8 Amazing Things About the Dodge Demon 170
Kneeling at the altar of horsepower is the growling 1025-hp Dodge SRT Challenger Demon 170—a machine built by blood and iron in Ontario, Canada. The street-legal drag-strip special looks a lot like the previous Demon (limited to a one-year run for 2018), but this time Dodge’s development team has completed all the necessary rituals to summon a four-digit horsepower figure from the pinnacle of the brand’s iconic Hellcat V-8.
Here are 8 Amazing Things About the Dodge Demon 170
- The steroidal supercharged 6.2-liter in the Dodge Demon needs E85 gasoline to make full power, and that 170-proof ethanol fuel mixture inspires its namesake. Even with 91-octane gas, the 170 still makes an insane 900 horses. The 2023 Demon 170 is simply an outrageous send-off to what were already some of the wildest muscle cars on the planet.
2. There will be only 3300. produced and all to be sold here in the UNited States.
3. During a quarter mile sprint, the Dodge Demon’s V8 sucks in the equivalent of the lung capacity of 816 human beings. That’s 105 cubic feet of air sucked in by that supercharged V8 just 800ft into a sprint – the same amount of air in the Demon’s cabin.
4. The heat rejected by the Dodge Demon V8’s cooling system would boil one quart of water at room temp in 1.2s
5. The fuel flow of Dodge Demon is rated power is 1.36 gallons per minute.
6 Each engine stroke of the Dodge Demon generates 11 tonnes of force.
On each power stroke, the piston and connecting rod is loaded with 11 tonnes of force – equal to the weight of five Dodge Demons. This happens at more than 50 times a second at 6,300rpm.
7. The torque reserve and TransBrake generate 317lb ft of torque…
8. The driveline bears 11,164lb ft of ring gear torque at launch
This means 1.8g of force. Best hold in your stomach, then.
SO, what’
The world’s fastest production car right?
That’s what the paperwork says, and having experienced what 840bhp does on a drag strip I have no cause to doubt it. 0-60mph in 2.3secs is the claim, with the quarter mile dealt with in 9.65secs at 140.09mph. Now, I’ll come on to discuss this further a bit later, because obviously not everyone sets their acceleration times on a super sticky drag strip wearing drag radial tires, but then not everyone can: differentials would suffer, transmissions would die. But that’s the whole point of the Demon. The drag strip is what it was designed for.
What, simple as that?
Absolutely. Cut back to its most basic, the Demon is a Challenger Hellcat prepped for the strip. It has no greater ambition than to race in a straight line, because in its world there can be no greater ambition than that.
Tim Kuniskis, whose job title (head of passenger car brands, FCA North America) does nothing to convey his passion for his most extreme product. “Our goal from day one was, in street trim with pump gas, to do 9s and pull the wheels”. You get that right? The Demon’s key development targets were to pull a wheelie and smash the ¼ mile in under ten secs. How brilliantly simple and honest is that?
Pure genius. So what’s been done to a Hellcat to make it into a Demon?
Let’s start with the engine, which has received 25 major component changes. The supercharger capacity is up from 2.4 to 2.7 liters, boost pressure is up 20 percent, there are new pistons, conrods and a crankshaft which has allowed the rev limit to edge up from 6,200rpm to 6,500rpm, the valvetrain and fuel injection have been changed, and it processes more air and fuel than any other production car.
This is my favorite stat about the 6.2-litre supercharged Hemi motor: it has the highest fuel flow rate of any production car. Now, name me a European marque that would boast about its car being able to inject fuel into the cylinders at a rate not far off your bathroom tap. None would.
The end result of the Demon having the largest air induction volume of any production car, the largest gasoline supercharger of any production car, the largest functional hood scoop and so on is 840bhp at 6,300rpm and 770lb ft at 4,500rpm.
Well, let’s work our way back along the drivetrain first. Although it uses the same eight-speed auto ‘box, the torque converter has been modified, the prop shaft is 20 per cent thicker, the rear diff has 30 per cent more torque capacity, the gear sets are new and the half shafts are larger diameter, too.
Elsewhere, the Bilstein adaptive dampers have been retuned so that in Drag mode they deliver as much rearward weight transfer as possible, the springs are softer, the tracks are wider (see the arch extensions) and there’s been a concerted effort to lose weight from the front end.
How much lighter is it than a Hellcat Widebody?
Exactly 101kg says Dodge. Removing the rear seats saved 25kg, whipping out 16 speakers saved 11kg, with insulation, smaller brakes, lightweight wheels, parking sensors and trim accounting for much of the rest. It doesn’t even come with a passenger seat as standard (that saves 26kg).
Wait, the Demon is a single seater then?
It is, although you can option a lot of this back in. The passenger seat costs one dollar.
Bargain. What else can you spend your money on?
Well the other single dollar that all 3,300 owners are bound to spend buys you ‘the crate’. This really is a big wooden box that contains skinny front caster wheels, a new engine controller to make it run on race fuel, a special VIN plate for the dash and all the tools you need. Without it you’ve still got 808bhp, 717lb ft and the ability, given a perfect start, to pull the giant 315/40 R18 front tires off the deck, but only with the pack can you use 100 Octane gas and hope to match the near three foot-long wheelie that the Guinness Book of World Records verified.
Any other tricks?
There’s too much to talk about here. Many of Dodge’s engineers that worked on this project are drag racing nuts, so they included many drag features. So there’s line lock (although the Ford Mustang has that), the air con can be diverted to help cool intake air, the standard tires are bespoke Nitto NT05R drag tires (they come with a warning about driving in the cold and wet) and it has a transmission brake.
So, it’s a real drag racing weapon, then?
Absolutely. Inside it doesn’t feel too different to a Hellcat – the seats are big and plush for instance, but press the SRT button and the screen brings up a host of new selectable settings. This is where you can change the engine mode to run on 100 octane fuel, engage line lock, set the rpm for launch control, alter the suspension settings and use the trans brake.
This locks up the transmission under load, so that when you release it, you dump torque on the wheels instantly. Neatly, it’s electronically controlled, so you pull both paddles to engage then release one, let your foot off the brake, then release the other to launch. Your right foot controls the revs.
Come on then, what’s it like?
Massive, massive fun. I mean, come on, what did you expect? It’s an 840bhp supercharged V8 that squeals and bellows and snorts, hooked up to a super-sticky set of rear tires, and a pair of comically weeny fronts. I have never felt anything that goes off the line remotely like the Demon. A Tesla is fairly violent, likewise a 911 Turbo S, but the Demon is apocalyptic.