5.7 Engine Cover

My 05 Durango 5.7 Hemi does not come with the Hemi engine cover. Is there a Hemi engine cover available that can be easily installed on my 05 Durango and 07 Ram 1500?

Jack

No , the air intake system and cab forward will prohibit this , why in the heck would you want that any way?

Yeah, I was concerned about the cab forward design being an issue. The Hemi engine cover looks much better than what I have now, IMO.

Jack

One reason would be to keep rainwater from ever dropping off the cowl and onto the intake.
The 2004 and 2005 era Hemi powered Durangos have nasty problem of when they get some miles on them that water that gets dripped over the intake seeps past the intake port o-rings.
It ends up in a cylinder and hydraulic locks it and then spits one of the weak powder forged rods out the side of the block.

If you search google you'll find out just how common it is.

Anything in the way of an engine cover might help prevent it if it gets the dripping water out past the valve covers.

Dodge knew that had a problem with it and did a change/upgrade with the cowl sometime in about 2006.

So short answer, no cover available?

Police Package Chargers don't have engine covers, so I don't know that they serve a purpose. I much prefer the looks without, but that's certainly a matter of taste.

I would think if anything, they hold in a little more heat.

An online search will find that they dig some sort of change to how the water flows down off the cowl, but they didn't put a cover over the engine.

I'm planning on trying to see if I can find a way to use a charger/challenger 5.7 engine cover over the one in the 2004 5.7 Durango I picked up with the rod out the side of the block issue.

I don't care what it looks like, as long as it keeps the water off the intake manifold.
Will it fit, who knows but I figure I'll at least try.

I finally got the bad engine out this evening, it's a royal pain to pull the engine on these 4wd Durangos.

The Durango is pretty clean and I bought for $1,200 with the bad engine.

The guy I bought it from said it ran great until one day last fall when we got like 8 to 10 inches of rain in one day, he said he started it and it put a rod though the side of the block.
I thought it sounded like BS until I did an online search and found out it was a common problem on that era Durangos.
What's funny was that it still rand and other than an initial knock on start up it was quiet and idled smooth. The rod broke right next to the crank journal and it put a hole through the right side of the block by cylinder 6 just above the oil pan rail.

When it's all said and done I should be into it for about $1,500 or so.
(bought a wrecked ram with a good running 5.7 Hemi and I've sold enough off the truck that I'm into the engine for free at this point)

The engine swap has been nothing but a pain because everything is hard to access and you have to take off a lot of parts that I wouldn't have thought I would have to to access bolts.
I had to lift the engine to get out the aluminum bracket that bolts to the bottom of the engine block and to the bell housing before I could ever access the torque convertor bolts. There is no room between it and one of the cross members under the engine so it's trapped in there unless the engine is lifted. Even after that you have to flip it around to find a way to slide it out.

I was looking at pictures of the new gen Durango's, and looked like it also had a cab forward design, but not as much as the 2nd Gen Durango, and they did have an engine cover?

Probably not what you want to hear, but the best way to swap engines on these Durango's is to pull the body. Not as bad as it sounds if you have a lift. There is a factory tool (bracket) to pull the engine out the top. Also, pullng engine and trans as a unit is the better way to if you o pull it out the top, especially on 4x4 with the bracket between the engine and trans.

That's how we did engine swaps in the Ram assembly plant, lift the cab off.

While I was taking off parts just to get access to others I was thinking that lifting off the body would probably be easier.

That's not an option in my case since I have no no post lift at this point.

As I said before, the engine is out now.
I'm swapping on the Durango specific parts onto the replacement engine.

Warren? That's what they did in the development shop and Newark as well.

Few things,

1 I have bought several cop cars from MHP and one from Renton Wa PD and they all had engine covers.

2 I have seen waaaay to many engines in these durangos break rods after getting rained on, we now recomend new intake O rings to any customer with 100,000 on their durango or if someone says it idles rough in the rain.

3 those engine covers are acoustically designed to make the engine quieter, if you put one on with the engine running it really quiets the injector and lifter noises down a lot.

4 unfortunately I can't get one from a ram to fit because they are too thick to go under the cowl and the one from a car is totally wrong because the throttle body is in the wong spot.

Durango relied on the foam filler in the intake between the runners and cam valley to quiet lifter noise, a noise insulating pad on the engine side of the dash panel, and dual layer dash panel to quiet down overall engine noise in the cabin.

I guess they can be ordered on a Police Package. Ours don't have them, and we get lots of rain in Florida and never an issue. I don't think I'd want anything quieting my engine. I'd rather hear what's going on. And as I mentioned earlier, I'd much rather not have anything more holding heat, especially on a Police car. But again, preference.

The water on the intake manifold issue is on the 2004 to 2006 era Durangos, because the engine is set under the cowl so much.
The rainwater runs down off the windshield and cowl and runs right down on the engine.

Which normally isn't a problem until the intake gaskets go bad and it drinks some of that water.

I guess they just like the Durangos to get wet, my wife's 18 R/T has the heat extractor hood and it just lets water run right down onto things like the alternator.

I did not know that about the Durangos. Thanks for the education.

Have you looked at the Grand Cherokee cover?

That looks like the same basic cover that they used on the 06 and later Chargers and Challengers.

I've got one of those that I'm going to try to use on the 04 Durango.
I'm sure there will have to be some modifications to get it to cover the engine.