Rekindled Love

Okay, so I have officially deleted the air conditioning, the mechanical fan, and the giant fan shroud/overflow tank in the front of the engine bay. Here's a poorly-lit shot of the engine bay with just over 35 pounds of stuff removed. I can definitely feel a difference in power with the fan removed, which is super fun. I've seen dynos with anywhere from 5 to 15 horsepower gains, simply by removing a factory clutch fan from various cars before and I am now a believer. 

These trucks run a mechanical fan and an electric fan from the factory. The electric fan is just a backup and it comes on at about 215 degrees and shuts off again at around 205. There have been quite a few people who simply remove the mechanical fan and rely on only the electric fan at the stock settings without issue. I figured I would give that a try and see how it worked for me. If the fan struggles to cool it down, I can always splice in an aftermarket controller that will make it come on at a lower temperature. In fact, I might do that anyway, just to be safe. 

I plugged in my OBD2 scanner and connected it to the app on my phone. I brought up a digital dashboard to monitor the engine temps while I took it for a spin. While out cruising (in about 55-degree, dry weather) the temperature never once went over 205 in more than half an hour at various speeds. It mostly went back and forth between 201 and 204 and the factory gauge stayed right where it always does. I went out for a second drive a little later and pushed it a bit harder. Even when making the engine work fairly hard, the temps stayed at or below 205 the whole time, which is great. However, as soon as I pulled into my driveway, the temp started rising. I watched the digital gauge creep up past 215, heard the fan kick on, watched the temp peak at 223 very briefly, and then drop back down to 205, when the fan shut off. A few minutes later, it slowly crept back up to 215, the fan turned on, and it dropped from a peak of 218 down to 205 when it shut off again. So the factory electric fan seems to be pretty capable of keeping it from getting very hot in its current settings, which is great. 

Now for the not so good news. The factory fan shroud is also the overflow tank for the coolant, as well as the windshield washer reservoir. I have a solution for the washer setup and I'll install that later. The coolant overflow is what's giving me a headache at the moment. I purchased a nice Mishimoto overflow tank that looks like this:

I ran into a lack of space problem in the OEM location, so I tried a temporary mounting solution that I think might be the culprit for my current issue. It appears to be oozing coolant out from the top of the new reservoir tank. It's vented at the top, near the lid, and I can see coolant has been forced out through those vent holes and is dripping down into the engine bay. This is what it looks like in the current position:

Here's my (potentially stupid) question: is it leaking because of the fact that it's not straight up and down, or is the reservoir too small? It's at roughly a 45-degree angle right now, because that's all I could make work in that spot. Either that angle is causing the overflow to hit the vents on top too soon, or the tank is too small and can't handle the overflow volume. I'm not sure what's more likely. Maybe it's a combination of both. I just know that it's making a mess under the hood and preventing me from driving the truck anywhere at the moment, which is quite frustrating. There are guys who shove that overflow hose into an empty Snapple bottle without issue, so why the hell is my Mishimoto overflow tank spewing coolant? 

I have a whole lot more room on the other side of the radiator, so I could technically buy a longer hose and run it over to that side, with the tank placed at a proper, vertical angle. The extra hose would also expand the fluid capacity, which might help with the overflow issue if the tank is actually too small. Should I try that, maybe? If I keep it on the driver's side, I'm going to need to either cut away a big chunk of the battery tray or or make a big, weird bracket that moves the tank out from the radiator a bit. I'm not entirely sure how to fix this issue at the moment, so input from anyone who's struggled with a similar dilemma would be super helpful! 

Today I addressed the overflow issue by moving the new tank to the other side of the radiator. I bought four feet of coolant line and ran it along the top of the radiator, and down to the bottom of the new tank. I installed the tank properly this time (no zip ties!) to the core support, on the passenger side. I have to say it all looks a whole lot better this way.

While everything fell into place pretty easily with the relocation, I took the truck for a drive and discovered that it's still losing a little coolant out the vent holes on top of the new tank. I actually saw it happen this time, though. When I got back home from my test drive, I let it sit and idle in front of the house for a bit while I monitored the temps on my app. I watched a little bit of coolant push itself out of the top of the tank, right as the temp hit about 220, but the fan quickly brought it back down to the low 200s and it never leaked again after that while I was watching. I honestly think that maybe I overfilled the system a little bit when I installed the new tank and it's just burping out the excess and it keeps happening because I'm topping it off before each time I drive it. It gets hot, fluid expands, and it overflows until it cools off. I'm not planning to add any more coolant before I drive it again and I'll watch to see if it still purges. I suspect it might be finished with that process. After driving around for a while and sitting at a few traffic lights, it never got very hot. The electric fan kicked on and brought it back down to the low 200s every time, so it's definitely not overheating. 

As sort of an insurance plan for preventing higher temps, I ordered an adjustable fan controller that I'm going to splice into the factory fan. I'm probably going to set it to kick on at or just below 210 degrees, and shut off a bit lower than the factory setting. I'm going to research some settings to see what's ideal. I also ordered a 180 degree thermostat to help keep it running a little cooler. I think that with the combo of the lower fan settings and the colder thermostat should be more than enough to keep it cool. 

The engine compartment is looking so much less cluttered without the A/C and the mechanical fan setup. I really need to clean it, though. 20+ years of neglect have left quite a bit of nastiness on the surfaces. 

More progress under the hood. Today I installed a Mishimoto fan controller. The factory setting for the fan to come on was around 215 degrees, so I dropped that by about ten degrees. The truck doesn't even hit 220 anymore, which is a lot better than before I installed it. That's in warm weather, stop and go, with some aggressive driving when appropriate. I managed to find a great spot for the controller on the core support, just in front of the battery. This placement was perfect because it gave me direct access to the fuse box for power and a big factory ground point, which keeps the wires nice and short. I ran the harness under the battery tray to keep it all as hidden as possible. 

I soldered, wrapped, and tucked the wires away as nicely as I could manage without disassembling anything. The 12V switched source was tapped from a wire in the fuse box and the rest of the connections were hidden and tucked away. Since I'm using the factory fan, I cut off the OEM fan harness plug and spliced that onto the Mishimoto harness. That way it can be unplugged like the stock fan if I need to disassemble things and looks like part of the stock harness. Here's a poorly-lit shot of the finished product:

It's not much to look at and that's completely intentional. So far it works great and the peak temps stay 5-10 degrees lower than before. I suspect it will stay even cooler once I get the 180 degree thermostat installed. The truck really rips with the recent 60-ish pound weight loss (AC system, huge shroud, clutch fan, and carbon hood) and added power from the clutch fan delete. This thing is going to be nuts with a Hemi under the hood. I can't wait. 

No changes to the truck, but I did take it to my first ever Cars and Coffee here in Tacoma. I wish I'd taken some pictures at the gathering because it was filled with some really cool and interesting builds. There were two older Z cars with LS swaps, a second gen Starlet with an engine swap and a turbo, a Lotus Esprit, a third gen Celica with a UZ (I think), and a bunch of other oddballs. The truck got a lot more attention than I was expecting. One guy even told me it was his favorite vehicle at the event, which was incredibly flattering, given how many cool cars were there. 

Once the meet started to thin out, I went for a cruise with some friends that I recently made. We drove along the water to a park that was very near my house. The truck ran flawlessly all day and kept up incredibly well in the twisty sections of the drive. The temps stayed well within safe parameters, so I'd say my fan controller is pretty much dialed in. I took a few quick photos of the small group in the final location. It was a fun day!

Since I started piecing this truck together with a sort of JDM theme on the exterior, I have been eyeing Japanese license plates. I thought it would be a fun little detail to put on the truck for shows and photo shoots. I found a site called customjapaneseplates.com that allowed me to put together a completely custom, Japanese style license plate, in a variety of colors and layouts. It's embossed, reflective aluminum, just like a legit plate. I studied authentic plates for a while to make sure I didn't put anything on it that I didn't intend. I chose the temporary plate background because it was historically used to make just about anything street legal for a short period of time, in order to move race cars and show cars to venues and back. I thought that was cool, so I went for it. 

"Daji" is how people say "Dodge" in Japan. The kanji above that shows the truck is from Tokyo. The number has obvious significance in religious circles, but I don't subscribe to any of that. I put it on there because I like my vehicles to look mean and aggressive. Intimidating, even. And what's more ominous than the "mark of the beast?" The heart is just a silly thing I put on there to offset the connotations of the number. It's probably going to make people scratch their heads, but that's okay. I like it and that's all that matters. 

This past weekend, I spent a bit of time addressing some things under the hood. First, I swapped in a Mishimoto 180 degree thermostat. The truck now stays an average of ten degrees cooler than it did previously and the fan basically never comes on while the truck is moving. I've been monitoring the temps and it looks great. Definitely cooler than it was before. 

Next, I finally got around to extending the K&N warm air intake to actually function as a cold air intake. To move the filter down to the front corner of the engine compartment, where the OEM box pulled in cold air, all I needed was a 90 degree elbow, a 6" extension pipe, and a couple of clamps. Easy. But the heat shield/box that went around the filter... that was a different story. I was determined to reuse this piece because the filter was being dropped down, only a few inches from the engine itself, and near the exhaust manifold. 

The K&N box is made from pretty thick, powder coated steel. There was a lot of trial and error with this. Lots of trimming, drilling, grinding, and bending. In the end, I used two factory mounting studs and a bracket that I made out of some aluminum stock. It fits like a glove and it's solid. The filter is directly in the path of incoming air from the grill, and it's isolated right next to the hole where air was pulled into the stock airbox. No more hot air! I also had to relocate that damn coolant overflow bottle for the second time, but I think it ended up in a more ideal place, so I'm fine with it. Since I scraped up the box, I was going to repaint it, but instead I decided to cover it with this great, woven titanium heat shield fabric that I found on Amazon, of all places. The weave matches the carbon on the hood and the adhesive on the back of it is incredibly strong. I finished it off with some generic door edge guard to protect any wires and hoses that might come in contact, as well as to keep the edges of the heat shield fabric from fraying. I really like how the whole thing came out. 

The truck really rips now. After these past couple of relatively minor engine mods and a buttload of weight reduction, I feel like the truck is finally starting to feel quick. It's not that fast in a quarter mile acceleration kind of way, but this thing really impresses me in the twisties. The combination of improved balance, better tires and suspension, and the added power really make this thing surprisingly quick on the back roads around my house. It's capable of going harder and faster than my personal abilities will allow. At some point when I get the brakes sorted, I'd like to take this thing to a track day and see how it holds up on a road course. I haven't done that in more than a decade and I need to get more acclimated to the truck at speed in a controlled environment. 

Great project. I always liked the regular cab, v8, manual dakotas. I saw a nice one for sale a couple years ago with the factory purplish color. 

In reply to Blunder :

Thanks! They're hard to find these days. I think the manuals only ever came on the "lesser" V8s (5.2 & 4.7), as well as the V6 and early four-cylinders. It's too bad they never hooked one up to the 5.9 in the R/T. That would have made a good truck even better. 

I recently ordered a bunch of fun stuff for the interior of the truck and it's officially started trickling in. Today was an easy one. I finally ditched the stock knob in favor of this nice carbon fiber unit. It's another Mishimoto piece. I decided to start integrating some carbon fiber into the cabin to tie it all together a little more because I really like the way it looks and it brings the added benefit of being incredibly lightweight. More is on the way. 

I also took care of an issue that's been bugging me for a while. I installed the Corbeau seats almost three years ago and the truck had spent most of its life outside, up until about two months ago. As a result of this, the red stitching in the seats had faded to pink. I don't hate pink in general, but this was not a good look. I discovered videos a while back of people using fabric markers to change the color of the stitching in their cars, so I decided to use them to restore the color in mine. It turned out pretty well, but time will tell how effective this actually was. 

Instead of reapplying red to the second, redundant Corbeau logo on the seats, I decided to black that one out because I always hated the fact that there were two logos so close to each other. I think it helped smooth out the appearance a bit. Here's the before:

Here is the blacked out logo on the driver's seat, with the untouched passenger seat in the background. 

Once I finished the super tedious task of coloring almost every single stitch on both seats, they look like new again, basically. I kinda forgot to take a finished picture, but you get the idea. Red stitches are red again. Second logo is black. It's better. I'm happy. 

I've wanted an aftermarket steering wheel for this truck since I bought it. The factory wheel was shot and none of the buttons (except the horn) functioned anymore because I had removed everything they were originally attached to. An aftermarket wheel proved to be a logistical problem because not a singe manufacturer makes a hub adapter for 00-04 Dakotas. It seems like every steering shaft in the world is splined, except for the one in my truck. It's completely smooth except for a small flat spot on one side. After many nights of deep web searches, spread out over a few years, I came upon an old YouTube video in which some random guy installed a newer Dodge wheel in his '02 Dakota. He'd solved my dilemma!

His solution was to take a Dremel to the splines on the newer wheel and smooth out the inside walls of the mounting hole. Then he drilled and tapped a new hole in the side of that hole in the wheel, that lined up with the flat spot on the shaft. He then installed a set screw into the new hole, which pushed onto that flat spot and prevented the wheel from spinning on the shaft. I took his idea a step further and drilled a fairly deep divot into the flat part of the steering shaft so the set screw actually sunk into the shaft a couple of millimeters, instead of just pushing against it. I knew I was planning to drive this thing angrily around a lot of corners at speed, so I wanted some extra insurance against a steering wheel failure. 

NRG is the only company I could find that sells a hub adapter for a 2003 Dodge Ram. That was the closest I could get to my '03 Dakota. The adapter was splined, but I suspected that Dodge was too cheap to make unique clock springs for all of their trucks that were made in the same year. At minimum, the electrical plugs and sizing of the shaft had to be similar. I gambled and ordered it, along with a quick release and the one 350mm NRG wheel that I thought would look best in my truck. One stop shopping. The hub adapter fit the shaft and the plug holes lined up perfectly after I removed the splines, so I drilled and tapped a hole in the side for a stainless, 6mm set screw. It was perfect. The quick release went on next, without issue. Then it was time for the wheel.

This thing was a pain in the ass and it's all because of the decorative cover on the center spoke. No two of the holes in the center lined up at once. There's also a third, threaded hole on the back of it that's supposed to screw into the spoke under it, but it's so misaligned that I can't even put the screw in it. It sits crooked and uneven and it drives me nuts. Even after all of that... the whole berkeleying steering wheel flexes if I push on it, with little effort. It's very unsettling and it feels dangerous. This is NRG's most expensive wheel and the quality is terrible. The machined aluminum adapter and quick release are solid, but this wheel is E36 M3. I've already ordered a replacement from MOMO that looks great and will likely be a much higher quality piece that this thing. I'll post pictures when I receive it. But until then, here it is with the overpriced, flexible NRG wheel:

As disappointed as I am with it, and even with the crooked center spoke, I have to say the carbon wheel is pretty cool looking. Definitely brings that wow factor. Although, it might be a bit much in general. I think the new MOMO wheel will look better overall; more mature for sure. Plus the carbon quick release paddles will remain visible and they look pretty damn cool as well. Lesson learned, I guess. Stay away from composite NRG wheels. 

My next wishlist item for this thing was a sequential shift light. I've had a couple of traditional shift lights before, but they were always incredibly obnoxious. I've seen people hide them in vents and things, but I always preferred them to be mounted to the steering column for optimal visibility. But they were always a bit too bright, not to mention the fact that they all like to flash in my face every time the car is started. The sequential shift lights I was aware of were either prohibitively expensive, or suspiciously cheap. 

A little while back, I discovered the D-Shift, which is made by a company called Dauntless Devices. It's a programmable, progressive shift light that connects to an app, which lets you choose a million variables for it (literally). There are eight different colors that can be assigned to the LEDs individually and they even offer adjustable brightness levels. Every single RPM and pattern for them is programmable. They even have different modes for the people who want lights constantly on in front of them (definitely not me).  It's incredibly customizable. Just want a single beam of light at redline, like a traditional shift light? Done. Want it to scroll through the rainbow from side to side? No problem. Want it to blind you with solid white light while driving? This will do it.

The unit offers an OBD2 version that is literally plug and play for most vehicles made after 2007. For older vehicles like my truck, I needed the direct wire version, so I had to run a wire to one of the coilpacks under the hood to get a tach signal for it. I popped open the app, selected the pulse frequency that gave me an accurate RPM reading, played with the lights, and off I went. Setup was a piece of cake. The unit itself is tiny, too, which is perfect for placing in tight spaces. It's roughly 2x3 inches, and less than an inch tall. It fits neatly on my steering column, even with the hazard button in the center of it. 

I programmed mine similarly to the example on the far right above. It starts at the outer edges in green, then turns yellow toward the center, then the whole bar flashes red at my shift point. It works great. Very effective. 

I attached mine with Velcro so I can pop it off when I need to pull the cluster to mess with things, which is something I do quite frequently. I had to pull the trim around it to run the wires for this install and I have to say that being able to pop the steering wheel off, sure makes life easier when disassembling the dash and/or pulling the cluster! 

My new steering wheel arrived today. I went with the MOMO Jet in 350mm. Not only was the install a piece of cake compared to my struggle with the poorly crafted NRG wheel, but it feels so much higher quality. No more flexing! The end result is definitely more refined and less flashy than the all-carbon wheel, so the new wheel is definitely more my style. 

I finally ordered all new brakes for the truck. Rear disc swap and upgraded StopTech pads with smooth, coated rotors are on the way. I also ordered new front calipers just because these ones have 193K+ on them and it's cheap insurance to add new parts at this mileage. Plus they're likely getting a standard coat of red paint (because race truck) and that will stick much better to new calipers.

I've been eyeing Goodridge stainless lines, but I'm finding mixed reviews on them. Does anyone have experience with those? Is there a better brand to go with? My options are incredibly limited with this truck, and they seem to be the only company that makes them, but I'm not opposed to having a set made if that's the preferred way. 

Is DIY'ing the lines out of the question? I redid the lines on my Audi in NiCopp and it was pretty straightforward, even for a novice like me. I couldn't justify the fancy hydraulic flaring tool, but the Eastwood one worked fine once I got the hang of it. 
 

I love what you've done with the truck, by the way! Looks great! 

In reply to Turbine :

Thank you!

As far as DIY brake lines... I'm not completely opposed to it. I am just super hesitant given how important that part is to my safety and the truck itself. I'd hate to make a rookie mistake that puts me into a ditch at a high rate of speed, or into the rear end of a car in front of me on the highway. Maybe I'll look into the process and see what all is involved. I'm usually pretty gung ho about learning new skills that make me more self sufficient with these kinds of things. 

Well I've been slowly accumulating parts for the brake system redo on the truck and the last of what I ordered should be here in the next 48 hours. I was growing restless, so I decided to smooth out the casting on the rear calipers just a little and then paint all four of them. I felt like they were a little too rough for my taste and I didn't want a wrinkled finish. I used sanding drums on my Dremel to knock down the casting and blend some of the seams on the most visible areas. I've ported a few heads and intake manifolds before, so this was a piece of cake. I could be way less precise and move fairly quickly. Here's one at the beginning of the smoothing process:

Here's all four of them after being painted with some VHT caliper paint. I didn't sand the front calipers because they were already a lot smoother than the rears. 

In hindsight, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to smooth the outer surface a little on front calipers, but whatever. No one else will notice once everything is installed. 

I have to say that the front brake setup on the '03+ Dakotas is pretty stout. Very large, two-piston calipers with 12.12" (308mm) vented rotors. The rear disc swap kit I'm installing features the stock front rotors from the '97-02 Dakota, which measure 11.3" (287mm) and are also vented. The calipers are single-piston units that were copied from an '88-92 T-Bird rear setup. I like the fact that the front and rear rotors will be so similarly sized, from a visual perspective. It should look pretty nice once it's all installed and I'm excited to test out the improved stopping power. 

Front is done... ish. The one-person brake bleeder I purchased didn't seem to prevent air in the lines as it was supposed to, unfortunately. The pedal feels a bit spongy. It's also possible that I let the reservoir get a little too low at one point, which could have trapped some air in the system. That means I need to hold off on driving it and bedding the pads until I have someone come over and do the old pump-hold-pump for me while I monitor for bubbles manually. I ordered more brake fluid and it should be here on Thursday. I went with Hawk HP520. 

I will hopefully have the rear disc swap completed before Saturday. I am planning to attend a local cars & coffee with some friends and it would be a shame to miss that. 

While installing the new brakes, I discovered that my front tie rod ends are shot, the ball joints on the upper arms are looking a little tired, and one of my bump stops has vacated the premises. More work on the horizon! 

Rear disc swap time. Disassembly of the drums and removing the rear axle shafts was drama-free and filthy as expected. But as soon as I attempted to install the very first part of the SSBC rear disc conversion kit, I ran into fitment issues. If that wasn't troubling enough, the instructions contained not a single image to show how anything was supposed to attach. Also, the instructions were very wrong. They had me assemble everything in the incorrect order, so that there was no way in hell that the calipers and rotors would ever come close to lining up. All this to say, there was a whole lot of guess work, trial, and error required to put it all together so that it all lined up as intended. 

After a couple of frustrating evenings filled with repeated attempts to make it all work, I finally had everything lined up as it was supposed to be, no thanks to the useless instructions and the incredibly half-assed design of this kit. I enlisted my middle child to pump the pedal for me while I bled all four corners and ensured the system was absent of air, then took it for a spin to bed the new pads. It stopped, but it also felt a little odd, so I came home and pulled it back into the garage. It was here that I noticed that the driver's side rear caliper was sticking, enough to discolor the brand new rotor and give off a whole lot of heat. When I inspected the passenger side, I noticed that that caliper didn't seem to be applying any pressure to the rotor at all. So, after all of that work, neither one of those berkeleying calipers are even working properly!

The moral of the story here is to avoid SSBC disc conversion kits like the plague. At the very minimum, avoid the one designed for Dodge Dakotas, because it's absolutely useless. I'm planning to pull the calipers off again and see what I can do to make them actually function properly. If I can't, then I'll swap them out for some new pieces from a different supplier since I know what vehicle they were originally designed for. Also, check out how the calipers seem to be undersized for the rotors; they only make contact with about 2/3 of the rotor surface. 

They sure do look better, though! The old drums were huge. I broke out the bathroom scale and weighed the entire disc and drum assemblies, including all of the pads, hardware, hoses, and bracketry. The entire disc setup weighed 11.5 pounds less per side. That's a whopping 23 pound reduction! I was definitely not expecting that much of a difference, but I'm really stoked about it, especially given the fact that a lot of that was a reduction in rotational mass. 

I'll update this again when I work up the courage to go back out there and try to unberkeley the brake situation that SSBC put me into. 

I pulled the calipers off today and inspected all the things. The left rear rotor was definitely discolored from excessive heat and the inside pad was pretty messed up. It looked like it had gotten stuck at an odd angle or something, and wasn't seated flat on the rotor. You can see the heat-induced color of the rotor here:

The pads I bought for these didn't fit very well into the caliper bracket and the kit didn't include the little stainless plates/clips/guides that usually clip onto the bracket before the pads. When I removed the "stuck" pad, it kind of looked like the ends of the backing plate had dug into the rough casting of the caliper bracket and wasn't sliding as it should. I remedied this by installing a fresh set of pads and the clips that came with them. Before I put the new pads in, I sanded the outer edges of the metal backing plate a little bit, so they were free of paint, casting irregularities, and not so hard to press in. The resulting assemblies slid together with much less force and were free to actually slide more smoothly, but not loose enough to wiggle around. You can see the stainless guides from the side here:

The rotor on the other side didn't look like it had been working after my initial test drive, but upon further inspection of the pads, they had indeed been gripping evenly from both sides. Nevertheless, I repeated the same process of smoothing the new pad backing plates and installing the stainless guides to prevent any further complications. Fortunately, the test drive proved successful and everything seems to be working properly now. No more dragging pads or excessive heat, and braking feels more balanced. What a relief! 

The only remaining braking issue is that the pedal still feels kind of soft and I don't like it. I'm trying to figure out if there is more air trapped somewhere in the system or if it's just the new compound that's throwing me off. I went with the Power Stop Z23 pads, which are supposed to be more aggressive than standard pads and the reviews seemed positive overall. I know that with performance-oriented pads that I've used in the past, the initial bite was not great until some heat was generated and these seem to act that way. If I really stand on it or if I'm braking frequently, they do tend to bite pretty hard. I guess I was just expecting more immediate bite. It makes me wonder if maybe there is some air trapped at the master cylinder since an unnoticed leak that occurred while I was assembling the kit drained the fluid really low in the reservoir at one point. I did bleed all four corners very thoroughly and flushed the entire system until there were zero perceptible bubbles during this installation, so I don't really know for sure what to think at this point. I may purchase some sort of vacuum bleeder to see if I can force out any more air. 

Another area I've been slowly working on is replacing some of the old steel hardware on the truck with flame-treated titanium pieces. It's sort of a fun way to dress things up and ditch a tiny bit of weight at the same time. I even found some clean looking billet aluminum and carbon fiber washers that I've been experimenting with in various places. For instance, the top pair are the nuts that hold the hood to the hinges. The factory nut/washer combo weighed 13 grams while the titanium and carbon replacements weighed 4. 

There are a lot more nuts and bolts I could replace, but that will come with time. This would be an incredibly expensive and impractical method of weight reduction to apply to the entire vehicle, but it certainly looks nice in high-visibility areas. More to come!

I took the truck to an event in Seattle on Thursday night. It was held at a place called The Shop, which is a car storage place, garage, office space, restaurant, bar, and a small venue. It's a super cool spot to host car meets. This was a pre-Formula D, evening event with some fairly large sponsors. Larry Chen was the celebrity guest/cohost of the whole thing. I got there just in time to snag what was basically the final spot in front of the building, next to an M4 on drag radials and a super clean Integra with a whole lot of JDM parts on it. 

There were a lot of really cool cars present. I really wish I'd taken more photos, but it was packed. There were several super clean BMWs, including my personal favorite, a turbocharged E46 M3-converted/swapped wagon. Everything from restomodded classic Z cars to a brand new 400Z in dark green. Several turbo FDs, Skylines, the two cleanest Integras I've ever seen, and a pair of lowriders on hydraulics with gold-plated and engraved suspension components. I brought the only pickup truck to the entire event (not counting the random one parked across the street). 

Toward the end of the night, I did get a chance to meet Larry, shake his hand, and show him my truck. He asked a lot of questions and was very complimentary. He was impressed with how clean it was. That's all I was hoping for, really. The guy has built a lot of really tasteful cars and I dig his aesthetic, so it was nice to get his approval. I have to admit that it's odd to have watched so many of his videos on YouTube for so many years, only to just randomly approach and engage him in casual conversation. Fortunately, he was super friendly. I also made friends with one of his photographer buddies, who happens to be local and really liked the truck as well. I might be meeting up with him soon to take some pro photos of the Dakota. That should be fun.

Oh, and I finally settled on a logo for the new hood badge. I put the design together in Illustrator and then loaded the file onto a site called SendCutSend. They let me choose the material, thickness, finish, and a million other things. I should receive it in a few weeks. I ordered a few of them so I can toy with color variations. I'll share images when they show up. 

I hadn't done an intentional photo shoot with the truck since the paint job, so I've been scoping places nearby to snap some decent pictures. I regularly drive past a small neighborhood made up of mini mansions, perched up on a hill, overlooking the water. The driveway off the main road to that neighborhood is this steep, windy little road that was carved out of the hill, with tall concrete walls on either side. It's a really interesting looking spot, so I decided to pull in yesterday and see if it would work for me. I think it did. 

When I was installing the front brakes, I noticed that the upper ball joints and outer tie rods were looking pretty rough, so I ordered all new ones. I've been wanting some bigger sway bars on the truck forever and since I'm going to be disassembling a bit of the front suspension, I figured it was probably a good time to do the sway bar while I had it apart. Of the handful of sway bar options for the truck, the Nolathane bars seemed to be the thickest out there. Hotchkis bars were my first choice, but they have been out of production for many years at this point. 

The bars showed up today and they are quite beefy. The front bar is 33mm and the rear is 20mm. 

I installed the rear bar tonight and even though they claimed it would work, the kit was definitely not designed for trucks that came with a rear sway bar installed from the factory. Here's the dinky, haggard stock bar in place. Notice the horrible angle of the bar, due to the lowered suspension and stock end links. The ends of the sway bar should be roughly parallel with the frame. 

The instructions said to remove the stock bar and use their hardware to install the new bar. Their hardware contained a lot of parts that honestly wouldn't fit with the stock mounts on the axle. Here's what their mounts looked like, compared to the stock brackets. 

Since the stock sway bar mounts were asymmetrical in their placement and the shock mounts took up a lot of space, the flat spots on the new bar wouldn't line up with where the hardware could squeeze in. So I decided to improvise, by using the new bushings with the factory brackets and then mounting the bar to the stock mounting locations on the axle, which seemed to work at first.

Sort of work; It created a whole new issue. If I had been able to use the Nolathane axle mounts, it would have placed the bar directly on top of the axle, according to their (E36 M3ty) instructions. Since I used the stock mounts, the whole bar was moved slightly downward, toward the rear of the truck. This meant that the ends of the bar no longer lined up with the holes in the frame that they wanted me to mount the new end links to. Since they provided perfectly straight end links, I had to mount them at kind of an odd angle. I'm hoping it's not going to cause any issues. 

You can see in the image above that if I wanted the end link to be perpendicular to the bar, it would have to go almost exactly where that giant rivet is on the frame. The closer hole, on the right side of the rivet in that picture, put the end link and the bar itself at worse, even steeper angles. This rearward placement actually binds a bit less than the other hole. I also used a large drill bit to oval the frame holes just a tiny bit so the end link bolts went through them smoothly without any friction. The bushings on the sway bar ends look fine. The ones that sandwich the frame are obviously squished at an angle and I don't love it, but this is the best way I could get them to mount at all. 

In the end, the new sway bar feels solid as hell and it looks nice, too. While it's not parallel to the frame like I had hoped, it's at a much better angle than the factory bar. I didn't have time to drive it yet, but I will hopefully get around to that tomorrow at some point. Saturday for sure. The front is going to be a much larger job and it'll need an alignment afterward, so that will have to wait until I can find a free weekend. 

Cool project, you nailed to look.

Damn those asymmetrical shocks.   A shorted link would square up the bar but the bed is bolted on right where you need to put the link hole.

What if you used the hardware the came with the rear bar to make a bridge that goes under the bed mount bolt to mount the link to?  Using the holes fore and aft of the bed bolt, it would take a much shorted end link.  Would require putting the nut side on the bottom of the link, maybe just a much shorter bolt and cut the spacer tube to length.

https://rodneydickman.com/product_info.php?products_id=97

Maybe some of my favorite end links.

Love the TRUCK. Absolutely love the vibe, and the build. Great work!

akylekoz said:

Cool project, you nailed to look.

Damn those asymmetrical shocks.   A shorted link would square up the bar but the bed is bolted on right where you need to put the link hole.

What if you used the hardware the came with the rear bar to make a bridge that goes under the bed mount bolt to mount the link to?  Using the holes fore and aft of the bed bolt, it would take a much shorted end link.  Would require putting the nut side on the bottom of the link, maybe just a much shorter bolt and cut the spacer tube to length.

https://rodneydickman.com/product_info.php?products_id=97

Maybe some of my favorite end links.

Thanks!

I was actually theorizing about this very idea in my head last night. The factory end link mounts bolt onto the frame and create a perpendicular mounting surface for the links. 

I was thinking that maybe I could drill/grind a big hole in the center of those mounts to make room for that giant frame rivet, and slide the mounts back to that ideal mounting location. The forward hole in the frame would line up, but I'd have to drill a new hole in the frame for the rear bolts. I'd also have to find a set of custom (very short) end links with a 90 on one end and straight on the other. It would correct all the angles, assuming I could find the right links for the job and those factory brackets have enough meat to maintain their rigidity with a big chunk taken out of the center of the base. I could also just design some new, custom mounts with a similar shape that line up with all the existing holes, straddle the rivet, and simply bolt in place with some new links. Now that I've discovered SendCutSend, I see a lot of potential for custom bracketry and this could be the nicest solution. 

OR... I could try a set of those zero lash links that you shared. They look like they could maybe solve a lot of this with less investment. Thanks for sharing!

This thing is killer, I love have every aspect has been lightly massaged and the overall result is a super slick OEM+ treatment.