Ram 6.4L Hemi vs good ol' 8.1L
Had the flu this week so spent a lot of time sitting around watching TV and Googling stuff....I got to thinking that my next truck will probably be a well-equipped Ram 2500, crew cab, 6'4" bed, with t...
Forum Discussion
blofgren wrote:campingken wrote:
Send a PM to ib516. He owned a 6.4 with 4.10 gears that he was very happy with. Before he bought this truck he did a post on why he chose the 6.4 over a diesel (his previous truck was a 5.9 Cummins).
x2. He has several good Youtube videos on it as well.
Here I am!
Yes, I enjoyed my Ram 6.4L Hemi/4.10 combo. I pulled a 12k 5er with it, ran at 21k GCW. It did fine. There was only one time I tried accelerating pulling a grade and couldn't with my foot flat on the floor. You can't be afraid of high RPMs when pulling though. Mine ran in 4th or 5th, never 6th. Mpg was about the same in 4th or 5th while pulling, 7-9 mpg, usually 8 mpg hauling the 5er. It was a 37' unit with 3 slides. (Cougar in sig). For reference, the previous 5.9L Cummins/Megacab/3.73/3500 SRW got about 10 or 11 mpg hauling the same 5er, so about 2 mpg better. It also did 2-3 mpg better when running empty, and used much lower RPM while towing.
The truck would do over 60 mph in 2nd gear, so if you lost speed on a grade (to 45-50 mph before downshifting), it would downshift to 2nd gear and get up to 5500 RPM or so before shifting to 3rd. The 1-2 gap folks have mentioned only comes into play when accelerating from a stop, and it's only noticeable when loaded. The engine RPM drop just a bit too much from 1st to 2nd, and it takes about a second to recover and climb back into the power band where the engine RPMs start climbing again. It is noticeable, but not a deal killer.
Empty, in perfect conditions, it would do 18-20 mpg, but was usually around 15-16 mpg at 65 mph. I was pretty impressed with the mpg actually considering it had 4.10s and it is a big truck.
Performance was excellent, towing or not. Really happy there. I pulled up and over every grade I could find in the Canadian Rockies with mine.
I would buy another 6.4/4.10 truck in a heartbeat if I needed a 2500 truck. I have a small hybrid now, and will likely not get anything much bigger, so a 1500 will do me when I can afford to upgrade.
