Half the truck conversations on our lot still open the same way. Somebody walks up, looks at a Ram 1500 with the hood shut, and asks whether it is a six or a V8, in the tone of a person who has already decided which answer he wants. Fair enough. A pickup with two fewer cylinders than the one in your driveway sounds like a downgrade until you look at what it actually makes. If you want to see which engine is in which truck right now, our new Ram 1500 inventory in Portage la Prairie is online, and the window sticker on every one of them names the engine in plain language.

Here is what the Hurricane is, what the two versions are for, and the honest read against the V8 that people still ask for by name.

Key Takeaways

• The Hurricane is a 3.0 litre twin turbocharged inline six, and it comes in two distinct tunes rather than one.
• Standard Output: 420 horsepower and 469 lb ft, per Stellantis. High Output: 540 horsepower and 521 lb ft. Those are different engines in practice, not trim levels of the same one.
• The Standard Output already beats the 5.7 HEMI on both counts. Stellantis rates the returning 2026 HEMI V8 eTorque at 395 horsepower and 410 lb ft, so the base six makes more power and more torque than the V8.
• The High Output made the Wards 10 Best Engines and Propulsion Systems list for 2024, in the 2025 Ram 1500.
• The HEMI still has real arguments in its favour. None of them are output numbers. We lay them out below without pretending otherwise.

What the Hurricane actually is

Strip the marketing off and it is a 3.0 litre inline six with two turbochargers, built to do what a larger displacement V8 used to do while burning less fuel doing it. Stellantis introduced it as the more powerful and more efficient answer, and the important structural point is that it arrived as a family, not a single engine.

The inline six layout is worth a sentence on its own, because it is not a styling choice. Six cylinders in a straight line balance themselves in a way a V configuration does not, which is why the layout has a long history in engines built to work hard for a long time. Add two turbos and you get torque low in the rev range, which is the part that matters when there is a trailer behind you and you are pulling out of a farm approach onto Highway 1.

Standard Output versus High Output

This is the distinction most people miss, and it is the one that changes which truck you should buy.

Standard Output: 420 horsepower and 469 lb ft. Stellantis rates it with a higher compression ratio and lower peak boost than its sibling. This is the towing and working version. If you are pulling a trailer, hauling in the box, and driving the thing every day, this is the engine, and it is not a consolation prize. Look again at the number: 469 lb ft of torque from a three litre engine.

High Output: 540 horsepower and 521 lb ft. Lower compression, more boost, more of everything at the top. This is the performance tune, and it is the one that landed on the Wards 10 Best Engines and Propulsion Systems list for 2024 in the 2025 Ram 1500. It is a genuinely impressive engine and it is also more engine than most working trucks around here need.

The practical way to think about it: the Standard Output is the answer for almost everybody, and the High Output is the answer for the person who knows exactly why they want it.

Both are real on the ground, not spec sheet theory. Right now the window stickers on our lot read 3.0L I6 Hurricane Twin Turbo with Stop/Start on a good number of trucks, and 3.0L I6 Hurricane HO twin turbo on a smaller handful. The high output is genuinely the rarer order out here, which tells you something about what prairie buyers actually pick when they are spending their own money.

The honest comparison against the HEMI

Rule of the house is that we do not stack the deck, so here is the whole picture.

Where the Hurricane wins, on numbers Stellantis publishes:

The Standard Output makes 420 horsepower and 469 lb ft. The 5.7 litre HEMI V8 eTorque that returned for the 2026 Ram 1500 makes 395 horsepower and 410 lb ft. That is 25 more horsepower and 59 more lb ft for the six, before you even get to the High Output. If somebody tells you the six is the weaker engine, the published figures simply do not support it.

The efficiency argument is the other half. Stellantis positioned the Hurricane family as more powerful and more fuel efficient than what it replaced, and displacement arithmetic backs the direction of that claim even before you get to a specific rating. What your truck returns in the real world depends far more on your right foot, your trailer and a Manitoba headwind than on the engine badge, and our Ram 1500 fuel economy breakdown goes through that honestly.

Where the HEMI genuinely wins, and it is not nothing:

It sounds like a V8, and if that matters to you it matters. No amount of torque talk fixes the fact that a turbocharged six does not make the noise a lot of truck buyers grew up wanting.

It is mechanically simpler in the ways that count for a person who keeps trucks a long time. No turbochargers, no charge air plumbing, fewer heat cycles concentrated in fewer places.

It has a very long service history, and every technician in this province has worked on one. That is a real form of certainty. We are not going to speculate about how the Hurricane ages, because it has not been in the field long enough for anybody to say honestly, and anybody who tells you they know is guessing. If long term certainty is the thing you weigh heaviest, that argument favours the V8 today, and we will say so out loud. Our Ram 1500 Night Edition HEMI piece covers the trucks where the V8 is the point.

Where it is a genuine tie: both will pull what a half ton should pull, both will start in February with a block heater and decent maintenance, and both will get you to Winnipeg and back without drama.

The Manitoba part

Two things we tell people here that you will not find in a brochure.

The first is about turbochargers and cold. A turbo engine is not a problem in a Manitoba winter, but it does reward a little patience. Give it a minute of gentle running before you ask it for everything on a 30 below morning, and if you have been towing hard, let it idle briefly before you shut it off rather than keying it off the second you park. That is ordinary good practice with any turbocharged engine, not a Ram quirk, and it costs you nothing.

The second is about how you should actually choose. Almost nobody out here needs to choose an engine on a horsepower number. You should choose it on what you tow, how often, and how long you intend to keep the truck. Bring us the trailer weight and the honest answer about how many times a year you use it, and that conversation lands somewhere useful in about five minutes. The gas versus diesel Ram 1500 comparison is the next step if the trailer is heavy enough to raise the question.

So which one should you buy

If you tow a trailer, haul in the box, and want the most sensible truck on the lot: Standard Output Hurricane. More power and more torque than the V8, better efficiency direction, and the tune built for exactly that job.

If you want the noise, the familiarity and the long known service record more than you want the numbers: the 5.7 HEMI, honestly and without apology. It is still here for 2026 and there is a reason Ram brought it back.

If you know precisely why you want 540 horsepower: High Output, and enjoy it.

Current factory offers on the half ton live on the Ram 1500 Eh Plus page. If you are moving something on, the instant cash offer tool tells you where you stand before you drive in, and our service department is the one that will look after whichever engine you land on.

FAQs

What is the Ram Hurricane engine?

A 3.0 litre twin turbocharged inline six from Stellantis, offered in the Ram 1500 in two tunes: a Standard Output rated at 420 horsepower and 469 lb ft, and a High Output rated at 540 horsepower and 521 lb ft.

Is the Hurricane more powerful than the HEMI V8?

Yes, on both counts and in both tunes. Stellantis rates the 5.7 litre HEMI V8 eTorque in the 2026 Ram 1500 at 395 horsepower and 410 lb ft, while the Standard Output Hurricane makes 420 horsepower and 469 lb ft.

What is the difference between Standard Output and High Output?

Compression and boost. The Standard Output runs higher compression and lower peak boost and is tuned for towing and everyday work. The High Output runs lower compression and more boost for peak performance. They are different engines in use, not trim levels of one engine.

Has the Hurricane won any awards?

The 3.0 litre Hurricane High Output in the 2025 Ram 1500 was named to the Wards 10 Best Engines and Propulsion Systems list for 2024.

Is the Hurricane reliable?

It has not been in the field long enough for anyone to answer that honestly with data, so we will not pretend otherwise. What we can tell you is exactly what the warranty covers on the specific truck you are looking at, in writing, before you buy it.

Can I still get a V8 in a Ram 1500?

Yes. Stellantis returned the 5.7 litre HEMI V8 eTorque to the 2026 Ram 1500 at 395 horsepower and 410 lb ft. Ask us which trucks on the ground have it, because it varies by build.

The Honest Close

The Hurricane is not a compromise that Ram is asking you to accept. It makes more power and more torque than the V8 it displaced, it does it from half the displacement, and its high output sibling earned a spot on a list that does not hand those out lightly.

What we will not do is tell you the V8 question is settled. It is not, and the reasons people still want one are legitimate reasons, just not numerical ones. Both engines are on our lot. Come drive them back to back on the same road on the same afternoon, which is the only comparison test that has ever actually decided anything.