Hey boys & girl(s),

I'm in a position to unload my 2nd gen (potentially) for a new vehicle. Actually, I don't HAVE to have a truck anymore. Been seriously contemplating the Challenger R/T Classic package, and I wanted to know y'alls biggest beef(s) with the 5.7 hemi engine. I know more than average truck owners wrench on their own stuff, so I figured most of you all have had a good chance to fight your battles with the problems particular to this engine, so I'd like to know what's the most common complaints you all run into. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

I moved up from my 2nd gen 5.2L to the 5.7L Hemi about a year and a half ago and have been very pleased. A little over 80,000 miles and my engine hasn't had anything but regular maitainance. Changing the 16 plugs are nothing like he 15 minute job it was to change the 8 on the 5.2L. A good throttle body cleaning is usually a good idea, but very simple. I believe the EGR valve likes to crap out around the 60 000 (IIRC). That's about all I got, not as much fun (easy) to work on as my 5.2L but haven't had to do as much work on the 5.7L so far.

 

Damn, they put EGR back in? Why the hell'd they do that?

And what's all this MDS hating read? I haven't seen a specific reason it's bad, just a few complaints about it. Does it cause issues hauling? I thought I had read somewhere that you can use non MDS lifters, and get a custom MDS disable tune for SCT, but I don't know if SCT has caught up with the 09 hemis

 

MDS is better in a lighter car. At speeds above 55mph in the heavy truck it tends to kick in and out trying to hold speed.
If you get the manual transmission in the R/T Challenger (I would), then it won't have MDS. The other complaint is that when you put louder exhaust on the truck/car, it sounds funky when the MDS kicks in.
If I didn't need a truck to haul my trailer around, I would have a 6-speed, B5 blue Classic R/T myself!!

This is why I need a truck, my 20ft flatbed/car trailer with 7500lb winch for the dead ones

 

Most of the MDS hating comes from the doing the exhaust as lxman1 eluded to and if you happen to drive at just the right throttle/speed it'll jump in and out of MDS. I don't have MDS so I don't have personal experience with it, but I've heard a buddies truck with custom exhaust when it kicks in and........well......ya it's interesting. For the trucks right now you can shut off the MDS with Superchips and Diablo programmers, I'm assuming that would be the case as well with the Challenger

 

Thanks for the help guys, seems like the 5.7 is a pretty solid piece.