I BROKE the Turbo Dodge Dakota in ONE WEEK! What will it take to fix the sleeper MoPar street truck?

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:01]I'm going to keep my foot out of it for a little bit. Just kind of drive around and tune it.

[00:00:08]>> Damn it, I blew it up.

[00:00:11]>> Welcome to the Restore Ralph channel.

[00:00:13]The Turbo Dakota is ready to tune, but I end up uh spinning my wheels and not in the fun way. This is my 1991 Dodge Dakota. I just finished up putting a 7875 Turbo on the 52 5-speed truck and this thing is going to be fun. So, this thing right now is using the Holly Terminator X and it is self-learned and it's pretty close, but I got a couple lean spots just off idle into tip in.

[00:00:38]And so, I want to get in and data log it and see if I can fix that. Just because I'm lazy, I put the clutch fan back on and I broke the shroud when I pulled this thing apart. Kind of crumbled. So, I'm sure I will be revisiting this, but it's better than no fan for now. This is my temporary permanent solution for a overflow jug. I've got it hooked up here. I've got a a end fitting I had laying around. Cut the nut off of it and made a U-turn out of it so I could mount it over here. That is the original Dakota uh overflow that used to mount on the fan shroud, which is no longer there because it won't fit, first of all, and second of all, I broke it. So, I think this will do good for the moment. I'm sure I will end up revisiting all of this. I'll probably end up going to an electric fan, but not right now.

[00:01:44]Hold the throttle at a certain spot. It dies out.

[00:01:49]It's like it goes lean and then comes back.

[00:01:55]I don't know what's going on with this thing.

[00:02:14]Heat.

[00:02:34]Heat.

[00:02:39]Heat.

[00:02:56]Heat.

[00:03:24]Whoa.

[00:03:30]Dope something.

[00:03:50]Damn it, I blew it up.

[00:04:02]That absolutely sucks.

[00:04:13]All I had to do was not blow it up and I failed.

[00:04:18]I must have popped a head gasket.

[00:04:26]Dang it.

[00:04:44]I definitely popped that head gasket.

[00:04:47]Son of a gun.

[00:04:49]Well, I guess I could cry about it or just start draining the coolant and get ready to pull the heads. That is definitely coolant in the oil. I hope it's just a head gasket.

[00:05:03]When I pulled the manifold off, there was coolant coming out of it. So, I definitely know that this side is leaking. I'm not sure if both sides are.

[00:05:13]We're going to do both while we're here.

[00:05:15]I feel good about this because I can actually see an obvious breach from the head gasket into the coolant passage.

[00:05:23]And there's coolant in that one. Doesn't look like there's anything else wrong with this gasket.

[00:05:31]So, my head's okay. I think it is. Can see a clear path here where it was blowing past into the coolant jacket. So hopefully a cleanup of this head and new head gaskets and bolts will be back in action.

[00:05:51]Yep, that is too much boost. Evidently 11.2 is the number. Just popped this head off and it was actually holding coolant because well this head gasket is not breached yet. So, I wiped out all the coolant out of the uh cylinders. Taking a look at it. Looks okay. I think it's okay.

[00:06:16]That's okay.

[00:06:18]That one right on the fire ring here.

[00:06:23]Right on the fire ring looks a little wonky. So, this one is going to get replaced. Obviously, this one was going to pop as well, but not to coolant necessarily. It's kind of close, but glad I'm doing it. Should have done it before I started. Well, this is where we are. Sunday morning, I was out ripping on this thing, trying to tune it. Sunday afternoon, down to a short block, doing head gaskets. Parts are on the way.

[00:06:54]Maybe next weekend. All I got done today was heads and gaskets on and torqued, but that's okay because it's Mother's Day. When I swapped this engine in about a year and a half ago, I didn't change plugs. Guess what I didn't do when I turbo swapped it. I didn't change plugs.

[00:07:13]I think we're going to put fresh plugs in it. About 2 hours later and she's back together. I didn't really film anything cuz I just wanted to get it done. If you want to see a bunch of intake and rocker arm stuff, go back and look at like two weeks ago. I just had this stupid thing apart.

[00:07:41]Quite a bit of coolant in that.

[00:07:44]I bought some cheap oil so that way I can run it on the new oil, get it steamed out, and then change it again.

[00:07:53]We are back. Time to go let it sit out in the driveway and warm up. I'm sure there's some coolant in the exhaust I need to cook out of it, but uh I think we're back in action.

[00:08:11]We are back.

[00:08:13]Thank goodness. Just a little oil burning off. So, I think I'm going to do a quick log and just make sure everything's doing good and call this thing finished for the week cuz well, I'm tired of working on it. Heat. Heat.

[00:09:05]About 4 lbs of boost is all we got right now. And that is okay.

[00:09:15]Heat.

[00:09:30]Heat.

[00:09:57]The turbo Dodge Dakota is back together.

[00:09:59]New head gaskets. I didn't get any progress done on the tune, but I did manage to blow head gaskets and repair head gaskets this week. So, I guess we'll call that a win. Once again, thanks for watching and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to the Restore Ralph channel.