We Look Inside a Ram HEMI V8 After Months Of Torturous Driving! The Hard Road To Vegas – Ep.5 (Video)

Torturing the truck with maximum load in maximum heat resulted in this.

shell rotella ram rebel las vegas gas truck oil synthetic
Ram Rebel Rouse on the Hard Road to Las Vegas

We take the hard road to Las Vegas, NV for the 2019 SEMA show in our Ram Rebel Rouser project truck for this final (5th) episode in our Torture Test series with Shell Rotella Gas Truck oil.

We also look inside the HEMI V8 engine to see how the engine held up after all of the torture and abuse.

Ike Gauntlet – World’s Toughest Towing Test

The first episode was all about heavy towing on the Ike Gauntlet™ – world’s toughest towing test. We loaded a trailer to a total weight of about 10,200 lbs, maxed out the Ram Rebel on payload, and towed down and up an 8-mile stretch of I-70 at the Eisenhower/Johnson memorial tunnels. The oil temperature got to nearly 290F while going up the 7% grade to over 11,153 ft above sea level.

This test put the engine under very high load at highway speeds and heated up the oil to the maximum.

Hell’s Revenge Trail in the Middle of Summer

The second episode saw us on the Hell’s Revenge trail in Moab, Utah in the middle of summer. It was 110F that day, and the truck was crawling over rocks on one of the more challenging off-road trail in Moab.

This test put the oil and engine’s cooling capability under maximum stress with high ambient temperature and very slow going.

Highest Road in America

Next we loaded the truck with a 1,000 lbs of fire wood and drove up and down the highest elevation auto road in the country – Mt. Evans road. Once again, we maxed out the truck’s payload and drove to over 14,000 feet above sea level. There is about 42% less oxygen at this elevation than at sea level, and the engine is losing a lot of power at this altitude.

The engine is working hard to haul the maximum weight up the mountain.

Long Distance Overland Trip

The fourth episode was about traveling long distance on a cross-country camping trip. We put about 2,300 miles on the truck in about four days while towing an off-road camping trailer that weighs nearly 2,500 lbs with all the accessories and a roof-top tent.

On the way back from Oregon to Colorado, we drove about 1,000 miles in one day, and it rained nearly the entire way.

Hard Road to Vegas

Finally, we drove the truck about 750 miles from Colorado to Las Vegas, NV for the 2019 SEMA show. We stayed off the main interstate as much as possible. We went through the deep snow in the Rocky Mountains and the mud in Utah.

We put around 8,000 miles on the truck in about 5 months on one Shell Rotella Gas Truck oil change. We are not done yet. We changed the oil in Vegas, and then drove another 1,400 mile to College Station, TX for the engine analysis.

It was comforting to see that the cylinder walls of the 5.7-liter HEMI V8 still had their original cross-hatching from the factory without any burn or scoring.

The truck now has about 20,000 miles on it, and it’s still going strong.