Another Hemi bites the dust.....

T

TeamZero

Joined
Sep 7, 2020
Messages
484
Location
Ontario,Canada
This one is a 22 truck, with 2k on it. Valve broke off at keeper groove. Piston in pieces, rod broke in 3 pieces. Second one in 3 months, last one was a 21 6.4 in a Car, also low miles. It also dropped valve but never looked close to see where valve broke on that one. Don't remember last time I saw this. Also starting to see a noticeable uptick in valvetrain issues in 19 up 5.7s. Have seen a half dozen with worn ball ends at rocker end on pushrod/wear in rocker. All lower miles with proper oil changes. First one, pulled apart for cam/lifters, then couldn't see anything wrong.....then looked closer. Never seen that before. Quality drop from covid shutdowns or cost cutting? Who knows. Can see stem of valve still stuck in retainer with keepers in pic. And for the record , thats not my nasty hands, i'm a clean freak and wear gloves!!:LOL:






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got any pics of those piston mcnuggets? did the block and crank survive?
 
atikovi said:
Maybe the drivers beating on them? I'm surprised Chrysler even gives an engine warranty on Hellcat or higher engines. I remember reading the owners manual for a 1970 Dodge and it specifically mentions there is no warranty on the hemi engine.
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Both happened at low speed/rpm. You can also tell by how big piston pieces are. If was a high speed failure, would be all tiny pieces in pan. This one was towed in for a no start/smoke. Quit pulling up to stop, and when he tried to start it....saw smoke. Was the starter cooking because engine was seized. 1st one, didnt even break piston hardly.......same thing pulling up to a light.
 
Does the ECM store in memory the last RPM range the engine was operating at? If so, that could be a tell?

I believe there were some early Corvair engines that suffered from the same fate. It was found that the valve guide bores were not machined properly causing some valves to seize in the bores.
 
atikovi said:
Maybe the drivers beating on them? I'm surprised Chrysler even gives an engine warranty on Hellcat or higher engines. I remember reading the owners manual for a 1970 Dodge and it specifically mentions there is no warranty on the hemi engine.
Click to expand...
No, a stock engine should take anything you can do on the street and quite a bit more.... Once warmed up they should be able to take sitting on the rev limiter for quite a long time, like 5+ minutes and even then it should be more of an oil related failure, starved and spun bearings, not valves breaking.
At autocross my 140k mile 2.0 duratec ate a 2-1 shift that was supposed to be a 2-3, probably 9k rpm on an engine that cuts fuel at 6800 rpm and it lived happily after, and its not uncommon at all the to hold a car at the rev limiter for a second or two on every run when the course doesn't warrant a quick up and down shift.
 
IndyIan said:
No, a stock engine should take anything you can do on the street and quite a bit more.... Once warmed up they should be able to take sitting on the rev limiter for quite a long time, like 5+ minutes and even then it should be more of an oil related failure, starved and spun bearings, not valves breaking.
At autocross my 140k mile 2.0 duratec ate a 2-1 shift that was supposed to be a 2-3, probably 9k rpm on an engine that cuts fuel at 6800 rpm and it lived happily after.
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Yep....I ran a 2.4 Chrysler in ChumpCar for years. 8 hrs days/2 days....redline all day, without a failure.
 
atikovi said:
Maybe the drivers beating on them? I'm surprised Chrysler even gives an engine warranty on Hellcat or higher engines. I remember reading the owners manual for a 1970 Dodge and it specifically mentions there is no warranty on the hemi engine.
Click to expand...
They shouldn't have issues with 5.7 and scat pack motors eating themselves. They aren't exactly powerhouse or pinnacles of new edge engineering. Their limit should be WAY beyond this.

Chrysler/dodge has been building a lot of lower quality/ sub par vehicles, assemblies, and parts for many years.
 
WylieCoyote said:
Sourcing parts and materials from the lowest bidders, or forcing their current suppliers to cut prices or else. Engine longevity should be on the rise, not on the decline.
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^ Agreed. I recon it is straight "Moneyball" someone is probably calculating the percentage and costs of failures.... does the math and reducing the percentages just is not worth it to them, the board/investors etc.

I heard a fairly high level manager one time talking about a like scenario, basically we could not afford to have significantly better products and services than the competition.
 
atikovi said:
Maybe the drivers beating on them? I'm surprised Chrysler even gives an engine warranty on Hellcat or higher engines. I remember reading the owners manual for a 1970 Dodge and it specifically mentions there is no warranty on the hemi engine.
Click to expand...
Second that, the owners manual for my '68 Dodge Charger [440 4v] I remember came with a 6 month warranty and explicitly said ~ 426 ci Hemi was designed for supervised closed course "acceleration trials" and came with NO warranty

My '66 Mustang IIRC came with 6 months B2B and 12 months powertrain (289 HiPO only came with 30 days)
 
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