Hemi tick cause and cure, possibly solved

Was watching this video on youtube. Guy believes tick is caused by low oil pressure at low rpm. Tick is the lifter smacking against lobe as it slowly destroys itself and the lobe. Cure is said to upgrade to a high volume oil pump, as a hellcat oil pump or aftermarket. This increases your low rpm oil pressure. You probably have to still change out lifters and maybe cam, depending on how bad/ long its been ticking. Here is the video…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkNOXWGXADM

Part number for hellcat pump is down in comments section. Hope this helps fixing some ticking hemis.

they have the same oil pressure as earlier engines that did not have this problem. The factory fix was larger needle bearings in the roller tip and in my experience it seems to have been the cure.

Hey Mark so many theories out there but don't know if any really have been a cure. The lifter needle bearings change may have helped a lot but I've still seen a few failures but Dave is correct on the oil pressures. There's also a theory out there on poor quality camshaft material. This link has that video and others. https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/2963225/3.html

Yes he talks about that in the video. He believes it is the coating process or something like that of the newer engines cams compared to the earlier versions. The earlier engines don’t have mds either.

I don’t have a new hemi but wanted to share this. It is cheaper and easier to upgrade the oil pump then replacing cam and lifters.

Wrong, many of the earlier engines had MDS, any 5.7 car with automatic trans had MDS (My 05 300 had it) and half ton trucks started getting MDS around 2005 also but still no cam failures of the earlier engines, this is NOT and MDS issue, I have seen several 3/4 tons with no MDS experience early cam failure including the 2011 3/4 that is my current work truck.

I also don't think it is a cam material issue, the reason is I have seen many lifters with the bearings starting to go bad with zero damage yet to the cam itself.

I do believe Dave is correct in that it's NOT an MDS issue and that this has been proven because it reared it's ugly head after the Eagle Heads came into play and MDS was present before this. I still don't see any definitive explanation because I've seen some issues on post 17 engines.

Just going by what is on the video. As I said, I don't own a new hemi.

It's probably a mix of things like an oiling problem or something that causes the lifters to not move up and down in their bores as easily as they should and weak bearings in them that can't take the added force when that happens. There's very little friction between roller lifters and cam and it seems that this has only become more of a problem with newer engines. Don't forget GM v8s also have the same sort of problems and also started around the same time.

Even with older roller cam engines you can open one up that had engine failure from oil starvation and the cam and lifters look perfectly fine.

There are also posts kicking around other forums, usually by the same small number of people it seems, that blame the failures on lack of friction because of certain oils which cause the roller to not roll on the cam.

Seems to me if the lifters not rolling due to no friction between roller and cam I would not expect to see bad bearings in a lifter but still have the cam be perfectly fine. I have seen plenty of lifters that have a bad bearing, usually several in a set when one has totally gone bad (you can clearly hear it when rolling it on clean glass) but the cam is still perfectly fine on those lobes. Maybe the needle bearing is not rolling because of the lack of friction and going bad inside the wheel, then it eventually stops rolling and THEN the lifter eats the cam. Even if this is the case it looks to me that the larger needles solved this.

Are the lifters the same in the pre 09 engines and post 09 engines? Are the cams the same?

the lifters were different part numbers, allegedly to work with the higher lift cams, now when you buy lifters for either engine they give you the same ones, they are selling the new larger needle lifters as retrofits for the older engines.

Cams are higher lift, as well as the front lobe being drastically different for the VVT stuff.

OK, here is a guess. Maybe the additional lift of the cams put too much stress on the needle bearings and caused them to wear instead of spin? That would go with your idea that larger needle bearing are stronger and have more surface area to spread the additional load.

The 6.1 had significantly more lift than the 09+ 5.7 and I never seen a bad lifter in those 6.1s butt again I haven't played with many of them...

The 6.1 is the one I would get, I always liked that engine. I think it was well built from the factory. Did they use the same lifters as the 5.7?

There are some videos suggesting the stiffer valve springs in the 09 and above Eagle Heads contributed.

6.1do go bad,swaped out 2 sets one in a 06srt 1 roller locked and runined 1 cam lobe,same on a 08 srt.but not same lobe.5.7 trucks seem to like to eat cyl #5 intake lifter&cam lobe,seems like125,000 to 160,000 miles is the magic time.

How much of these failures would you pin on the longer oil change intervals of today? My wife has an 18 Durango R/T so I am assuming it has the later lifters. Most of her driving is in town and she doesn't cover tons of miles. The dealer changes the oil for $20 since we bought it there so I change it when the oil life indicator shows 50%.

Its got 53K miles on it and will clatter sometimes on startup, usually after being moved a short distance then shut off again. I have heard it tick before but never after driving. We have 7K of powertrain warranty left and another couple of years of Maxcare warranty as well. I need to take it in and get the trans service done soon so I might mention the occasional clatter to them just to have it on record.

You are the very FIRST person I've seen mention the "usually after being moved a short distance then shut off again". !!!

I've notice this in several 5.7 cars. Strange because I cannot come up with a logical reason as to why. Not at first start to move around parking lot, but at the second start short time later. The lifters would be more fully drained down on the first start. I don't get it.

My 6.4 does this in my ram as well if started up cold and moved a very short distance ( like in and out of the driveway). Sounds like lifters are just getting pumped up.

Our 12 Durango doesn't do this but it uses thicker oil. That being said when I did the cam swap it had a lob that looks like it was loosing some of the "coating" at 80k when I pulled it. Rollers were fine but I upgrade to the thicker needle bearing ones.

good article
CLICK HERE

Sounds like typical advertisement to me I'll believe it when I see it, wish we had millions of engines out there testing these. Also I can't find any info about weather or not they sell an MDS version...

They also speak from the point of view that the lifter is the only thing causing the tick, they don't address the pushrod top and rocker seat wear that causes ticking and exhaust bolts break and cause ticking, more so when cold. Lifter failure is not the only tick they have.

I'm with Dave on this. First I've heard that tighter tolerances is basically the solution.

Right now if I had to say the very best thing a Gen3 owner can do I'd say these two things: DON'T vary from manufacturer recommended oil weight and change oil often.

Don’t forget the pushrods wear the balls off the top side and the rockers wear the sockets where the pushrods go into,,,,,,, and sometimes the pushrods are barely long enough from the factory and don’t provide enough preload on the lifter.