The Hemi is back, baby! After a year off for reasons we’ll get to, the 5.7-liter V-8 is back in the 2026 Ram 1500. The engine that replaced it, the 3.0-liter twin-turbo Hurricane I-6, is still around, so which one is right for you?
That Thing Got a Hemi?
If you missed the news, Ram took the Hemi out of the new Ram 1500 last year only to put it back this year. Why? A decade of product planning decisions at parent company Stellantis that painted it into a corner. Ram (and Dodge) were happy to crank out V-8 engines and pay fines to the government or buy credits from competing automakers for failing to meet corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for years, but former CEO Carlos Tavares decided that wasn’t financially responsible anymore. The V-8 went, and fans were big mad.
Tavares then also went, and new CEO Antonio Filosa reversed course and brought the V-8 back. He also got lucky, because right around the same time, the second Trump administration came to power and earlier this year cut those pesky fines to zero dollars. Hemis for all!
Of course, it’s not like the Ram 1500 didn’t have an engine for the past year. The rather old Hemi was replaced with the all-new Hurricane 3.0-liter twin-turbo I-6 in two flavors, standard output and high output. Turbocharged six-cylinder trucks are nothing new, of course; Ford has been doing them for 15 years. We thought the Hurricane and the truck it’s bolted to were good enough to be our 2025 Truck of the Year. Now that you have the choice, though, which one should you get?
Bench Racing
On paper, it’s no contest. The Hurricane I-6 (in the red truck) makes more power and torque, weighs less, and gets better fuel economy than the Hemi V-8 (in the white truck). By the numbers, the standard-output I-6 makes 420 hp and 469 lb-ft to the V-8’s 395 hp and 410 lb-ft. The V-8 is equipped with Ram’s e-Torque mild hybrid system, which can contribute up to 130 lb-ft of additional torque but does not change the engine’s peak output.
Of course, if you buy a top trim level, you’ll get the high-output Hurricane, which makes 540 hp and 521 lb-ft. There is no V-8 equivalent.
Ram doesn’t list engine weight in its specs, but we can see from the payload and gross vehicle weight ratings the all-aluminum twin-turbo I-6 is somewhere between 160 and 210 pounds lighter than the mild hybrid cast-iron V-8. In our nearly identical trucks, the weight difference after options was just 64 pounds.
Optioning the heavier engine means payload goes down, so the Hemi can haul less weight in the cab and bed. (Passengers and cargo both count toward payload, not to mention trailer tongue weight.) Across trims, the Hurricane can haul 160 to 210 pounds more. The weight of the Hemi also counts against its max tow rating, which is 170 to 1,610 pounds lower than the Hurricane depending on rear axle ratio and whether it’s 2WD or 4WD.
The V-8 is currently only available in 4WD, which nets EPA ratings of 16/20/18 mpg city/highway/combined. The standard-output I-6 4WD for 2025 got 17/24/19 mpg city/highway/combined (that’s up slightly to 18/24/20 this year). Per EPA estimates, our I-6 will cost $2,350 per year in gas money while the V-8 will run you $3,100 a year. Individual fill-ups will also be more expensive with the V-8 because it automatically comes paired with a 33-gallon fuel tank, up from 26 gallons standard.
Actual Racing
Unsurprisingly, the lighter engine with more power and torque is quicker in a straight line. The truck with the Hurricane needed just 5.3 seconds to hit 60 mph and ran a quarter mile in 14 seconds flat at 95.1 mph. The V-8 roared to 60 mph in 6.1 seconds and needed 14.6 seconds at 94.6 mph for the quarter. Passing is similarly quicker for the Hurricane, taking 2.9 seconds to accelerate from 45 mph to 65 mph compared to 3.2 seconds for the V-8.
Those are differences you feel behind the wheel. Give it a little gas, and the V-8 feels more responsive, its torque not dependent on waiting for turbos to spool. Put your foot down, though, and those turbochargers spin up quickly, and the Hurricane surges forward in a way the Hemi can’t. Yeah, the Hemi sounds badass doing it thanks to the standard Mopar performance exhaust, but it’s still slower and working harder at being slower. The Hurricane is a tempest in a teapot, acoustically speaking, but it’s got it where it counts. Mopar offers a performance exhaust for the RHO, but other trims have to wait a while longer before one becomes available.
