I have been thinking about putting a 6 speed out of a new challenger (or something else???) in my 2wd 93 dakota since the discussion about rear gears... the .50 OD ratio with the current 3.55 rear will give me a higher final drive ratio than swapping to a 2.76 and keeping the current automatic OD trans. This should give me a very noticeable MPG increase by turning the engine much lower RPM on the highway, no LR band causing drag when not applied in OD, no OD-Direct clutch causing drag when not applied in OD, and no oil pump to turn not to mention a more fun to drive truck.

My question is how to get the speedo to work as the newer challengers use an electronic speed sensor and my 93 dakota has a gear spinning a cable??? Also what about the driveshaft? Am I gonna have to get a custom one made with a slip yolk in the middle of it like a 4WD?

Also guessing a custom cross member or is there a 5 speed dak that has one that will bolt up???

Anyone been down this path yet?

What size motor in the Dak?

Something like this will spin your speedo cable.

https://speedhut.com/accessories/se...vss-to-mechanical-drive-speed-converter/

For what the swap would cost you could buy a lot of gas.

in the 89-92 you could get an AX15 5 speed manual trans in a Dakota. You could get it in the 4 cylinder trucks and the V6 trucks, not so sure you got an AX15 in a V8 truck. The V6 unit will fit on the 5.2 motor but may be pretty light duty if you get abusive. All factory parts will bolt up. Not so sure the OD gear in the AX15 is much different the the OG gear in your auto OD though.

I'm also pretty sure your 93 Dakota should have the electronic speedo. At least it should have the electronic speed sensor. I believe Dodge went electronic in 89 or 90. The Dakotas build around the conversion had an attachment that had both the mechanical and the electronic speedo drive units on the trans, but the old stuff doesn't work with the modern stuff. The instrument cluster in my 49 truck is out of a 96 Dakota and it doesn't have a speedo cable.

I've got an extra V6 hydraulic bell, flywheel, clutch set up, pedals, slave cylinder, and an AX 15 that has always been noisy in 4th but last summer started getting noisy in 5th. I bought a 92 Dakota V6 AX15 truck, I'm using the trans in my car, but all the clutch stuff and my old trans are available. There may be a few bolts missing now, but pretty much everything is there for an auto to manual swap in a Dakota. Gene

Older Viper 6 speeds had a speedometer gear. Not sure when the cutoff was to the sensors. Could also download an app on your phone or tablet to give you mph with GPS.

Some things just aren't about the numbers, it seems you are not aware of it but a 6 speed is far more fun to drive than an automatic. This whole idea came about thinking about doing a rear gear swap from the 3.55 in it now to a 2.76 I have laying around so it was no money in the big inning.


The AX15 and NV3500 have a lower OD ratio than the a-518 and a-500 (.71 vs .69) and people wonder why the manual trans didn't get much better MPG than an auto so I would still have to do the gear swap to see much improvement. I think this was all part of the manufactures long game to get rid of manual trannies. The 6 speed has .50 6th gear and combined with the existing 3.55 would be an even higher final drive ratio than even the .69 OD 2.76 combo.


These dakotas had speedo cables thru 1995 at least and probably 96 but I know they did away with them for 97.


I forgot about the vipers, they had a SB bellhousing didn't they?

I do know the difference between driving a stick and an automatic. The way you presented this leaned toward increasing the MPG not the stick versus auto discussion.

The 96 V8 Dakota i bought the engine wireing harness from
Had a electric speedo. On the crossmember I would into the new holley black hart crossmember. It says it was made for the gen3 hemi engines. But all I had to do yo get it to work on my 91 dakota sport, with a 360 magnum and 904 transmission . I just had to redrill two mountings holes on the drivers side. Holley makes transmission adapters for 727/904, nag1,HP80/90 and the viper six speed stick