I have a 88 Dakota with 394 ci and w2 heads makes about 600hp. Truck does real good on stock suspension. My question was is ther anyone out there tried to run a Dakota with around 800 hp. My brother has a w9 motor at sdss that will be around those numbers. We would like to try this with stock suspension. This would of course be using the complete cal-tracks setup. The trucks weight is 2920 with driver.

I certainly don't make that much power or weigh that little.... but I'm supportive of your efforts and highly interested in what you do and how it turns out. I'd like nothing better than to see how it does.

Some might ask why 800hp in a Dakota, and my answer would be that there is a lot of s10s and rangers in our area. The other reason is we already have the truck. We might not can make it work but we gonna try it. Was just checking to see of anyone has tried it yet, that way we might get some ideas. We would also like to trim more weight off the front. Any ideas will help.

Mine are newer Dakotas - and weigh MUCH more to start with. I've been slowly wittling weight off where I can. I'm running the Caltracs monoleafs and bars along with their shocks as well. I just wish I had 800hp to put it to use! That sounds like great fun!

How fast are you wanting that Dakota to go?... and how much safety equipment are you planning on installing as well?

It has 12 pt. cage installed, will be changing from 31 spline axles to 35. As far as how fast we would like it to run deep in the 5s in the 1/8. If that's not fast enough it will have a plate on it also. Just depends on how much power it will hold. If it don't hook or run straight I know how to lift. My wife and kids are important.

There are quite a few Dakotas out there running leafsprings and caltracs and doing well. Pulling the front hoops 3-4ft off the ground.

So traction shouldn't be an issue.

You do have the preferred Generation body for what your trying to do. There are quite a few Dakotas with Big Blocks out there as well.

Running that kind of HP out of a smallblock may make it easier to hook than with a Big Block. Less Trq?!

I'll see what I can dig up for some info on other Daks of that Gen running decent numbers.

I have a 2001 with 412 RWHP with monoleafs and Caltracs. There's a huge Caltrac thread on Yellow Bullet, lots of good info.

There's a few other Dakota threads on here too.

There is a 89 that runs at Cecil,Md with a w9 motor. He is stock suspension and goes mid to low 5 on spray. The truck is from Florida and has made it's way up here.

I would try it if i was you. I never ran mine on stock suspension, I went with ladder bars when I built it.

Here are a couple pics of David's dakota. when we get the W9 motor back from Ryan J (as soon as i send him some more money)I feel like it is going to do what we want it to do,we just need to figure the suspension out.The truck does pretty good with the little W2 headed 394 stroker but it's set up for bracket racing. There are a few know it all's at the local track that have a very big mouth and we want to shut them up!!!!!

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