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View Full Version : My Dodge Dynasty Sleeper buildup



snapcaked
06-10-2007, 07:27 PM
hi, i own a Dodge Dynasty with the 3.3L and 60,xxx miles on it. my goal is to make it a sleeper and push around the rice that seems to corrupt my neighborhood.

so for starters my car is bone stock. only been driven to bingo, church, and home (grandma's car). it had a cooling issue to the point that the coolant would boil out of the reservoir. cap wasn't holding pressure and thermostat was bad. replaced those.

today i noticed that my radiator fan doesn't really turn on when its supposed to do, so i wired it up to a switch. i also painted the woodgrain on the dash black. if need be, i'll have pictures up, but its nothing really that special. tomorrow im gonna go engine shopping at the junkyard and see what i can find.

shelbydodgeimp
06-25-2007, 02:43 PM
There is not much you're going to be able to do with a 3.3 without shelling out some serious cash. Not to trivalize the 3.0 buildups but doing a a604-3.3 combo makes a 3.0-5spd build up look like its so easy you can do it in a coma.

Your main limitations are going to be the trans and the 3.3's dependance on the OEM efi system... especially due to the overly complicated DIS and the requirement of the TCM for the trans. As far as I know no one has yet run one w/out the stock computers...

I suppose you could try to trick the computer into it thinks its controlling the engine and run a megasquirt for the EFI and a MSD DIS2 for the DIS- but that will be far from cheap.

Not to discourage you but if all you wanna do is beat mechanically stock imports it should be an ok platform but the limitations are going to be a PITA for anything more than that (talking from expierence).

Vigo
09-07-2007, 06:07 PM
Doing ignition with megasquirt will be cheaper by far than the msd setup, but you may have to figure out the settings for the reference sensors yourself.

good news is that 2GNT people frequently run their cars fuel and spark on MS (megasquirt btw) and that engine uses basically the same kind of setup as the 3.3, just with two less cylinders.

the 3.3 has a lot of potential just waiting to be unlocked if you plan to stay n/a. the highest stock rating for a 3.8 (same engine with different bore and stroke) was 215hp and 245 tq. better than the n/a buick 3.8 which people seem to love, plus our engine is way smaller and lighter. thats stock. stock LONGASS intake runners, stock mediocre plenum, stock mediocre compression, stock 5500 rpm redline, stock small diameter 15ft long exhaust system in a minivan. the potential is there on this design. the computers do complicate things, mostly because of the stock rev limit. if you are forever limited to 5500 rpm it will be hard to get huge gains n/a. on the plus side, once you get past the rpm limit, gains should be pretty easy to get. primarily you'll need a different (custom) upper intake with much shorter runners and larger plenum, and a different cam. the valvesprings are proven to higher than stock rpm, as people on this forum often use those springs with heavier valves and rev well above 6k rpm. the pushrods, lifters, and rocker arms are unproven, but its likely that with some research, better parts from other engines can be swapped.

as shelbydodgeimp can tell you, there was a racing series known as can-am (iirc) in which some cars used modified versions of these engines. from what little i know, they revved above 7k and made 250 hp. i dont know if those engines used the stock valvetrain or not.

in the short term, i would do this. CAI, shorter/lighter tires/wheels, and maybe a cat-back, 2.5" or so. i would leave the stock downpipe and cat until you decide to raise the rpm limit.

other options using stock parts include a 3.8 swap (which can be done as just a shortblock swap or up to the whole engine from a newer van which has different heads, manifolds, cam, etc), a higher stall torque converter from a different application such as a 2.0 604 or a 2.0 413, lower ratio transfer gears, and a lower ratio gear and pinion.

if for some reason you have top remove your transmission for repair, please pm me and we can go over it cuz there are big acceleration gains to be had in there :)

if you have any other questions pm me.

and now i will post a pic of my 3.3 dynasty just for the hell of it

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/12/web/228000-228999/228004_264_full.jpg

Vigo
09-07-2007, 06:18 PM
also, on the 3.0/3.3 subject. a lot of people talk trash about the 3.3 comparing it to the 3.0.

here's my experience. 4 or 5 years ago i compared some nearly identical cars with my gtech. a 3.0/604 dynasty and a 3.3/604 dynasty. they had the same gearing, tires/wheels, and overall weight. both were near stock (read on).

the 3.0 dynasty ran a best of 16.7@81 stock. with a 52mm tb (same as stock 3.3) and k&N, it went 16.5@82. the 3.3 dynasty with just a K&N (not CAI's, just filters) ran a best of 16.22@84.

so in identical setups the 3.3 ran 3-5 tenths and 2-3mph faster. thats a pretty good starting point imo.

snapcaked
09-09-2007, 01:26 PM
thanks for the advice....i already did plenty of research on the 3.3L and can-am engines (lol wish it was as easy as just find one of those motors in perfect condition, but don't we all?) but yeah, i'm sure i'll be talking to you alot more in the future Vigo. thanks

shelbydodgeimp
10-22-2007, 01:37 AM
Doing ignition with megasquirt will be cheaper by far than the msd setup, but you may have to figure out the settings for the reference sensors yourself.

Unless they've changed the software for megaspark, its not compatible with the stock 3.3 reference sensors.



if you are forever limited to 5500 rpm it will be hard to get huge gains n/a.


That's where having a machinist look at working with a 3.5 crank comes in. That one is still just theory however, isn't it? A forged crank would make a bit of a difference in redline limitations.



as shelbydodgeimp can tell you, there was a racing series known as can-am (iirc) in which some cars used modified versions of these engines. from what little i know, they revved above 7k and made 250 hp. i dont know if those engines used the stock valvetrain or not.

From what I have been able to gather the heads & valvetrain were virtually stock. Basically a port job with slightly larger valves... but as you prolly know the heads don't give a ton of room for larger valves so I would almost consider that aspect negligible. The rockers and other valvetrain parts were the same stock parts and ratios.

IIRC these engines never reved over 7k. The series was making 255 hp @ 6800 RPM's and NEVER went higher. Remember this series was very very strict about the engine side of things. BUT- after the series in North America died out, some people with these cars were breaking 400 hp with them according to some of my sources but I'd be damned if I knew what changes were made or redline rpms.

These were NOT that far from the stock engines- different exhaust, intake, TB, head port job- the real beef & potatoes came from the forged internals and higher compression ratio. The EFI was also a bit better, esp the DIS side of things.

In a consumer 3.3, you'd have 3 timing signals (one per pair of cylinders) -but- all use the same timing (essentially). In the Can-Am, each pair of cylinders was individually and separately tuned spark-wise. So you could have one retard setting on one pair, and a totally different one on an other- this has never even to this day been implemented in the production 3.3's but it is why the coil packs are the way they are.



other options using stock parts include a 3.8 swap (which can be done as just a shortblock swap or up to the whole engine from a newer van which has different heads, manifolds, cam, etc), a higher stall torque converter from a different application such as a 2.0 604 or a 2.0 413, lower ratio transfer gears, and a lower ratio gear and pinion.

+1 on the high stall TC and final drive gear mods. As to a 3.8 swap- I'd avoid it entirely. 3.8 is not nearly as good of a platform to work off of. Although the 3.8 parts in a 3.3 to make a 3.5 mod has now been proven (see DI.net's board) so you should be able to run some decent boost after such a mod, and even more if you get a forged crank in there.

Vigo
11-22-2007, 03:00 PM
the reason i view rpm as such a difficulty in these cars isnt because of the physical engine parts but because of the electronics.

with a 604 car, you effectively have two rev limiters to overcome before you can rev higher.. the actual rev limiter, and the max upshift rpm. they are very near each other so you have to deal with both to get more rpm, really.

the 604 tcm you can swap for a later autostick tcm if you change some wires around. di.net members have swapped autostick back to 93, which is as far back as those cars go, and their controllers/trans are near identical to ours.

most cars that HAD autostick revved to 6500 stock, so getting a tcm from one of those cars to work takes care of the tcm side..

as for the engine rev limiter.. the ecm is basically an sbec as used in the latest years of all k-cars..

some people here have been able to modify the program in them, but of course noone has gotten very far on the common 3.0, let alone 3.3/3.8, due to lack of interest.

however, i think anyone that can work sbec code could probably raise the rev limiter on an early 3.3 sbec.

as for the stock sensors and megasquirt...to my knowledge people have been able to run neons and 420 eclipse on all stock stuff with ms.. the 3.3 stuff is all the same basic system plus one more pair of cylinders. i believe it could be made to work with stock sensors.