MDS roller lifter failure update!!!

This is just for yall's information from my personal experience since I have mentioned before I have never seen a bad roller on an MDS lifter and never seen a bad one in a 6.4. I have replaced a mountain of cams in these hemis from 09-14 model years.


I just found my first MDS lifter roller failure and resulting destroyed cam, it is in a 2014 6.4 I bought. I have done tons of cam lifter replacements in 5.7s from 09 - 13 This is the ONLY roller and cam failure I have seen in a 6.4, it is the latest model year roller failure I have seen. It is the early small needle roller just like all the other failed roller I have seen (since I noticed the difference). My personal 6.4 I put in my 2011 came with the larger needles from a 2014 that the truck burned to the ground and did not have a failed roller. Oddly enough this is also the only truck engine I have seen built in the SRT block and everything has 2013 casting dates so my guess is they started "BGE" production for 2014 MY before they had enough BGE blocks. This gives me confidence the change over to the bigger needle bearings and the end of mass roller lifter failure as the middle or early 2014 MY production. I have replaced a couple of lifters in later year engines because they did not pump up but this is the latest roller and subsequent cam failure I have seen. All other lifters I have seen eat a cam were a failed roller on NON MDS cylinders. The cylinders and bearings in this engine look like new, very well cared for engine..

Thank you Dave for the information. I'm always interested in what you have for us, knowing how many of these engines you have torn apart

When you have found this issue in 5.7 with MDS, have you only replaced the cam & lifters ??? Or did you totally go through the engine ?

I have never seen an MDS lifter in a 5.7 go bad, only the NON mds lifter... since the 6.4 and 5.7 use the same lifters I would say it is possible but very unlikely as the non mds lifters usually go bad first. As for your question I have torn a couple engines apart after lifter failure and there is never any bearing damage so now I just put a cam in, dump a couple gallons of diesel fuel thru it with the oil drain plug removed to try and clean out the pan a little and send em.

What about a 6.1 lifter ? How they hold up

I have never personally seen a 6.1 lifter take a dump.

I have had 2 different 6.1 eat a lifter &cam both charger srt s one a 2006 128k,the other one 08 srt 141k both cyl 1 intake lifter.

Well…. I just picked up a cheap 2010 SRT8 6.1 with a bad Hemi tick……. Got the heads off and cyl 5 exhaust lifter was toast….. it dug a groove into the cam lobe and was just starting to hit the bottom of the lifter body outer supports……. AND…. Cyl 5 intake lifter was about to fail….. roller had a huge amount of play but was still spinning……. I have read that 90% or more of lifter failures were from cylinder #5……. I’m putting in a nice cam upgrade/springs with the new hellcat lifters and the Melling 10342HV oil pump……. TBF

I forgot to mention that all the other lifters were perfect and looked new….. Unfortunately, this engine had just been rebuilt and had hardly any run time when the lifter started to fail….. TBF

What's the part number on that lifter?

Clean the other ones up and roll them on a flat piece of glass and see if they sound silky smooth.

Also I have never noticed a trend of cylinder 5 causing the problem, I have 4 bad cams laying around here right now and none are #5 but that is a small sample of what I have done.

Just jumping in here to wrap my head around this disastrous phenomenon. I just experienced lifter failure in my ‘14 RT Durango. Details in my “reintroduction” post. I am not very fluent in 3G Hemi details, terminology and descriptions, but I know it’s MDS.
One thing I picked up on before things started making noise was that it seemed that I couldn’t control the MDS with my eco button, and the engine sounded like it was flubbering like it normally sounds when it cuts cylinders.
I’m trying to attach a video of what it sounded like when I took action. I really thought it was a belt pulley, which is why I took the belt off to run it.
I’m really upset this happened to me.

How many miles? My friend who oversees the maintenance on a lot of cop cars said idle time was harder on them than run time.

The MDS has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!!! Millions of hemis were made with MDS that last 200,000+ miles without lifter failure from 2008 back. There are also plenty of 2009 and up ram 2500 and 3500 without MDS that still experience failed lifter rollers.

What is the production date on the door jam in your durango?

Also this is not really an engine destroying event, I have bought them with flat cam lobes and driven them thousands of miles to get em home and bearings and everything still look like new, just stick in a cam and lifters and go but most shops don't want to dig into an engine or worry about all the metal going through the engine but it just ain't what happens on these things. They claim it is because there is grey stuff on the magnets but in reality that stuff is there even on a perfectly good engine and is the reason there are magnets there in the first place.

It was 113k. Not a terrible amount of idle time- not like a RMP does! My wife is a pretty calm driver and our drive cycle is rural.

I’m pretty sure it’s 4/14 production. I really wanted mine to get further than it did! I did an engine oil analysis at 80k and was told that I had an excellently wearing engine then. I was told that the amount of shrapnel on that oil valve behind the engine is the deciding factor for sticking a cam or replacing the whole long block.

Dave is right it isn't an engine destroying event usually. I've seen many of our Police Chargers get new cam and lifters and run great afterwards, showing no signs of damage to cylinder walls etc. I think our fleet mechanics pull this job off like it's a water pump replacement for many.

Have yet to own one, been leery of them because of the horror stories around.
As long as there are 318/360 magnum powered trucks vans and Durango's still popping up for sale I figure I won't have to worry about that problem

I bought my police charger at auction so it wasn't that old but I typically by vehicles at the age that the chance of that lifter failure is higher and i'm also a bit leary paying retail prices for a car that might end up needing several grand of work.

I think my Charger might have already been done at some point or at least some of the bolts and hardware under the hood look like they've been touched before.

I bought one in Tuscon (2 day drive) that the owner was told the same thing by a dealer, drove it back checked the bearings and they looked like new but it had the grey fuzz on the magnets, cleaned all 4 magnets, stuck in a 6.4 cam and its still running awesome 5 years later. It was my experiment to see if a 6.4 cam would work in a 5.7 after hearing it wouldn't work but got no explanation why it wouldn't. I got tired of reading things on the internet and decided to check stuff out for myself and found out there is a whole world of things that work great. I have torn these things apart with as little as 19,000 miles to build a stroker and seen the same grey fuzz on those magnets.

I purchased a 2014 2500 a couple years back that owner had been told by dealer that it needed a motor. No MDS. Had the dreaded tick, ran great. Had 120,000 miles on it. I put a reman long block in, and sent core back, really kicking myself after reading Dave's info. Jim.

I had the cam out on my 12 with 80k (cylinder head issues) and it showed signs of the lifter failing. Replaced with the 6.4 cam like you said (was under 200 bucks at the time) and have 25k on it now. Jay Greene eventually did the tuning but it runs great!