So my girl has an 08 ram 1500 2wd, the motor is on its way out seeing how it's loosing oil pressure and I found large metal shavings in the pan when I replaced the oil pump and screen. My question is what exactly is the difference between the car hemi and the ram hemi? I can find a wrecked car all day long for $1500 with a 100km hemi yet it's hard to come by a reasonably priced ram just for the motor. From what I have researched, some say that the cams are different as well as the timing cover, intake manifold, and oil pan and pump. Is there any truth behind those and for conversation sake, if I were to swap over those exact parts from hers, would I have an exact replacement engine for a ram?

 

There is all kinds of truth to this, a simple comparison look at pictures of the two engines (I'm gonna assume you haven't bothered to do that yet...) would show you that.......




The coil packs on an 08 are different, but everything else respectively is the same. So yes, you can use an LX engine. Cam isn't different enough to matter and is designed to work with MDS (which your girl's truck has). If you look at the front timing covers (aren't pictures great?), yes they are VERY different because the accessory drive between the two is very different. Yes, you will need to swap the front timing cover. Yes, you will need to swap the oil pans and as you can see, yes you will need to swap the intake manifolds. Not sure which pump you are referring to; if oil pump, no. If water pump then use the one designed for the application. Everything else is good.