Dodge Challenger SRT Demon
Car and Driver
Rank in Muscle Cars
Bang! It’s over.
“Come to Indy and drive this purpose-built, street-legal drag-racing car,” they said.
The lawn isn’t getting mowed. Floors aren’t being mopped. Dishes remain piled up. We are zeroed in on tackling the most powerful production car America has ever built.
We’re talking about the two thousand eighteen Dodge Challenger SRT Demon. Most of its steamy details were divulged over a 12-week roll-out leading up to the Fresh York auto demonstrate this past April. But to recap: Demons come off the assembly line sporting a wide-body kit, a drag-strip-tuned adaptive suspension, and an engine that makes eight hundred eight horsepower. This supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 is an evolution of the Hellcat’s 707-pony Hemi but with beefed-up internals and a larger, Two.7-liter rotary-screw blower (up from Two.Four liters) from supplier IHI, tuned to make 14.Five pounds of boost. The car comes on four haul radials, but the eight-speed ZF 8HP automatic turns only the rear wheels. Speaking of transmissions, this one features the very first transmission brake on a production car—more on that in a bit—as well as a few other drag-racing tricks.
Out of the Crate
After plunking down $86,090, buyers can fit a bunch of extra bits on their Demons to get the power figure up to eight hundred forty horsepower when searing 100-octane gasoline. All the add-ons, including skinny front wheels, can be had for just one dollar as part of what Dodge calls the Demon Crate.
“It’s not a GT350R or a 1LE,” announced Tim Kuniskis, head of the Dodge, SRT, Chrysler, and Fiat passenger-car brands in North America. No kidding. This is a car built to run one thousand three hundred twenty feet at a time. But you can legally drive it to the unclothe and back, too. Unluckily, we would not be driving a single inch on public roads. We drove the Demon exactly Nineteen,641 feet, or Trio.7 miles, in the course of making three passes at Lucas Oil Raceway.
Such a precise distance is known because we brought along a VBOX data logger in the hope of getting a better idea of just how quick the Demon is. But with such little exposure, we couldn’t clock a time we feel comfy publicizing.
It isn’t that we don’t believe SRT’s claim that a Demon ran a 9.65-second quarter-mile. It’s just that we believe those circumstances were outside the typical conditions a weekend warrior might find. You know, like a flawlessly ready launch box at sea level and a warm track but cool and dry ambient air, as well as a little bit of luck. We test in street conditions, so when we do get around to formally testing a Demon, it will not be fairly as quick as that. We expect the car to run a quarter-mile in the low-10-second range. Knock off a few tenths if it’s fitted with the skinny front wheels and tires and is running on 100-octane fuel. The zero-to-60-mph time will be darn close to pipping the Porsche nine hundred eighteen Spyder’s Two.2-second record.
Get Ready, Get Set . . .
Before they cut us liberate on the unwrap, SRT engineers walked us through the arduous process of getting the Demon ready for a pass. A graph in the central touchscreen can tell you when the engine is cool enough for an optimal pass. The After-Run Chiller circulates coolant after shutdown so it can proceed cooling when parked. With thermal criteria pleased, get the car into Haul mode by dual tapping the SRT mode button, then pressing the high-output button to get the utter eight hundred forty horses if you’re running high-test fuel. Haul mode disables the cabin A/C, routing its cooling power to the SRT Power Chiller, a device that can drop the intake temperature by as much as eighteen degrees by cooling the liquid in the liquid-to-air intercooler circuit.
What happens next is the vehicular equivalent of a Mortal Kombat ending stir. Hit all the right buttons in the right sequence, and you will ruin all other production cars. Get it wrong and the car just kind of wiggles a little and hardly moves.
Creep up to the burnout box and activate line lock to do a four-to-five-second burnout. This involves holding the OK button on the left side of the steering wheel. Roll up to the staging lights and ready the TransBrake, which is always active—and available only—in Haul mode. Its engagement requires both feet and both forearms. Mash the brake pedal with your left foot, and pull and hold both shifter paddles. To liquidate any lash in the driveline and to preload the driveshaft and trans with torque, inch up to the line a bit while still holding the brakes. Then release one of the paddles and the brake pedal. Now the transmission is essentially in very first and 2nd gears at the same time and the car will not budge unless you rev past two thousand three hundred fifty rpm, the system limit. Lighter said than done with a light-switch throttle.
At this point the TransBrake is still engaged, and the only thing holding the car in place is one of your hands—an odd feeling. The harass note is odd here, too. SRT calls it Torque Reserve, but it is effectively a two-step ignition. Think of it as an anti-lag system, only it is happening on the intake side and not downstream in the harass.
With the Demon set and the equivalent of “up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A” entered, Torque Reserve injects fuel into some cylinders but keeps all the valves moving—it’s essentially cylinder deactivation to permit the supercharger to build maximum boost without the engine making maximum power.
Hold the revs at about one thousand seven hundred rpm and at the same time let go of the spanking paddle and bury the accelerator. The very first launch is downright shocking. If you want to simulate the sensation of a 1.80-g launch—the peak acceleration that Dodge claims—have a friend punch you square in the sternum an instant before you leap off a building. This car hits that hard out of the crevice, and albeit gravity gets you only a little more than halfway to 1.80 g, the sensation will be close enough.
It is effortless either to bog the engine or light up the rear tires. Both screenplays are suboptimal. Get it right, which we didn’t achieve in our three turns behind the wheel, and the Demon will lift its front tires off the ground for a few feet.
For the past six months, we’ve been impatiently awaiting the chance to drive this car. We’re going to have to wait a little while longer to get the utter practice. We can say this for sure, tho’: Even if you trailer this car to a haul disrobe, it won’t disappoint.
Highs and Lows
Highs:
840 horses for $86K . . . need we say more?
Built for very brief drives.
Model Research
Specifications >
VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine; rear-wheel-drive; 1-, 2-, or 5-passenger; 2-door coupe
BASE PRICES: Demon, $86,090;
Demon with Demon Crate, $86,091
ENGINE TYPE: supercharged and intercooled pushrod 16-valve V-8, metal block and aluminum goes, port fuel injection
Displacement: three hundred seventy six cu in, six thousand one hundred sixty six cc
Power: eight hundred eight or eight hundred forty hp @ six thousand three hundred rpm
Torque: seven hundred seventeen or seven hundred seventy lb-ft @ four thousand five hundred rpm
TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic with manual shifting mode
Wheelbase: 116.Two in
Width: 78.8 in Height: 57.Four in
Passenger volume: 56-94 cu ft
Trunk volume: sixteen cu ft
Curb weight (C/D est): four thousand three hundred lb
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