I'm a Mopar lover/drag racer and bought a 2011 DP Challenger in August 2011. Having had a 65 Race Hemi Dodge and a 68 Race Hemi Dart it had a lot to live up to. What a package! Roll cage, wheels, tires, all aluminum motor, harness, fuel system, good graphics, light weight package, totally race ready. Legal and can run under the Super Stock index off the showroom floor. WOW! Is this a great country or what! Being a 426 Hemi guy I didn't like the Viper engine, but I came to find out there's nothing wrong with it. The things I thought it lacked really turned out to be nice. Lots of wonderful features. I'm old school, I hate EFI but when you are at the track there is nothing to do but enjoy yourself. Can't adjust the idle, timing, mixture, jets, nothing. Just enjoy a day of racing. It ran 6.15 in the 1/8th on the first day.

Then on about the 30th pass the o-ring blew out of the oil filter at about 100 mph. Side to side I went, almost saved it, but hit the wall and crashed. Sadness. But I took it to the body shop and he made it look good as new.

Finally got it back but it just didn't run as good. After about 6 passes the engine locked up. Sadness again. If I would have dropped the pan and looked at the bearings like a buddy told me to do after running a few seconds wide open without oil pressure during the crash this probably wouldn't have happened.

So today we tore it down and it had a stacked rod bearing. Which brings us to the reason for this post. If you haven't worked on one of these Gen 4 Viper engines they are pretty neat. Most everything is o-ringed. No gaskets to scrape. No paint, it's all aluminum. Soon as you tear it down you are ready to clean it up and put it back together. Huge cam. No cam bearings. Really soft valve springs but it has a .670 lift hydraulic roller cam. Non-adjustable roller rockers, nothing to adjust. It's not bad. I will order a new crank and rods next week and will be at the track soon.