Was concerned about MDS ("Multi Displacement System") in my DSRT 392 ... not anymore!

This guy has been a Dodge Tech for 12 years, seems like he knows what he's talking about ...

Do you have the high volume oil pump in your DSRT?

I eliminated the MDS on my 5.7 Hemi truck using a Comp Cams cam and MDS solenoid plugs along with VVT lock out, Jon did my tune to make it run right
I lost lifter and lobe #7 in my engine so made it a dumb V8 as it should be! I installed the Melling standard volume HP oil pump when I did mine and it has been very good and I run 65psi at idle and around 75-85psi running down the highway, which is 80% of my drive time.

All it takes is one person giving false bad info and for some reason everyone believes it. My thought is why do some have issues and others don't? Could it be the oil used?

My 09 Jeep is my winter vehicle. When I'm at lunch I go out and start it if it is cold and it will idle for 20 minutes which in the video says that is the lowest oil pressure. I will give it slight revs every once in awhile because I have heard idling can be bad so may be some truth to that. It has 177k on it with only 20k since I have owned it. I run valvoline high mileage in it. My guess is it had many different oils ran in it before I bought it and I'm the 3rd owner. So without putting a different oil pump in it I wonder if there is anything different I can do like adding zinc and phosphorus like what is needed for flat tappet cams would help protect the cam and lifters. Maybe just an oil supply issue?

My understanding is it is definitely a supply issue. I don't idle my truck much and its mostly highway driving with about 20% in town. I bought my truck new in 13 and switched to Royal Purple oil after the first 500 miles. I am guilty of the 10,000 mile oil change thing but do it right at 10k and I made it to 187,000 before I lost lifter #7 and I am now at 212,250 miles and still run the same oil but with the HP pump. I am not sure if there is anything you can do to stop it unless you change out oil pump BEFORE the cam and lifters go? That is the only thing that I think might help but that is still no guarantee!!
When I did mine I also had I believe 9 broken manifold bolts! More broken than good, not sure how the exhaust manifolds we're still attached to the heads

Excessive idling seems to be a common cause if failure, as does using the wrong oil. I have 449,000 miles on my Ram with the 5.7 and MDS. I wish I had a nickel for every YouTube genius with a theory and another nickel for everyone that believed them.

Nope.

According to what he said in his vids, the two major causes of the hemi tick and subsequent damage are:

• chronic, extended long term idling
• extended oil change intervals

I just got my '22 DSRT 392 used, so I can't do anything about the previous owners single extended oil change.

But she still has pretty low miles, and from here on in I will continue to do oil changes at 5,000 mi intervals as I've done now for decades.

Wow. Lifters were still good until 187,000 even with 10,000 oil changes?

That's pretty dang good!

Agreed! That's how I came across this Dodge Tech.

I was reading all the stories from people on the net who blamed the hemi tick on this, that, or the other thing.

But this guy put those people in their places and set them straight.

I caught a bad lifter at 144,000 miles in my 2013 Daytona 5.7 before it wiped the cam. It was a non MDS lifter in #5 cylinder. The needle roller bearing went out and I had an engine code that read miss detected in Cyl #5. The car was a daily driver for mostly highway miles. Changed the oil every 5,000 miles or less religiously at the Dodge dealer using BG MOA oil additive. BG offers a warranty up to $4,000 parts and labor if you follow their guidelines. You have to remove the head to replace the lifter. The Dodge service manager forwarded my service history to BG and BG covered my $2,300 lifter replacement 100% in less than 24 hours! I did not have excessive idling. My oil pressure at idle was typically 30 psi and 53 psi at normal speed. I believe it’s just the lifters are a weak point. Some last more than others but the needle roller bearings don’t last forever regardless of the oil pressure. In the future, I will replace the lifters every 100-125k miles in my 5.7 if I want to keep the vehicle...but I probably won’t keep my 2021 JGC 5.7 TrailHawk that long. It will be available in the next 2 years @vortecd if you want to get another well maintained 5.7 Jeep? They aren’t available anymore…

I replaced the cam, lifters, VVT, timing chain, oil pump, and eliminated the MDS system on my daughter's 2014 392 Charger (around 90,000 miles?). I used the Hellcat high volume oil pump. This was all done after losing the lifter on cylinder #2, and wiping the cam lobe.
I think I have watched all of the videos the guy on reignited put out on this issue as well as many other claiming to have found the root cause. The guy from reignited makes the best case so far and it sounds like he has seen more than a few hemi motors with this issue.
In his other videos he mentioned he has seen this issue much more commonly after the introduction of the VVT (around 2009 ?).
Personally I think the VVT system when operating with the MDS system, low oil volume, and possibly dirty oil may all combine to create oil starvation issues. Another couple contributing factors could be the lifter guides not adequately controlling lifter rotation and the needle bearings in the lifter roller.
Here are some pics of what I found on my daughter's 392:

I am not claiming to know the causes but I think the reignited guy's theories make the most sense. My daughters issue was with a non-MDS cylinder and I can only speak for what I witnessed.
If you go with the MDS delete (cam and lifters) consider using the aluminum MDS plugs with a light film of RTV on the top o-rings and clean the MDS cylinder carefully on the top o-ring surface - oil leaks are not uncommon in this area (ask me how I know - been there done that)

On my 5.7 R/T I pressed the ECO button to turn that off on the way home from taking delivery & never turned it back on.

I hated it in the short time I had the 392, seemed to bog & drone right around 45/55 mph which is the speed limit on most roads around here.
No button to kill it on the SRT other than driving constantly in Sport mode which absolutely destroyed the MPH and just wasn't necessary for around town driving. I would have eliminated it if I had kept the thing.

Looking at durangos next

MDS does nothing and its a waste. After deleting it I noticed 0 mpg difference yes 0. Its just a sham!

Is getting a bad lifter after 144,000 miles really that bad/unexpected?

So from what I'm seeing people reporting here, with good maintenance my 392 should last 100,000-150,000 miles before any lifter/cam issues.

Up until then, I purchased Dodge's 100k extended warranty so I have that.

I haven't done a thorough test yet, but so far it seems MDS nets me another 2.5 mpg (from ~15 mpg to 17.5 mpg).

If that is the case and I drive ~12,000 mi/year, that works out to a monthly fuel savings of ~$40 month.

Maintenance on my daughters Charger was unknown for the first 60K as it was purchased used.

Maybe not but a failed lifter and wiped cam at any time is catastrophic. Why just one lifter and not all of them at the same time? It just takes one needle bearing to go bad and there is no way to predict when. Is quality control better with factory parts or aftermarket? If you replace lifters at 100,000 miles, will the new ones last another 100,000? So many questions.

I have read that the Hellcats had a new lifter design with larger needle bearings, but I have not seen it firsthand or compared the design changes. Supposedly that design change was carried forward - but I do not know that for a fact.
I like that the lifter oil galleries would see more oil - MDS plugs in the Hellcats/manual trans motors allow more oil to at least some of the lifters due to the MDS galleries being open all the time from what I see. But, One misconception I originally had was that the MDS solenoids restricted oil when in MDS mode - thats incorrect. The MDS solenoids use oil pressure in the MDS passages to turn the MDS lifters off (turning the MDS on and allowing the MDS lifters to collapse - and then not opening the valve). I tried to use MDS delete plugs in place of the solenoids which converted my hemi V8 into a four cylinder.
I had to tear the intake back off and add new MDS solenoids - as long as you have MDS lifters you need the MDS solenoids to restrict the oil so it will run on all eight cylinders.
The system is fairly simple, but understanding the oiling system and the impacts on the MDS system isnt well defined for those of us not in the know, so I am just trying to share what I have learned.

Mine had a fraction of that mileage when I purchased it, but I still wonder anyways ...

Definitely many questions, but what I'm looking for are if there's widespread cases of cam/lifter failure on vehicles that don't have over 100,000 miles.

Because if that were the case, it would indicate to me something else altogether.

There are a lot of smart (and a few not so smart) people on BITOG. This gets discussed a lot. There’s a good case to be made for just occasional batches of bad metallurgy from outsourced suppliers. Many Hemis see 200K with no problems. Others aren’t so lucky.

Good point with the metallurgy comment, looking at my failure and seeing "wear" failures for a bearing surface, or multiple bearing surfaces (needle bearings and trunnion) in my case is concerning from a part spec requirement standpoint, meaning it points to a design failure or heat treat failure where lubrication is actually present in sufficient quantity.