not only did the old dakota fit the 5.9 but it fit the 5.9 with a heck of a lot of extra room around the engine, I used to have a dakota 5.9 R/T and someone I work with has a new dakota, the new one has more room there than the my old one did.

I'm pretty sure it's still the same frame between the dakota and the durango, just the dakota has different body panels to make it's exterior a little smaller than the durango because it would have been to close to the size of a ram, at least that's what I read a while back before the 3rd gen dakota's came out.

 

The dakota and the durango are on completely different platforms now. I work where the daks are built. Our engineers tell us that the 5.7 cannot fit into the dakotas because there are issues with the frame, and suspension. But they are working on a version of the 6.1 to be able to get in there. That would be the srt-8 version.


Joe

 

still don't see how there could be an issue seeing as there is so much room under the hood unless they purposely designed it in such a way that it wouldn't fit, but if they are saying they will be able to fit the 6.1 then the 5.7 definatly will fit seeing as they are the same block, the 6.1 is just a bored out 5.7.

 

the hemi's are only for the large vehicle's in dodge's lineup

Ram
Charger
Magnum
Durango
are only some example's of dodge's large vehicles

sry to say but i want hemi's in them too

 

Motor mounts, and suspension are the problems. Thats why they are working on adapting the 6.1. 2wd only. 4wd is a definite no can do.

 

They wouldn't do it unless it was an SRT version which i still doubt they would do in the first place. It would take away from the Ram's sales too much.

 

Its never gonna happen, its too much of a pain in the *** for a company to just stop a line like that. While a 5.7L would be hella cool its just not gonna happen untill maby after they redesign the truck again. As the saying goes "Wish in one hand and **** in the other and see wich one fills up first."