Were you able to fit those Dakota headers without chopping them up?
You should get some clearance by switching to a manual box. But even that might be tight. You can try shimming the motor mounts up a little also.
I think once the rack and pinion is installed the drivers side will fit, but the passenger side there is no hope for them to fit. I picked up some stock cast dakota manifold and the passenger side fits but the driver side was still having clearance issues with the stock steering box, that why im going with rack and pinion. I've read about possible bump steering issues with rack and pinion anyone have any feed back on that.
