2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon First Look: 840 hp, 770 lb-ft bat out of hell

Dodge unveiled what it claims is the fastest muscle car ever: the 2018 Challenger SRT Demon with a devil of a kick—808 horsepower and 717 lb-ft of torque on 91 octane gas for the street and a ridiculous 840 hp and 770 lb-ft of torque on 100-plus high-octane race fuel for the track.

There is enough launch power to pull a wheelie, and Guinness World Records certified the production car as traveling 2.92 feet with the front wheels off the ground.

Dodge is touting the Demon, a street-legal factory track car that goes on sale this fall, as the world’s quickest quarter-mile production car certified by the National Hot Rod Association. Dodge execs also say the Demon is quicker than the Tesla Model S that Motor Trend crowned acceleration champ when we clocked the electric car reaching 60 mph in 2.28 seconds. The Demon recorded a time of 2.1 seconds, but that comes with a huge asterisk: The Tesla was tested on regular dry asphalt, but the Demon was on a regulation drag strip. Drag strips are coated in sticky resin, and the extra traction can shave a couple tenths of a second. So we will hold out on any pronouncements until we get a Demon for testing ourselves on our usual surface.

But that does not take away from the monster that Dodge has created with a 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi Demon engine under the hood, painted red (the Hellcat is orange) and modified for greater output than the 707-hp, 650-lb-ft Hellcat that came out in 2014. A year later, the Demon was in the works.

Some Dodge-generated stats to chew on:

• Zero to 60 mph in 2.1 seconds, which beats the Tesla Model S—again, on a stickier surface, which improves launch grip. Zero to 100 mph in 5.1 seconds.
• Quarter mile in 9.65 seconds and 140 mph, which means it is legally banned from racing on a track without a rollcage.
• It leaves the start line accelerating at 1.8 g, hitting 30 mph in 1.0 second.
• Horsepower peaks at 6,300 rpm, torque at 4,500 rpm.
• Brakes from 60 to 0 mph in 97 feet.
• Eco mode limits it to 500 horsepower, starts in second gear, and short-shifts subsequent gears.

Dodge plans to build 3,300 Demons at its plant in Brampton, Ontario, with 3,000 allocated for the U.S. and 300 for Canada. It is far less exclusive than the Ford GT, which will be limited to 1,000 supercars over four years and cost more than $400,000. That price isn’t even in the same ballpark as the Demon, which won’t hit six figures when order books open in a few months.

The Demon is wider than the Hellcat, and the engine has been modified with 97 new parts. The block is the same but is machined differently. The cylinder heads carry over, but almost everything else has changed. There is a new, larger 2.7-liter supercharger (up from 2.4 liters in lesser Hellcats), a new crankshaft, new connecting rods, new pistons, a new steel camshaft, and a new valvetrain. Boost pressure also increases to 14.5 psi from 11.6 psi. The software of the eight-speed automatic transmission was changed to provide a transbrake function to build and hold more power for launch in Drag mode. No manual transmission is available.

What possesses an automaker to invest time, energy, and passion into a low-volume car for a limited customer base when there are so many ways to spend money on future products? To stand out from the pack, become a talking point, and raise awareness for a brand that had lost its way and was sliding under the radar until executives at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles decided to go big or go home.

First they unleashed the Hellcat, which put 707 horses and 650 lb-ft of torque under the hood of some large sedans that were getting long in the tooth. People took notice. Awareness spiked. Hellcat sales are low volume, but Scat Pack sales jumped from less than 1 percent to 17 percent of Challenger sales.

Dodge is doubling down with the Demon, a car with even more horsepower and torque that can drive to the track and then unleash all its power once it gets there. “Sometimes you need to ignore the data, disregard the focus groups, and build a car that can define itself,” says Dodge President Tim Kuniskis. “A lot of halos don’t have the greatest business cases.” The goal of the Demon is to be the fastest, to make everyone talk about Dodge, and to stretch the boundaries of the brand at a time when everyone is talking about emotionless, driverless pods. Kuniskis’ goal: tattoo the Dodge name into the subconscious of every performance enthusiast and draw people into the showroom where they might leave with another Dodge.

The Demon is a great drag car, Kuniskis says. But he insists it is not just a gutted-out drag racing special. Features can be optioned back in, such as the front passenger seat for $1, the rear seats for another $1, or 19 speakers to the base stereo system. Kuniskis says it will handle beautifully in Street mode. In Sport mode, it will handle like today’s Hellcat but with higher-sidewall tires for a more refined ride. And the upside is what it can do at the track.

Dealers will be told how many they will get and when in an attempt to avoid price gouging or having customers put down money far in advance of delivery. Once customers order, they will be in the queue and get a personalized leather-bound manual with pages to record track runs.

Here are some of the things to know about the Demon:

• At 4,250 pounds and with body flares and stronger parts, it is a wider and heavier version of the Challenger. The team dropped 200 pounds with smaller brakes and hollow anti-roll bars, by removing carpeting and all but the driver’s seat, and by going with a basic two-speaker stereo. There will be no missing the whine of the supercharger; much of the sound dampening was removed. Kuniskis expects customers will buy the front seat for $1 (it will likely cost about $1,500 to buy an aftermarket seat later) just to have it. He doubts anyone will buy the rear seat. He also thinks there will be a high take rate on the upgraded stereo.
• Wheels are 18 by 11 inches with Demon-branded 315/40R18 Nitto street-legal drag radial tires with specific NTO 5R compound you can only get by buying this car. Dodge says the improved grip means 40 percent more launch force compared with SRT Hellcat tires.
• The rear-wheel-drive car gets 315s at all four corners, so the fronts serve as spares. The car comes with a coupon to order a personalized, serialized Demon Crate with the buyer’s name, VIN, and serial number. The crate contains narrow front runner aluminum drag wheels for the track, performance parts, tools, jacks—everything you need once you reach the track in a foam case that fits into the trunk and holds everything in place. Parts include a powertrain control module to switch to high-octane gas, a switch module with a big, round button to push to switch gas and remap the engine, an air filter, tools, and a tire pressure gauge.
• Lock and load with the transbrake to address wheel spin on launch. The car can be staged with a foot only on the gas because the transbrake mechanically locks the output shaft of the transmission as the engine revs to the torque converter’s 2,350-rpm stall speed. With the touch of a paddle shifter, the transmission unlocks and sends full power to the rear. With so much built-up boost, the car launches with more than 500 lb-ft—or five times as much torque as a nonbrake-torque launch.
• It comes with the largest functional hood scoop on a production car at 42.5 square inches. There are three air vents in total for massive airflow, and the air drops in temperature by 30 degrees through the air inlets. A liquid-to-air intercooler chiller system and after-run chiller cool it even more.
• A heavy-duty torque converter upgrades the launch capability, increasing stall speed by 11 percent on top of better traction from the tires to launch harder.
• The screen displays updated performance pages with a real-time dyno to log data, and there is a leather-bound track book to teach you how to set the car up for the track and log your performance and track conditions. You can track the intercooler coolant temperature so you know when the car is sufficiently cooled for another run.
• It’s the first factory production car with Drag mode suspension tuning, which is firm-firm in the back and firm-soft in the front, for complete weight transfer. When you launch hard, the front lifts and traction control is turned off, but it keeps ESP working if the car gets loose.
• Drag mode launch assist uses wheel-speed sensors to watch for wheel hop. Electronic mitigation pulls back the torque to regain grip and continue acceleration. With the rear seat taken out, there are nets in the back to hold helmets and a hole for a harness bar, which can be purchased aftermarket and easily bolted on.
• Race fuel: if you buy the Crate, there is a hard button on the new switch plate. Push it to remap the engine to run on race fuel. The Demon uses two fuel pumps and increased-flow fuel injectors. You drive to the track on 91 octane then you put in your high-octane at the track. It will mix, and if it is not rich enough, the car will tell you.
• To reduce heat, the car has a chilled intercooler system with two evaporator circuits. In Drag mode, the intercooler fluid is cooled by ambient airflow then goes through a second loop and evaporator to get supercooled before going into the intercooler, so your car thinks it’s running in Alaska.
• Listen for the two-step at the line when ready to launch. The car runs on four cylinders, and you hear a misfire and chatter, which is the spark to the other four cylinders to get full airflow through the supercharger.

The SRT team of about 25 people has been working on the Demon for about two years. It’s 50-state emissions compliant, meets all regulations, and has a three-year/36,000-mile vehicle warranty and five-year/60,000-mile powertrain warranty. Buyers also get a full day at the Bondurant Racing School.

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