When Mike Brooks sent me an eBay link to me, I opened it up and didn’t think much about it. Keep in mind, I’d been awake maybe five minutes and was still not sure on which planet I was standing. I ignored all the wording and went straight to the pictures. And other than a decently clean black 1999 Dodge Durango, there wasn’t much to impress me with. The wheels are tasteful aftermarket pieces and the interior looks good, and that’s fine and all, but what is there to get me excited? Is this one of the Shelby Pursuits repainted? Is this thing packing a Hemi that didn’t belong in there? What was the draw?
The more I looked, the more I didn’t understand what was going on here. The Dodge Durango is a 4,500 lb. people mover, it didn’t seem to be a former police truck, it wasn’t lifted and while clean, it’s nothing to get excited about. So I dug around for the engine picture…
I actually had to bring up pictures of a stock Durango’s engine bay for comparison’s sake to make sure I was seeing things right. What you’re seeing is a 225ci Slant Six that was yanked out of a 1978 Plymouth Volaré, hooked to the automatic transmission of a Dodge Dart and stuffed into where the 318 used to sit. To say it isn’t the engine swap I expected would be the understatement of the century. The Slant Six has legendary reliability, no doubt, but on it’s best day unmodified it produced 110hp and 180 ft/lb of torque. In the half-a-ton lighter Aspen the power was underwhelming, so unless I’m just not seeing the turbo setup, acceleration with this Durango has to be considered glacial, and any fuel economy gains must be offset by the engine struggling to move all of that weight around. But you have to admire the fact that someone did this swap at all.
CLICK HERE to see the Durango’s eBay Listing!
A happy Geordie New Year to All Bang Shifters!
This reminds me of the time I swapped the 500inch motor in my Caddy for a 2 stroke Saab triple. I sold it 5 years ago and its still not reached 60mph yet!
In fact the guys at Cern have detected serious deviations in the space/time continium suggesting that it is going so slow its going from 60 to 0.00000000000000000000000000000000 x 10
And its current owner is Xerxes the legendary King of Persia – who has a Hemi powered chariot!
By that was a good new years eve – what was in those tabs I was smoking?
old slants never die………..jesus chrysler!
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And even with the 318, the Durango was by no means fast. I kinda want to meet the guy who thought it was a good idea.
I’m usually a big fan of unusual engine swaps, but this one here is completely senseless. It actually made a mediocre car even worse than it was originally.
Why do all that work just to take a step back?
Maybe it was reliability he was going for.. I dropped a 292 inline 6 in my 78 GMC truck sheet I yanked the worn out 350. While it will not win races, the 292 is rated about the same ad the 1978 350 it replaced. More torque down low, even with 2.73 gears it moves the truck better.. gets better mileage (not by much, but still). I commend the guy really. I believe they did put the 3.9 V6 in some of those Durango ‘ s
Being an “A” body guy myself I LOVE the slant in ways evem fellow Moparites find weird. While there is no replacement for displacement maybe what we are mizsing is that when dad bought his new Ram he put the / in to ensure his 16yr old son wasn’t going to get speeding tickets?
Actually the torque figure for the 225 super six was 215lb/ft. Plenty enough when tied to the torqueflite.
On fuel economy, you must not understand much about how engines work. A small engine running wide open is much more effecient than a large engine working half as hard. The reason for this is throttling loss, since when the throttle is shut, your engine is a big vacuum pump. This is big reason diesels get such amazing fuel economy, zero throttling loss at all times.
My 99 Durango with a 360 is a slug, can’t even imagine the answer to the question nobody asked….