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Looking for some motor advice.

10K views 75 replies 16 participants last post by  Torqued 
#1 ·
I just picked up an 06 Charger with the 5.7. Car is in great shape but motor is supposedly blown due to oil starvation. It was a friends nieces car and supposedly it just quit on her while driving and the shop told her she needed a new motor. That is all the info I have. When I looked at the car the battery was dead so I could not try and turn it over, I did check all the fluids and they were all full and clean. I take possession of it tomorrow and will then charge it and see if it turns over.

My question for you guys is if the motor is toast what should I do? Do I take it to a shop and pay the money for a rebuilt motor tossed in? Do I look for a 6.1 and put that in? Do I pull the motor and rebuild it myself with better internals? I don't need the car and have no time constraint on when it needs to be on the road. I want to make it a weekend cruiser and built up a bit. Money is not much a concern but I am also not rich but tossing 5k or more is not out of the question. I want it to be powerful and reliable at the same time and I am not to interested in a stock vehicle. I have built plenty of vehicles and motors but this is my first go at a car and a Hemi. I am a truck and jeep guy so this is new to me. Any help you guys can give would be great. Also I am looking at building up the entire car and not just the motor if you have any suggestions?
 
#2 ·
Well, its really hard to say what direction to go until you know what you actually have to begin with.

So step 1 would be to see what the current motor is like, can it be salvaged or it it a total basket case.

$5000 is tight, you could find a possibly a 6.1, but not new, so again an unknown base to start with.

If you can salvage the 5.7 block, lots of directions to go, cam, forged internals, heads, but all eat up $5000 pretty quick.

All depends too on how cheap you got the car, but no mater what you do to it, you will never get your money back out of it (unless the engine was a simple fix and you sell it right away), so as you say a weekend cruiser where your not worried about value is a good idea.
 
#4 ·
5k is not my limit. It will be a toy for me so I am not worried about any sort of resale value or how much I have into it. If I have 30k in it by the time I am done so be it. It's only money right? I did not pay for the car, it was given to me in trade for some tractor work to my buddy. I guess I more want to build it up but I only want to build it up once, I don't want to put parts in it that I will be pulling out next year to put something else in. I can get a rebuilt motor installed for 3k from my shop neighbor which is a fair deal but then I just have a stock hemi again, I could go with the 6.1 but is 5-6k for the motor worth the cash or am I better off (If my motor is salvageable) rebuilding mine with all the good parts?
 
#3 ·
Rebuild it, or rebuild/stroke it. You could put your stock heads back on or upgrade, but it'll at least run. Fairly cheap and easy suspension upgrade is to replace the mushy stock R/T stuff with stock SRT stuff, including the sway bars, or you can go bigger than SRT with factory police bars. Brembo upgrade is expensive and requires 20" rims, there are also aftermarket brake options.
 
#5 ·
Before making any decisions, take your block to a rebuild shop for an evaluation. Make sure the block isn't cracked before making plans around it.

Engine builders have lost a lot of skills over the last 20 years, in my experience. The last few rebuilds I've dealt with have been crap. As a result I don't bother with anything other than crate engines. When you look at what you get in a crate vs what a rebuild shop does, you get better results with less money invested in the end. You can even get a Hellcat crate engine, if you want.
 
#6 ·
I agree, when I was younger I could pull a motor and drop it off at the machine shop/ motor shop and come back a few days later and have a nice rebuilt motor. It seems people just don't have the drive and ambitions they used to for building things and taking pride in them. I talked to a couple mechanics about my motor and all said replace. 20 years ago that motor was rebuild able and might as well toss in some upgrades. Not so any more.

I picked the car up today and brought it home, I am going to charge the battery overnight and check it out tomorrow to verify it is actually blown. Can't trust one mechanics word especially if he didn't take anything apart. He said it was oil starvation to the girl but it is full of clean oil and smells fine, usually when you run a motor out of oil it doesn't fill itself back up? Unless I am missing something.
 
#7 ·
Getting ahead of ourselves aren't we? If an engine "starved" for oil it's either got a spun bearing or is locked up. First thing put in a battery and see if it cranks over, if it does then it's not locked up. If it runs does it have a heavy loud knock? If not then check the oil itself for any metal bits? If not I doubt it has a spun bearing.

Do these FIRST no need to pull the engine and send it to the machine shop if it doesn't need it right? ;)
 
#8 ·
OK, I put the charger on it when I got home and tonight it fired up. Only ran it for a few seconds but it almost sounded like it had a crank bearing knock and it wouldn't idle. Revved up fine and sounded good under load. Tomorrow I will run it a little longer and see what happens and then check compression. I am pretty sure something is wrong with it but it would be nice if it was salvagable.
 
#9 ·
Is there any oil pressure? If it runs, It might be worth rebuilding with better parts. If its toast, use the core to buy a rebuilt long block
 
#10 ·
Well good it's not locked up! But any kind of knock is bad! If it's knocking it needs new rod bearings and I'm sure the crank turned. Unless you're in a position to do the rebuild yourself it's time to find a machine shop. Good news is that it's not racing season so turn around shouldn't be THAT bad.

While it's out slap in a mild cam and think about head work.

Sorry it's knocking but at least it's salvageable, I'd recommend NOT firing it up again and doing any more damage.
 
#11 ·
So I ran it this morning for a bit. Ran fine for the most part, no knock. Has a miss and a misfire code. Drove it around the block and it drove ok, smokes when I get on it under load and pretty sure it's running on 6 or 7 cylinders. I'm not going to run it any more except to pull it in the garage. I'm going to pull the motor and see about having it rebuilt with some better parts. I am confident in my motor working skills but I will leave any machining to the machine shop.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I think I'd check it with a code reader. Might be something as simple as a bad coil. Not all mechanics are ethical. I knew a trans rebuilder who charged a guy for a transmission rebuild when all the guy needed was a new trans mount. The guy was bragging about it, obviously not realizing that he was bragging about screwing a customer to a bunch of potential customers. Was, emphasis on was, a friend of my dad's, but we refuse to associate with this sort of person so that ended that. Anyway, be worth checking.


Also, on another board I frequent, this was posted. Putting it up for your reading pleasure. This is aimed more towards GM vehicles, but can be applied to anything.


http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27540/regular-car-reviews-ls-powered-chevy-colorado/?src=social-email
http://sloppymechanics.com/
 
#15 ·
RustyNut:
Before you pull it, you may want to look more closely at the valvetrain. The early Hemi's had issues with valve springs breaking as well as valve seats coming loose and dropping a valve.
You may be able to get her back on the road by just rebuilding the heads.
If you are determined to pull it anyway, just be aware of these issues.

Don
 
#16 ·
So long as the heads aren't messed up as described above gasket matching is always easy to do yourself with a dremel tool. While you're there gasket match the intake too.

I'm not familiar enough with the new hemi to recommend cam specs but a nice cam kit (cam, lifters, valve springs all matched to each other)

High volume NOT high pressure oil pump.

How crazy do you want to build it?
 
#17 ·
I don't recommend a high volume oil pump. A standard oil pump is more than enough for anything you can build. The only reason for using a high volume or high pressure oil pump is if you have to pump oil to a super/turbo charger. Otherwise, they just rob horsepower.

However, if you decide to run one anyway, make certain you open up the oil return passages. A high volume can pump the oil pan dry, pumping all the oil into the valve covers. The existing passages are designed for a standard oil pump, so you'll want to make sure the return passages are large enough to let the oil run back to the pan.
 
#18 ·
How much oil do you think a high volume pump pumps? Now unless it's different in newer hemi engines then GM and old school Dodge engines all it does is open the inlet side of the pump so it can pick up more oil and the inside of the oil pump where the impellers are is larger. But the engines oil passages are all still the same size so it's not going to pump the pan dry, at least none of the engines I've ever built have done that.

Rob H/P? Now on this one I guess it's possible as the pump internals are larger and exposed to more oil buuuuuut how much of a loss are we talking here? A 10th of a H/P? A 1/4? I've never seen it be any kind of measurable amount on engine dynos.

Hey if the hemi's stock oil pump is good enough then stick with it by all means! :D
 
#22 ·
Admittedly as a GM man I'm not up on how Dodge does things, but a Chevy engine is fully capable of pumping the pan dry with a high volume pump. High volume means it's moving more oil per rotation than a standard oil pump, and the engine isn't designed for it. This is why the passages need to be opened or at higher RPMs the pump will move more oil than gravity can pull back down. I wasn't able to find anything definitive on how much HP the oil pump will use, but this site claims the stock pump will draw 14HP while a Mopar high performance pump will draw 21HP. I posted it because this is more or less accurate. It actually takes quite a bit of power to move oil under pressure through an engine.
 
#19 ·
Not sure how crazy I want it but I figure if I have the motor out I might as well do everything any of you guys would want to do. Spend the money once and not regret or wish I would have done something else. I want the motor built but I also want it reliable and have longevity.
 
#20 ·
Don't build it how WE want it built, build it how YOU want it built! LOL!

Besides bigger cam and port work get the bottom end balanced as well as the depths of your pockets will allow. Same for the valve train get the best you can aford.

Just research the machine shop you work with and make sure you get any gaurentee in writing from them! Lessons learned the hard way I'm afraid.
 
#31 ·
I am trying to find a machine shop now. Plan on pulling the motor next week and starting this process.

The motor fires everyday and runs, I believe it is either spitting coolant or oil out the back, whatever it is it does not dry up on my gravel driveway. It smokes but runs pretty good otherwise. I don't want to take any chances anything failing because I didn't want to rebuild the entire thing. Also I only want to pull it once so hopefully I do it right.

I picked up a set of Kooks long tube headers so now I need to make the rest match them.
 
#21 ·
Oh also if you want the engine to make 500 hp have it built to handle 700 hp. You'll be able to run it for years and years and never have any problems.

The last engine I built I had the crank spin ballanced to 15,000 rpm, forged rods were mirror polished. Piston, rings, rod and wrist pins were ballanced to .000 grams. Ran 1 piece sever duty stainless steel valves with sodium in the exhaust stems, titanium keepers, balanced Harlond Sharp roller rockers, and a custom speced by me camshaft. It displaced 427 cubic inches when it was done and made over 650 rwhp in my 72 Formula Firebird. DamN that car was FUUUUUUUUUN!
 
#24 ·
It's not hard. It depends on how quickly the heads and related passages can drain oil back vs how much oil the pump can move. Remember that the pump is moving the oil under force, but it's only draining back through gravity feed which is much slower. May not be an issue on Hemis, I've never built one before, but since I know for a fact that it's possible I felt it important to bring it up. As long as you have 3PSI per 1000RPM, the engine will live. A Hemi runs 6000RPM, so 18PSI is all that is needed. A stock oil pump runs up to 60PSI, so is perfectly capable of oiling the engine. If you want to get an aftermarket it's fine, but a standard pressure/volume pump is all that is needed for a normally aspirated engine.
 
#28 ·
Those are minimums. Below that and the engine is damaged. Obviously you won't want to run at that level. The whole point is, a standard oil pump is suitable for pretty much anything normally aspirated that you can put on the street.
 
#32 ·
Where are you located? Pull the motor and send it to Stu at inertia motor sports if near TX. Arrington if near VA, socal I'd recommend Lonnie Bartley at MPR. OST Midwest, AJ in NY. All solid mopar guys that will do right by you. If you want to do your own work at least give one of them a call. Extremely helpful. Stu built my motor, Lonnie installed and AJ tuned. HHP is another solid shop. Good luck.
 
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