I just bought a 2004 Durango off a freind with ticking noise. It has the 5.7 hemi. The back two bolts on the exhaust manifold were broke so I fixed that. Ticking was still there so I heard about sticky lifters tried running cleaner through the motor. Ticking wasn't going away so I snapped the throttle up to about 3500 rpms. Instant destruction. Something let loose and now I have oil out the side of the block. So now I'm getting ready to pull the motor. I read that they had trouble with the cowl leaking rain water onto the intake and hydro locking the motor. Once person said they put an 05 intake on because it is a better design. Is there any tricks to keep this from happening again? The truck only has 130000 miles on it so I figure it's worth a new motor.

Just try to find a clean motor and keep good oil in it. The dodge motors have always been bad for sludging up from people not changing their oil or using junk oil. And also if you use an oil system cleaner the cheap stuff removes the sludge and puts it in the bottom of the pan. We use valvoline oil system cleaner you drain your oil and pour the gallon in. It removes the sludge and dissolves the crap it works much better than the other stuff. Anytime we have to change out a dodge motor we flush it and put good oil in it and if we end up with a really sludge up one we put a bottle of sea foam in and leave it in with the new oil.