Dodge Dakota Chassis Upgrade

More power: Good.

Getting it to the ground: Great!

Chassis flex: BAD!

Whether you’re into straight-line acceleration or corner burning, a mushy chassis robs performance. In simplified terms, unit-body vehicles benefit from the installation of subframe connectors because they connect the front and rear subframes together—preventing the car from absorbing the torque and twisting in the middle during hard acceleration and cornering.

On full frame vehicles, like trucks, one may think that chassis flex is not as great a concern because the frame rails are already fairly stiff and don’t twist as much to begin with. That is until you add more torque. Bolting the vehicle’s body to the top of the frame does further strengthen it by “tying” it all together, so, with a full frame vehicle, to get the rear passenger side of the frame to twist, you also have to get the front driver’s side of the frame to twist, because the vehicle’s body is tying the two corners together. To do this you have to distort the floor pans, roof, firewall, and body panels, in addition to the frame rails.

Trucks offer a different problem. Even though they are full-frame vehicles and have full bodies, they suffer severe chassis flex due to the separate front and rear body halves—the cab and the box are not connected, which allows the front and rear of the frame rails to act independently from one another. This is obvious in every day driving—just watch the space at the back of the cab and the front of the box on a pickup truck while driving next to one. Under hard acceleration and cornering, the chassis twists, which adversely affects handling. The problem is especially noticeable on Dodge Club Cab Dakotas, with the longer wheel base.

Kenny Brown Performance has developed the Extreme Brace to tie the front and rear of Club Cab Dakotas together, greatly reducing chassis flex, thereby improving cornering, acceleration, and driving on irregular surfaces.

A friend of ours recently bought a new R/T Club Cab Dakota, and we asked him if we could borrow it for this story. He’s a car guy, and liked the Dakota for its handling and hauling capability. He loaned us the truck, but was skeptical about any increase in performance—he’d never noticed that it was lacking, mainly due to the fact that trucks are never perceived as being nimble. He had an “It handles great—for a truck” frame of mind. After installing the brace, he was amazed at how improved the truck’s cornering abilities were, and how tight the truck felt over uneven surfaces. He ended his rave reviews of the Extreme Brace by telling me “You’ve got to get those guys to design one for your regular cab truck—you’ll be amazed.”

The Dakotas are great handling vehicles—for being a truck. But after installing the Extreme Brace, you can leave that last bit off that statement.