The two thousand eighteen Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is an absolute brute
Published April 11, two thousand seventeen
The Demon makes the Hellcat look like a church mouse.
The wide-body Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is a slightly street-legal haul racer with a V8 that can produce up to eight hundred forty HP and seven hundred seventy pound-feet of torque, making it the most powerful American car ever. It’s also the quickest car in the world, with an NHRA-certified 0-60 mph time of Two.Three seconds and a quarter-mile time of 9.65 seconds at one hundred forty mph. That’s so quick and quick that you can’t even come in it in an NHRA-sanctioned event without installing a roll cell.
Dodge didn’t just turn up the boost on the Challenger SRT Hellcat’s seven hundred seven hp 6.2-liter supercharged engine to release its internal brute, it updated more than half of its parts and added a laundry list of production-first and high tech features to the Demon.
There’s a larger displacement Two.7-liter supercharger that runs at 14.Five psi boost; strengthened rods, pistons and valvetrain; twin dual-stage fuel pumps; and the largest spandex hood scoop ever used on a muscle car: a 45.Two square inch intake Dodge calls the Air-Grabber that’s evidently still not thick enough, because there’s a 2nd intake in the middle of the inwards driver’s side headlight and a third near the wheel liner. At total throttle, the Demon can suck all of the air out of a single-car garage in less than two minutes.
Instead of a plain cold air intake, the Demon cools things down by routing refrigerant from its air conditioner system through a chilling unit that helps drop the temperature of the ambient air by up to forty five degrees before the supercharger stuffs it into the cylinder. There, it can be mixed with as low as 91-octane fuel and turn it into eight hundred eight hp and seven hundred seventeen pound feet, but an optional engine controller can be installed that lets it run on 100-octane race fuel to unlock utter 840/770, and it doesn’t even void the five-year/60,000-mile warranty. If there’s a blend in the tank, it’ll figure out the best way to burn it.
Regardless of how much power its cranking out, it’s delivered to the rear wheels through an 8-speed automatic transmission that’s been re-engineered to treat the torque, a stronger drive shaft, a beefed-up rear axle and a set of larger half shafts compared to the Hellcat’s.
To make use of as much of that power as possible, the Demon comes with a set of nearly-slick 12.6-inch-wide Nitto haul radials and a few electronic tricks to squash everything it can out of them. Very first, there’s a line lock system like the Ford Mustang offers to enable effortless burnouts to warm up the rubber. Then there’s a steering wheel paddle-activated transmission brake for quicker and more powerful launches, an active suspension system that encourages the car to squat on its rear wheels under acceleration, and a traction control system programmed to manage wheel hop without you needing to lift off the gas. The Demon takes off so ferociously that Dodge says it’s capable of popping a wheelie almost a yard high.
Dodge took two hundred pounds out of it compared to the Challenger Hellcat by interchanging in a few lightweight components, like aluminum brake calipers and open end lug nuts, but mostly by tearing out some carpeting and sound insulation, the parking sensors, sixteen speakers and all of the seats except for the driver’s.
That makes it the very first single-seat production car ever sold by a major automaker, but you can get the passenger seat and rear bench for $1 each, and add a 19-speaker nine hundred watt audio system for good measure. That is if you’re not too worried about those last duo of tenths at the track. If you are, you’ll certainly want to order the optional Demon Crate.
The goodie box comes with that engine controller, a set of skinny front-runner haul wheels, a hydraulic floor jack and cordless influence wrench to switch them with, plus a implement kit and other Demon-branded accessories to help you turn your car into an even more focused racer at the undress.
Not since the very limited edition haul racing specials of the 1960s has a major automaker sold anything fairly like this car, and Dodge is extracting Three,000 Demons on America for two thousand eighteen with another three hundred heading to Canada. The price has not yet been announced, but Fiat Chrysler Head of Passenger Car Brands Tim Kuniskis says it’ll be less than six figures, and it includes a day at the Bob Bondurant School of High-performance Driving.
Unless you already build and race your own haul cars, you might need a little more than that to tame this monster.
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