I got the ol' truck washed and shined up and figured I'd waste some time and take a few pics. She's my daily driver, and the most modest of my vehicles; I certainly wouldn't classify her as a "pimp ride", but don't let the humble appearance fool you. When this sleeper awakens, she's quite the bruiser.

I special-ordered her in 1998, because I wanted the 5.2L V8 with rear-wheel-drive, and all the ones I saw at 2 dealerships with V8's were 4x4's, and all the RWDs were 4 or 6 cylinders. The only things I changed from the build sheet are to scrap the power doors/windows (waste of money and too expensive/complicated to fix in 10 years when it craps out), scrap the A/C (wasted power, reduced fuel economy, and not really needed in Alberta), add stronger anti-sway bars, add a limited-slip rear end, add the driving lights, add a matching blue kid-hitter (that was since damaged when my truck was stolen for about 3 weeks, in May, and replaced with a black/chrome one, apparently the last one available from any dealership in all of North America, I was really lucky to turn it up!) and have the dealership remove all the usual white decals ("Dakota Sport", "Dodge") with a heat-gun.

She only has about 105,000 km on the odometer and except for rust on the black pieces of the front/rear bumpers (which are painted with some kind of rubberized paint that Montreal's winter salt just decimated in only 4 years), the sheetmetal is practically flawless--except for the usual rock-chips in the fender flares. I'll replace the rear bumper and front black bumper piece (it's available separately for just over $100 from several vendors on eBay) in the near future, and it'll look almost new again.

Other than the usual maintenance repairs, the only performance-related upgrade I did was replace the stock catalytic converter with a Magnaflow unit, when it began rattling like a diesel engine at idle. It doesn't sound stock when you hear it idling, and it sure doesn't sound stock when you floor it. It sounds like the Dodge Magnum did in those early Magnum commercials (and in truth, the Magnum never DID sound like that in reality, without major exhaust upgrades).

Small truck with V8 and a few performance options = a lot of embarrassed stoplight victims!

I plan to construct a custom-made cold air intake and upgrade the exhaust to match it, I'll document the "truck mod" in a worklog in this forum when I get around to doing it. It won't be shiny chrome bling bling but it'll accomplish the same thing. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a kit that I can make myself; I'll use the money I'll save for more deserving car mods--for the Charger or GN.

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I uploaded a short video clip to YouTube. Enjoy!

Waking up the GN

Quote: Originally Posted by Coelacanth I uploaded a short video clip to YouTube. Enjoy! Waking up the GN

Mmmm, now that is a Buick worth owning.