How much power? How much torque? How much anything? These are all questions that we’ll have to wait eight weeks to answer with regard to the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon. What we do know with certainty today nestles somewhere between the files labeled “jack” and “squat,” but there are some clues. For instance, Dodge indicates the Demon will be 200 pounds lighter than the Hellcat, and the third tease released by the company, which showed drag-racing rubber at all four corners, indicates the implementation of all-wheel drive. And then there’s the cryptic “#2576@35” license plate in one of the latest images.
What does all this mean? In the virtual, sometimes suspended, and most definitely skewed reality that exists in our collective heads, the Demon engineers need to find something close to 350 pounds of superfluous items in the Hellcat to ditch in order to hit the weight target. That’s because of the additional mass of the all-wheel-drive system.
This weight loss will require more than a two-week cleanse; chopping hundreds of pounds from an automobile is a significant task. The first place we would look is the engine block. All Dodge V-8s employ an iron block—a majorly heavy hunk of metal. When we once asked if there are any Vipers running around with Hellcat engines, for example, an SRT engineer told us it would never happen because the Hellcat is just too heavy.
So, where’s the weight gonna come from? The front fenders, hood, and doors, while steel in lesser Challengers, likely will be made of aluminum, and there may be some application of carbon fiber. The aggressive fender flares that provide shelter to those 315/40R-18 Nitto drag radials will be easier and cheaper to manufacture in low volumes out of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic than stamped metal. Banging out aluminum requires expensive tooling, while carbon-fiber tooling costs pennies by comparison. Same goes for the doors and the hood. The rear fenders likely will remain steel because they are integrated, stressed parts of the steel unibody. The most gifted UAW welders likely will graft them into place by hand.
The lighter body panels (the trunk should remain steel to help weight distribution) might come close to offsetting the addition of all-wheel-drive componentry. Without directly saying it, Dodge showed its hand by saying the Demon wears DOT-legal drag radials on both axles. There’s no reason to put those tires up front unless it is a driven axle. Well, no reason besides providing buyers an extra set of rears to swap in once they’ve fried the first set, but we don’t think that’s the case here.
When it comes down to it, everything not essential to meeting basic federal vehicle standards will be pulled from the assembly process. The typically dense sound deadening will go, along with the back seats and likely the navigation system and a bunch of speakers. (The last-generation Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 famously had but one speaker, simply to sound the federally required seatbelt chime.) A titanium exhaust is possible. Heck, Dodge mentions electroplating the unibody in one of its releases, so an exposed-metal interior isn’t out of the question. This won’t make the Demon great for a weekend getaway, unless said getaway takes you to the pump-gas nationals. Even then, we’d bet you’d trailer your Demon. We’d at least bring a second vehicle, just in case.
As for the cryptic license plate, we think the 2576 figure is a reference to the maximum torque of the engine (multiplied through the gearbox and final drive and then split among four wheels). This is merely a guess, but it makes some sense, given the Hellcat’s larger, 4010 lb-ft number for each of its two driven wheels. If our supposition is true, and the Demon uses the same final-drive and first-gear ratios as an automatic-transmission Hellcat, this engine will make about 705 lb-ft of torque at 3500 rpm. That would be a roughly 10 percent gain over the Hellcat’s torque output, which would equate to peak horsepower flirting with 800.
Some additional mass may be stripped from the suspension, which should feature modified geometry to suit the car’s extra-wide front and rear tracks, but if we are right in thinking that the cryptic license plate is torque related, the driveline will have to be fortified. Carbon-fiber driveshafts saved the BMW M4 11 pounds over a 4-series coupe, with the bonus being that CF shafts are stronger and stiffer, improving reliability.
The lightest Challenger Hellcat (with the eight-speed automatic) we’ve put on our scales weighed 4488 pounds and returned a quarter-mile time of 11.7 seconds at 126 mph. Take the weight loss-claim and then deduct a few of that Hellcat’s options, and there is potential for a 4250-pound Demon. Taken with the lower curb weight, all-wheel drive, and four Nittos, the ridiculous engine has the potential to make the Demon one of the quickest cars ever made. We’re looking forward to learning if it will turn, too. But that’ll come in time. For now, we wait.
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