went out last night to pick up some mags at Barnes & Noble, got the new Sport Truck and for the first time i got "Truck Trend". And there is about 8-12 pages comparing the Dakota R/T, Toyota Tacoma S-Runner TRD, and the 02' L. The last page has a chart, and heres how it went.

Dodge / Ford / Toyota
Appearance 5 9 8
Engine 7 10 9
Transmission 6 7 8
Ride 6 8 4
Handling 8 7 8
Track Performance 8 8 9
Fit and Finish 7 8 6
Gadgets and goodies 6 8 7
Interior comfort 8 8 6
Fun factor 7 10 8
Value 8 9 6

The L SOMEHOW gets beat in the HANDLING, but maybe because its too fast ....but the L is the only one to get 10's in anything , also another comparison was....

Max hp/rpm Max torque/rpm
Dakota R/T 154.7/4300 200.3/3700
SVT Lightning 303.4/5200 350.1/3700
TRD S-Runner 180.8/5100 218.5/2200

haha....wonder why Toyota even trys......not a chance.

Hope you enjoyed!

 

Surprising to see a Toyota get a 6 for fit/finish. They're usually a 10 on that mark. Those dyno ratings look a little low also. Good for the L though to take top honors, yet we all knew that already.

 

Hey, those hp/rpm torque #'s dont look right??

 

i kno the numbers dont look right, but i put what they had in the mag, but they are right at the end of the article with all the HP, trq and other stats. But, the only thing i would be worried about , in the same magazine they review the Dodge SRT -10, the pickup with the viper engine, 500 HP, runs the 1/4 in 13 seconds tho....so some L's can beat it and plus the retail on the truck is $65,000. So if you buy an L for around $30,000 you would have $35,000 left over for mods, and $h!t on that dodge.

 

The number look mighty low. Maybe they didn't recieve any promotion money from Ford, so they low-balled the Lightning numbers

 

haha......prob, the numbers in the back of the article put the dakota at 250 hp, L at 380 hp, and the toyota at 215 or something....pathetic.

 

Folks: The #'s are low because they dynoed in 2nd gear!

 

no they were given 4 pulls, in 3rd gear from idle to redline.

 

How did they dyno from "idle" to redline in 3rd? It'll kick down to 2nd anything below 3200 rpms.

Were they done on a Dynojet or another form of a dyno? Mustang Dynos spit out much lower #'s than a Dynojet does.

 

I have that magazine. It stated that the first pull the L made was washed because it just smoked the tires on the rollers . It also stated that in order to get a usable pull they had ease into it and then give it full throttle. I'm sure that they could have manipulated the numbers with that tactic. The L not only was the only truck to get a 10 but it got two 10's and a 9 in value.

 

The Dynojet I go to has never had a stock Lightning make more than 310 rwhp SAE. It's the really high numbers that I find the most suspect. It just depends on where you're standing when you look at something....... I guess.

 

335 to 345 is on average normal for an '01/'02. This just goes to show that every dyno is different, but man, sounds like your dyno owner's definitely need to see about getting their machine recalibrated.

BfB

 

I've seen quite a few 360+ stock dyno numbers posted, also. It makes me think people are posting spikes. You're right though. Everybody I know that uses my guy's dyno, complains that they should be making more hp, or has made more elsewhere. I use him still because that's where all my other numbers have come from. It's just a tool to see if what I do to my truck works for me or not.

 

Yep! Either they are posting spikes (my friend in Foley tried to do this w/ his '99 -- was showing 350 rwhp stock...NOT!), or STD #'s (or some other correction).

Guys, don't bring us your spikes, and don't bring us your STD's (that didn't sound right <G>).

 

I'm suprised no one has asked about why the Toyota got a higher mark for track performance???? (ford = 8, toyota =9) according to the original poster's numbers...... what does the toyota run???