carsound cat from Speedtweaks. They are $75, flow better than a stock one, and will improve power.
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