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The New Dodge - Demon

Welcome to my page dedicated to what I think should have been the Dodge Demon, not the Shadow ES.

I like to call my car a Demon mainly because Plymouth brought out the Duster nameplate for their performance version of the Sundance, so Dodge should have followed suit and named the ES a Demon. Makes sense, no?

I am the proud owner of a 1993 Dodge Shadow with a MMC 3.0 V6 and have created this page as a companion to anyone who owns one of these cars and would like to improve it's performance!

First, a little bit about my car:

I purchased the car in Dec. of 1992 as a 1993 model. I wanted one of these cars ever since they started putting the V6 in them. The first was the Plymouth Duster in 1992 and then the Shadow soon after. At the time I felt that this car contained a lot of potential as a performance car, with it's fairly light weight and V6 motor. What I did not know was that Mopar Performance would look upon the MMC V6 as their red-headed stepchild! They virtually ignored any performance potential that it might have and left us, the owners, to fend for ourselves!

Don't get me wrong. I know that they wanted to spotlight their work on the 2.2 Turbo program, but c'mon! Chrysler only sold a few MILLION of these things You would think they would have come up with something by now!

This is the response from Mopar Performance themselves:

"This request has been made many times in the past, but to no avail. Mopar Performance parts does not have any immediate plans to create a parts line for the 3.0 V6. Every time the request comes in we pass it along so keep in touch."

Well, this is a nice line of BS!

Oh well, enough of my bitchin! Let's look at what I was dealing with, ok?

Performance:

Engine - stock 3.0 V6 141/hp

Trans - 4-speed auto (604)

Rolling stock - 195/60/15

1/4 times - best time with this setup was 16.72

Problems:

Trans had a hard time staying together. it needed to be rebuilt/replaced/flashed 3 times! The last time it was no longer under warranty and they said it would cost $1,500 to put another 4-speed piece of crap back in it!

I had decided that I would not go through this again. So, I got a 3-speed out of a 3.0 V6 Caravan and grabbed the wiring harness from it as well. I had a mechanic overhaul the trans. and replace the 4-speed with it. The wiring harness was to override the trans computer that controls the speedo and TPS. Without it the computer backs off the timing after you rev the engine up because the computer thinks the trans is in neutral.

Once this was done the car ran great. It would downshift and go at will. No more ratchet sound or abrupt downshifting as you come to a stop. You do sacrifice gas millage since your spinning 3200 rpm at 60 mph as opposed to 2700.

This was too good to last of course! A swift downshift into 2nd at 75 mph ended the 3 speed's reign as the trans of the week. More on that later.

Around the same time I upgraded to 205/60/15 tires and 5 spoke wheels off of a 91 Shadow. This of course required the use of the correct pinion gear for the trans. "What do you mean, I was going 95mph, officer?"

Soon after this I installed a set of MP road race springs that lowered the car 1" front and rear and installed a set of the MP high charged gas shocks. This did a nice job of lowering the car and improving the look but the shocks made the car too "bouncy" on uneven roads. Yes, I know the ride is going to change, but this was rebound so fast and hard that you hit your head. I'll tell you how this problem was solved shortly.

I had been doing a lot of searching on the web and had found that there has been little done for one of Dodge's most popular motors, the 3.0 V6. This seems to be changing! I hope to be able to help by showing some of the changes that I have made so far as well as those coming up soon.

This is my first try at a web page so I hope that you can bear with me. I will be posting pictures of my car as it was, and as it is. I will be sharing any information that I think will make a improvement to the performance of these vehicles. I will do my best to stay to low-buck, non-exotic parts that are easy to get and procedures that you won't need a physics degree to figure out.

For all of you that have a Shadow, Duster, Daytona or other fwd Mopar with the 3.0 V6, there is a lot of good stuff on the way! Stay tuned!

Pictures of the car

Updated! 10/8/99 Click here for car pics.

Rebuilding the motor

Updated! 10/8/99 Click here for new engine pics.

This motor is out of another 93 Shadow ES, er, Demon, that had a 5-speed trans. and power everything. I had the motor rebuilt using 1mm oversized pistons, new rods, water pump, oil pump, balancer, bearings, gaskets and all new motor mounts from the dealership. I left the heads stock for now. I did not know of anyone around that knew how to port them. I believe TOTAL RACING CONCEPTS will have a fix for this soon!

I also added the FORWARD MOTION underdrive pulley system.

NOTE: I HAD PROBLEMS WITH THE BELT THAT THEY SUPPLIED(Gates # K4060790)SQUEELING LIKE A STUCK PIG! USE MOPAR NUMBER Q4060790, NICE AND QUIET, PERFECT FIT.

I have also added 8.5 MSD wires, Bosch +4 platinum plugs and a K&N intake filter and bolted it directly to the throttle body.

I painted the valve covers and upper intake black, to make it look more like a Mopar motor(remember the 2.2's?).

All of the power goodies are being, or have been put into my car. This required switching ALL of the wiring, inside and out, from the 5-speed car to mine! So far I have switch everything over with the exception of the power windows.

All of the holes for the shifter cables and clutch cables must be drilled. Thank God, Dodge put marks where you need to drill. If you are wondering, it take three 7/8" holes to complete this. Oh yea, don't forget the clutch pedals and shifter itself.

This project requires a lot of time because the entire dash must come out of the car along with all of the carpet and most of the trim. Once that is done you need to pull all of your wiring out and replace it with the wiring from the other car. The reason for this is because Dodge does not use a universal wiring harness that you just plug your power options into. You need the wiring out of a power optioned car, and plug that into the main body harness. Oh, did I mention that the body harness is different on 5-speed cars? So, you might as well pull all of that sh*t out as well.

Like I said, once you have everything out it's just a matter of plugging all of the new wiring back in. You were paying attention to where everything went weren't you?

Since I had the carpet out I decided to replace it with a new one from the factory. Mine had 6 years of wear and tear on it and it was only about $100.00. I do know that there are not many of these left in the country, so if you want one you better hurry.

Rebuilding the motor

UPDATED - 9/15/2000! (finally!)

Click here for the exhaust page Updated 9/15/00

Click here for the suspension page

Finally!! I have added the brakes section! Click here for the brakes page

Questions, comments? Contact me: