Caine espinoza
Member
i have a 2012 ram 1500 bighorn and ive had it for about 3 years. i bought it with 86k miles on it with a bad PCM. replcaed the PCM with a brand new one from chrystler and put almost 100k hard miles on it in about 2 years with oil changes every 3k with castrol gtx high milage, it has been a solid beast of a truck thus far. at about 180k i got the hemi tick, kept driving it to work and about 2 weeks later it was a full blown knock. i already knew what it was but i took it to a shop to have a second oppinion hoping i was wrong but they confirmed my suspensions that a lifter failed and was eating the cam then quoated me $6,900 to go back stock. i knew the MDS system is what caused the failure so going back stock was out of the question. so i did some research and decided to go with a texas speed stage 2 cam kit with the phaser lock and went with the upgraded manton push rods and pac racing springs. i also replaced the oil pump ands pickup tube, timing set, waterpump, harmonic balancer, belt tentioner assembley, serpentine belt, NGK plugs and coils, had a complete valve job done on the heads and put felpro gaskets everywhere. i wanted to break it in before i put it on the dyno so i had the tuner put a base map on it so it would run, i put around 40 very soft miles on it and it started knocking again but this time it sounds like its coming from the bottom. i listened to it at about 3k RPM and the lifters and everything sound good so im thinking its a rod bearing or main bearing, so its been sitting in my front yard for about 3 month now. i have too much money invested in it this far to just abandon it plus i love the truck so ive decided to buy a 5.7 based 392 stroker from MMX and swap everything except the oil pump, pickup tube and lifters from the motor in the truck to the stroker motor and installing it in my truck. i want to use the stage 2 cam thats in it as long as there isnt any markings because its brand new but i dont know if its gonna be enough for this stroker motor. im ordering JBA longtubes with 3" catless y pipe and a holly ****** efi intake manifold when i order the short block. has anyone on here done this swap? any insite would be cool like am i gonna have a clearence issue with the factory eagle heads, cam recomendations, maybe a larger solid tubing pushrod. any advice is much appreciated since i plan to do this work myself
thanks
thanks