New to the Dodge World

Those 318s are monstrous especially in a lighter truck like that those motors are to much power for those little trucks those dakotas skoot i got a first gen body style dodge on a 4 inch lift single cab shortbox with a 318 its about 325 horse in it i got aftermarket shit in it

i love the 318 and 360 powered dakotas i had a 360 in my old ram and it made it to about 230,xxx miles before it died and another thing about them is they move, and believe it or not your getting better gas mileage with the V8 than you would be with the V6 because of the better power to weight ratio. Id say get a cold air intake first i like spectre K&N and things like that or you can fab your own. that should give you a little bit better gas mileage and maybe some noticibly better throttle response. then get a freer flowing exhaust system (im talking from headers to tailpipe) cause the exhaust headers on these trucks are horrible at getting the exhaust out of the engine. thats really all you can do past that stuff your talking performance intake manifold and heads things of that nature. with just a CAI and exhaust you will notice a difference i did in my ram i went from 8C10HWY to 10C15HWY with just a CAI and exhaust

Thanks for the input Dan I'll give both of those a try...was looking at changing exhaust anyway...you do mean FREER FLOWING SYSTEM..I'm not to savvy on name brands, so just want to make sure of what im asking for. have a great week.

freer flowing system ment as to get the exhaust out of the engine better its not a brand name. on my ram i ran HOOKER headers and a FLOWMASTER 70 series exhaust system with all 3in pipe

see if you can find a better CAI than k&n. every vehicle ive had and done research on K&N either lost power or gained none. they are highly overrated. people just buy them cause they know the name and they are cheap. theres much better systems out there. not too sure about whats available for the dakota though