RE: First Things First
Here are a few ideas I can offer. We took a Dodge Magnum with a 5.7 HEMI and wanted to see how much improvement we could make with just bolt on parts out of the Mopar Performance catalog. Here's what happened; Stock the car was good for 14.30's@ 97mph. We added: Full length headers/cat pipe and cat back exhaust; CAI; mild cam; CNC ported 5.7 heads, upgraded converter and some PCM tuning. End result: 13.10@111mph on real street tires @ 4400pds w/driver. The car has more in it with some additional tuning and better tires. Driveability is very good and the cam has just a slight rump to it. If I were to make a suggestion as far as order of parts I would say: Exhaust first, CAI second, tuning 3rd, cam 4th and heads last. If you don't want to get into the motor, exhaust and CAI will make a nice seat of the pants difference. These are the 2 things most people do for a quick bolt on. The HEMI likes to breathe so anything that eases this will make gains. Besides a power gain exhaust and CAI will actually help your mileage out a bit(if you are driving it civil that is). A fella on Moparts has a 2007 Charger SRT-8 with exhaust, CAI and a tune; Ran a best of 12.20 @ 113mph. Of course this is with the 6.1. The Challenger will be lighter by about 250/300pds so this will help. Cool thing is this is with NO nitrous/supercharger/etc. This is excellent performance taking that into consideration.