Mr_Cuddlez88
Junior Member
BLUF: Catastrophic lifter/CAM failure pictures attached for your time. 2011 RAM 1500 Sport with the 5.7, 194k miles. Had the lifter issue a couple years ago, started a long road of repairs that have led to my first post here. I am NOT mechanically inclined past what I've had to teach myself. Brief timeline to follow. I don't have an OBDII reader (until tomorrow), so a lot of this was me using the excuse to learn my truck and buy tools. I've replaced the lifters, push rods, cam, injectors, coil packs, spark plugs, VVT solenoids (all 5), and VVT solenoid wiring harness up to this point. I have no vacuum issues.
January 2020 I had the flashing engine light, took it in and replaced the lifters, pushrods, cam etc and had the mechanic put in a new exhaust manifold and headers. Bottom half of my engine is brand new, besides the block itself. No issues for a long time.
May-ish 2021, misfire appears. I'm in Southern California so it's cheaper to just have the oil change place on base do my oil change, and I had them run my codes. Came up P1416. Did some minor troubleshooting/research and decided to let the truck warm up for 10-15 minutes before driving it. Misfire COMPLETELY disappeared, and would not come back if I let the truck warm up. Decided to replace spark plugs since it seemed easy enough, didnt solve the issue.
June 2021 I get a little birthday money and bring the truck into a dealer. They tell me I have a failed lifter causing a misfire (P0306), that my intake manifold is cracked, and I need to replace the exhaust manifold. It was a lot of hot smoke up my rear end, but they did recommend I replace the VVT solenoids and wiring harness. So I order them myself and replace them, learning a lot about the weight of an intake manifold and how the solenoids like to break in half. IMPORTANT NOTE: One of the runners on my intake manifold was bone dry, and it happened to be my misfiring cylinder (see pictures). Got that done in a day, but the next day the misfire returned. My dry runner led me to think fuel injector.
July 2021, replaced the fuel injector with a new OEM part. Misfire went away for a day, then returned. I started a lot of field operations at work so I put the whole thing on the backburner.
Nov 27, 2021, I replace all the ignition coils/coil packs (now the red TRQ "performance" coils from 1aAuto) and all but 4 spark plugs (behind the brake booster, didn't know how to remove it). Drove fine for a minute, misfire came right on back.
The only thing I have left to replace now is the wires going from the coils to the injectors, possibly check solders under the fuse box (because heating the underhood area seems to fix the problem, and copper tends to expand under heat), or it is in fact the lifter again and it's just survived for 6 months without breaking, and having the problem fix itself with heat. I'm truly at a loss here, so I have an OBDII reader coming in tomorrow. Plan to swap the wires from one coil to another and see if the code switches cylinders. Will update when I do that, but wanting the village to brainstorm and see if anyone here has a clue what my next step should be, if I need one.
Last note, does anyone know what those wires connecting the coil pack and injector are called, or a part number? I can't seem to find anything.
January 2020 I had the flashing engine light, took it in and replaced the lifters, pushrods, cam etc and had the mechanic put in a new exhaust manifold and headers. Bottom half of my engine is brand new, besides the block itself. No issues for a long time.
May-ish 2021, misfire appears. I'm in Southern California so it's cheaper to just have the oil change place on base do my oil change, and I had them run my codes. Came up P1416. Did some minor troubleshooting/research and decided to let the truck warm up for 10-15 minutes before driving it. Misfire COMPLETELY disappeared, and would not come back if I let the truck warm up. Decided to replace spark plugs since it seemed easy enough, didnt solve the issue.
June 2021 I get a little birthday money and bring the truck into a dealer. They tell me I have a failed lifter causing a misfire (P0306), that my intake manifold is cracked, and I need to replace the exhaust manifold. It was a lot of hot smoke up my rear end, but they did recommend I replace the VVT solenoids and wiring harness. So I order them myself and replace them, learning a lot about the weight of an intake manifold and how the solenoids like to break in half. IMPORTANT NOTE: One of the runners on my intake manifold was bone dry, and it happened to be my misfiring cylinder (see pictures). Got that done in a day, but the next day the misfire returned. My dry runner led me to think fuel injector.
July 2021, replaced the fuel injector with a new OEM part. Misfire went away for a day, then returned. I started a lot of field operations at work so I put the whole thing on the backburner.
Nov 27, 2021, I replace all the ignition coils/coil packs (now the red TRQ "performance" coils from 1aAuto) and all but 4 spark plugs (behind the brake booster, didn't know how to remove it). Drove fine for a minute, misfire came right on back.
The only thing I have left to replace now is the wires going from the coils to the injectors, possibly check solders under the fuse box (because heating the underhood area seems to fix the problem, and copper tends to expand under heat), or it is in fact the lifter again and it's just survived for 6 months without breaking, and having the problem fix itself with heat. I'm truly at a loss here, so I have an OBDII reader coming in tomorrow. Plan to swap the wires from one coil to another and see if the code switches cylinders. Will update when I do that, but wanting the village to brainstorm and see if anyone here has a clue what my next step should be, if I need one.
Last note, does anyone know what those wires connecting the coil pack and injector are called, or a part number? I can't seem to find anything.