Mobil 1 FS 0w40, RAM 1500 5.7L HEMI 6000 mi, high FE

[OVERKILL]

They are? I have an '11 5.7 1500 and had the valve covers off and it looks like brand new fresh cast aluminum. I scoped the oil pan and the internals are spotless. 170k on mine, owned since new. I've always used some sort of "syn" oil every 4-5k since new.

Yes, they produce a tremendous amount of particulate, as do the GM LSx engines (the DI ones). This is why AMSOIL had to stop recommending extended drains for them with their Ea15K filters, they were plugging them up (both engine families).

Have you bothered cutting open your oil filters? I have posted several from both my 5.7L and 6.4L.

 

[Johnny248]

Yes, they produce a tremendous amount of particulate, as do the GM LSx engines (the DI ones). This is why AMSOIL had to stop recommending extended drains for them with their Ea15K filters, they were plugging them up (both engine families).

Have you bothered cutting open your oil filters? I have posted several from both my 5.7L and 6.4L.

I had no idea. I cut them from time to time. I've never see anything crazy. I will def cut this next one when I'm done with my current fill of fs0w40.

 

[OVERKILL]

I had no idea. I cut them from time to time. I've never see anything crazy. I will def cut this next one when I'm done with my current fill of fs0w40.

Yeah, just a design "feature" of the engine and its combustion characteristics. The chamber design isn't super conducive to clean, complete burns like a wedge or pent-roof are at low speeds, which is why they have dual-ignition, to try and aide in cleaning that up with phased ignition events. The big bores on the 6.4L likely exacerbate the issue.

 

[tcrs_circuit]

OK, update on this engine and truck. Replaced the Cam and lifters in June or July of 2023. 2 months and 10k miles later, it dropped a valve, and put a massive hole in the #6 piston. Truck sat for a bit, before I dropped a brand new 6.4L long block in it.

Finally tore down the old 5.7L, and found the EXACT same wear pattern on the brand new cam that the old one had. The hardening layer was gone even to a greater extent that the original cam was. The lifters looked fine. Main bearings looked fine, a couple rod bearings had some wear but nothing alarming.

The wrist pins were also extremely stiff. Piston skirt wear was relatively minimal.

Most alarming of all, was the amount of filter debris scattered thought the engine, it seemed like the filter media came apart to some degree. It was in the pickup tube screen, the OCV solenoid and the MDS solenoids. It was a wix xp filter.

I replaced the oil pump with a hellcat pump during the cam and lifters install, but for as much filter media debris that was scattered everywhere, I think the filter may have been in bypass. The engine with the new oil pump always ran pretty high pressures. Never got below 60 at idle and would hang around 95psi at higher RPMs. I'm thinking this high pressure may have exceeded the differential pressure of the filter and caused the filter to be in bypass all the time OR there was some oil passage restriction causing decreased oiling to the cam, which really doesn't even make sense to me, as the engine was exceptionally maintained and was **** near spotless inside.

I don't think the filter debris on the pickup screen resulted in poor oiling as it never lost oil pressure.

Oil used was Mobil 1 0w40, Mobil 1 15w50 (per comps recommendation) and Pennzoil ultra platinum 0w40.

Here's a pic of the new cam after 10k miles. You can find the pics of the original cam on this thread as well. I'm really not sure what caused this, and I have a feeling that these cam and lifter issues may run deeper than most think. It makes no sense to me how the cam would end up like this after so short of mileage unless there was some major oiling issue. What do you guys think?

On a more positive note, the drivability of this Ram 1500 single cab is absolutely incredible with the 6.4L SRT engine. It's a rocket.

 

[Sumboodie]

That is a possibility. Cams and liters have been a problem in some 5.7 Hemis.

6.4 as well.

List lifter and cam in the 2017 work truck. Only ~12k hrs on it.

Usually get at least 2x that before starting to see engine issues on trucks.

 

[OVERKILL]

OK, update on this engine and truck. Replaced the Cam and lifters in June or July of 2023. 2 months and 10k miles later, it dropped a valve, and put a massive hole in the #6 piston. Truck sat for a bit, before I dropped a brand new 6.4L long block in it.

Finally tore down the old 5.7L, and found the EXACT same wear pattern on the brand new cam that the old one had. The hardening layer was gone even to a greater extent that the original cam was. The lifters looked fine. Main bearings looked fine, a couple rod bearings had some wear but nothing alarming.

The wrist pins were also extremely stiff. Piston skirt wear was relatively minimal.

Most alarming of all, was the amount of filter debris scattered thought the engine, it seemed like the filter media came apart to some degree. It was in the pickup tube screen, the OCV solenoid and the MDS solenoids. It was a wix xp filter.

I replaced the oil pump with a hellcat pump during the cam and lifters install, but for as much filter media debris that was scattered everywhere, I think the filter may have been in bypass. The engine with the new oil pump always ran pretty high pressures. Never got below 60 at idle and would hang around 95psi at higher RPMs. I'm thinking this high pressure may have exceeded the differential pressure of the filter and caused the filter to be in bypass all the time OR there was some oil passage restriction causing decreased oiling to the cam, which really doesn't even make sense to me, as the engine was exceptionally maintained and was **** near spotless inside.

I don't think the filter debris on the pickup screen resulted in poor oiling as it never lost oil pressure.

Oil used was Mobil 1 0w40, Mobil 1 15w50 (per comps recommendation) and Pennzoil ultra platinum 0w40.

Here's a pic of the new cam after 10k miles. You can find the pics of the original cam on this thread as well. I'm really not sure what caused this, and I have a feeling that these cam and lifter issues may run deeper than most think. It makes no sense to me how the cam would end up like this after so short of mileage unless there was some major oiling issue. What do you guys think?

On a more positive note, the drivability of this Ram 1500 single cab is absolutely incredible with the 6.4L SRT engine. It's a rocket.

View attachment 258320

Did you remove the MDS solenoids and clean everything out when you replaced the cam and lifters? Just wondering if material from the previous failure was still in those passages.

Interesting that the lifters were fine, as that tends to point to a failing of the heat treatment on the camshaft exclusively in the 2nd failure, rather than the combination lifter seizing + eating the lobe that's typical.

So you are saying that the Wix XP filter came apart and sent glass media through the engine? If so, that's not going to do good things for surfaces. I've never heard of that happening, do you have any pics of that?

 

[OVERKILL]

6.4 as well.

List lifter and cam in the 2017 work truck. Only ~12k hrs on it.

Usually get at least 2x that before starting to see engine issues on trucks.

Yup, supposedly fixed in 2018+, prior to that, all the HEMI's were affected, including the Hellcat engine, though it's rarer on those simply due to the much lower production figures.