I am not posting this to argue, be mocked or ridiculed.
Last week I took a old friends Dodge Ram out after doing some brake work on it. This is the same 2019 Ram with under 100k on it equipped with the 5.7l that has the odometer that runs backwards.
I drove normally as always but could not resist the urge to “open it up” and I floored it and ran it to redline from 0 to about 70mph ONE time. It started missing and flashing the check engine light.
The engine started hammering! Not missing driving normally just making a rhythmic collapsed lifter like noise. Unless you gave it over 2/3 throttle it ran perfectly smooth. No continual check engine light.
The news is in today, a broken roller! I know these are prone to lifter failures but the roller usually locks up, this appears it broke into pieces.
Poor metallurgy? Lifter got stuck? Another victim of cylinder deactivation?
Anyone else see this before? Mechanic is at a loss. The plastic lifter tray is not broken. Vehicle has had oil changed according to the oil life monitor and I recommended oil used. I believe 5w20.
The 2019 Ram 5.7L HEMI is known to experience lifter issues, particularly lifter tick, which can indicate lubrication problems or early wear. Regular oil changes and using high-quality oil can help mitigate these issues.
Maybe this is just a case of “stuff happens”? Maybe an inclusion in the parent metal the roller was made from? Maybe bad heat treat?
Splitting the roller is odd. Far more likely to damage the bearings and then flat spot the roller and wreck the cam OR turn sideways and destroy the cam.
I hope the pieces ended up in the pan rather that stuck between a rod and the crank causing more damage.
I will say hes owned it since new and always changed the oil as recommended. It had already had an exhaust manifold tick but couldn’t hear the hemi tick. It’s just a bit of egg on my face that It blew up while I was hotrodding it.
He’s not mad, at least at me but this vehicle has been very problematic for him.
We are making many assumptions. I told him 100 percent what happened. I goosed it, I roared the engine to the moon. I offered to pay and it was refused. He said that was no matter a vehicle should be able to withstand flooring it.
He told me when he gets a mew vehicle he will have me put its thru its paces to test it.
Ive known this guy forever and was doing him a solid working on brakes which I would not take payment for regardless of engine lifter failure. He told me to gp blow the cobwebs out of it.
You did a brake repair so making the vehicle red line was not part of the test drive. If I let someone drive one of my vehicles and they tried to make it go as fast as it can they are not even going to ride in it again let alone drive it.
And who said it was drum brakes? I don’t believe a 2019 Ram has drum brakes as an option, this one is equipped with 4 wheel disc brakes and a problematic electronic rear parking brake. I believe electronic rear parking brakes are used to overcome the weaknesses of disc brakes being used as a parking brake.
I also found out if you open the door with the vehicle moving tgat it will engage the parking brake and throw itself into park.
No one came to me, I am not a shop. Its a friend’s father. I was trying to do a solid!
Regardless of how the roller broke it is ridiculous that a vehicle would suffer such a failure.
I have run my Caprice, my old prius, my old truck, my old camaro, basically amy car I have ever had to redline consistently and NEVER had an engine failure.
He told me to go blow the cobwebs out of it. Im just trying yo figure out did a lifter stick? Bad metallurgy? Another displacement on demand failure?
You will work on disc brakes? Aren’t they inferior?
That would be quite odd to offer disc brakes as standard equipment and drum brakes optional.
Did you find cable operated parking brake calipers to be weak? Cable operated disc parking brakes have been around since the 1970’s, Trans Am, Eldorado, Imperial, Lincoln…
Subaru had them on the front brakes, yikes!
You stumbled on one of the features of electric parking brakes that drum brakes don’t offer. Do you remember the actor that ran himself over when he exited the vehicle while in drive?
Disc brakes are a fact of life. I have owned 4 wheel drum vehicles. They are completely adequate, a top expert on YouTube also agrees with this, a few actually.
This has no reasonable answer but i wouldnt have appreciated it. A guy at work doing a valve job on my 67 buick did that i suspect. Maybe thats how the cam gear got loose that he swore he tightened. Cost me $80 for a real mechanic to retrieve it from the pan and tighten the bolt.
Just saying though that i dont go by the olm but change oil around 50%.
When I drive someone else’s vehicle, I drive it much more conservatively than I drive my own vehicle, simply because I don’t want to cause any damage to someone else’s property. I guess that Rick and I have different philosophies on this topic.
Although very rare, I tend to agree with you on this one…
You had a pretty typical Hemi lifter failure happen… A failed lifter is a failed lifter… Redlining an engine while it’s in gear and actually being driven should, by design, be something the engine is capable of handling as long as there are not any underlying issues…
The MDS (Multi-Displacement System) lifters in modern Hemi engines have a known history of problems with the needle bearings in the roller, along with lubrication issues… Over time, the roller can develop excessive wear or seize, which then wipes out the camshaft lobe and destroys both components…
The lifter didn’t fail simply because you took the engine to redline… The factory redline isn’t the absolute mechanical limit of the engine; there is a safety margin built into that number… Could repeatedly taking it to redline shorten the life of a marginal lifter?? Sure… But if one trip to redline is enough to kill the lifter, I’d say that lifter was already on borrowed time… The failure was going to happen sooner rather than later anyway…
I’ve redlined pretty much every engine I’ve ever owned and never had an internal engine failure because of it… The one exception is my old Chevy truck — and I actually drive that one pretty easy because the transmission has a known weakness with the sun shell and/or input sprag failing during WOT upshifts… That’s a different kind of failure altogether…
