Rear Sump Oil Pan Swap
Since my motor is an LX-based crate engine, the front-sump pan needs to be swapped out for a rear-sump style. My crate motor came with a Mopar Rear Sump Oil Pan Kit, Part# 77072450AB. If your engine came from a truck, you'll already be set up for a rear sump and won't have to worry about anything.
The crate motor came pre-filled with engine oil, something I was NOT expecting! The only reason I thought to check this was because over the weekend, I was putting gear lube inside my 1-tons, and when I went to fill the front Mopar UD60, I was shocked to find that it was already full! I'm glad that I check it before flipping the engine around or pulling the pan, as this would have been a spectacular mess on my garage floor...
It's a lot easier to do the pan and adapter swap while the engine is flipped around. In anticipation of the arrival of my Speedway Motors BlockDock Lift plate, I pulled the intake and put some tape down over the ports to keep crude and dust out. Even though the lift plate covers the intake ports, I figured this was a good bit of insurance.
You can see some more engine-related items once you get the intake off. The red arrow above shows the VVT control solenoid; all 2009+ VVT engines will have this. The blue arrows (above image) are pointing to the MDS-delete plugs. If this had this been a take-out engine from a SUV, Ram 1500, or car, these would be MDS control solenoids and would have some wires attached (green arrows below):
All modern Hemis have MDS, so if you're getting a used engine, it will likely have MDS. The only non-MDS engines in the current line up are the 6-speed (manual trans) Challengers and all Hellcat 6.2L equipped cars. The earlier Ram 2500/3500 with a 5.7 were non-MDS, but you haven't been able to get a 5.7 L Ram HD truck for quite some time.
One of the things I least look forward to on engine work is flipping the motor on the stand. I'm a big guy, and am plenty beefy for this, but after having a cylinder head almost crush my foot at the ripe ol' age of 15, I've hated it ever since. What had happened was the "pin" that keeps the center plate stable wasn't in, and as I started torquing the head bolts down, it spun around and dumped a 906 casting right where my foot was. I was able to move my foot fast enough to prevent it from getting crushed by the leading edge, but it still gave me a nasty bruise (and likely a broken toe or two).
Thankfully, this flip went uneventfully and I got to moving on the pan and filter adapter swap. The pan is easy to remove, and the instructions are easy to follow, just keep in mind that the rear sump pan will require you to swap out one of the middle main bearing cap bolts (yellow arrow) and swap it with a double-ended stud (included in the kit). This is because the rear sump is long and the double-ended stud offers a location to bolt the pickup support to.
One quick tip here - one step that is easy to miss during the installation is the removal of the dipstick plug in the block. You can see the removed plug in the below image, on top of the block lip just above the hole where it came out of. The front-sump pan has a dipstick that goes through the pan itself, but the rear sump pan utilizes a hole in the block. Again, if your engine is already setup for a rear sump, this isn't a problem, but if you're going to use an LX block, you'll need to remember to punch this plug out BEFORE mounting the pan itself. It is easy to do with a simple drift punch and a few light taps with a hammer.
The install instructions are simple, just follow them and you'll be fine. The installation finishes with the installation of the dipstick through the block hole that you opened up with the removal of the plug mentioned earlier. One issue I ran into was that the dipstick was hitting the Mopar SRT Manifolds:
To fix the issue, I simply used my hands to exaggerate the bends a bit more, then put a small bend in the tab that mounts to the exhaust manifold stud:
Since my motor is an LX-based crate engine, the front-sump pan needs to be swapped out for a rear-sump style. My crate motor came with a Mopar Rear Sump Oil Pan Kit, Part# 77072450AB. If your engine came from a truck, you'll already be set up for a rear sump and won't have to worry about anything.
The crate motor came pre-filled with engine oil, something I was NOT expecting! The only reason I thought to check this was because over the weekend, I was putting gear lube inside my 1-tons, and when I went to fill the front Mopar UD60, I was shocked to find that it was already full! I'm glad that I check it before flipping the engine around or pulling the pan, as this would have been a spectacular mess on my garage floor...
It's a lot easier to do the pan and adapter swap while the engine is flipped around. In anticipation of the arrival of my Speedway Motors BlockDock Lift plate, I pulled the intake and put some tape down over the ports to keep crude and dust out. Even though the lift plate covers the intake ports, I figured this was a good bit of insurance.
You can see some more engine-related items once you get the intake off. The red arrow above shows the VVT control solenoid; all 2009+ VVT engines will have this. The blue arrows (above image) are pointing to the MDS-delete plugs. If this had this been a take-out engine from a SUV, Ram 1500, or car, these would be MDS control solenoids and would have some wires attached (green arrows below):
All modern Hemis have MDS, so if you're getting a used engine, it will likely have MDS. The only non-MDS engines in the current line up are the 6-speed (manual trans) Challengers and all Hellcat 6.2L equipped cars. The earlier Ram 2500/3500 with a 5.7 were non-MDS, but you haven't been able to get a 5.7 L Ram HD truck for quite some time.
One of the things I least look forward to on engine work is flipping the motor on the stand. I'm a big guy, and am plenty beefy for this, but after having a cylinder head almost crush my foot at the ripe ol' age of 15, I've hated it ever since. What had happened was the "pin" that keeps the center plate stable wasn't in, and as I started torquing the head bolts down, it spun around and dumped a 906 casting right where my foot was. I was able to move my foot fast enough to prevent it from getting crushed by the leading edge, but it still gave me a nasty bruise (and likely a broken toe or two).
Thankfully, this flip went uneventfully and I got to moving on the pan and filter adapter swap. The pan is easy to remove, and the instructions are easy to follow, just keep in mind that the rear sump pan will require you to swap out one of the middle main bearing cap bolts (yellow arrow) and swap it with a double-ended stud (included in the kit). This is because the rear sump is long and the double-ended stud offers a location to bolt the pickup support to.
One quick tip here - one step that is easy to miss during the installation is the removal of the dipstick plug in the block. You can see the removed plug in the below image, on top of the block lip just above the hole where it came out of. The front-sump pan has a dipstick that goes through the pan itself, but the rear sump pan utilizes a hole in the block. Again, if your engine is already setup for a rear sump, this isn't a problem, but if you're going to use an LX block, you'll need to remember to punch this plug out BEFORE mounting the pan itself. It is easy to do with a simple drift punch and a few light taps with a hammer.
The install instructions are simple, just follow them and you'll be fine. The installation finishes with the installation of the dipstick through the block hole that you opened up with the removal of the plug mentioned earlier. One issue I ran into was that the dipstick was hitting the Mopar SRT Manifolds:
To fix the issue, I simply used my hands to exaggerate the bends a bit more, then put a small bend in the tab that mounts to the exhaust manifold stud:
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