joeyr

The 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is a muscle car, right? An American muscle car. So naturally, the first thing I want to do when I jump behind the wheel is a big American smoky burnout.

"Not here," says Pete Gladysz, the Dodge guy babysitting our test car and riding shotgun, as he looks around the leafy, tranquil residential street we're on in the middle of Pasadena. "Wait 'till we get to the track."

Gladysz, powertrain senior manager for Chrysler LLC's SRT Group, sounds serious. So I wait.

Carving up Mountain Roads

Instead of the burnout, I carve our way up into the mountains east of Los Angeles on the Angeles Forest Highway, a tortuous two-lane road that cuts and weaves its way northeast toward Willow Springs International Raceway. It's a road custom-made to test the new Challenger's handling mettle.

The 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is no rapier of a pony car, and it even makes its iconic 1970 inspirational predecessor, which I road-tested many times back in the day, seem compact. Instead, this new 2008 Dodge Challenger is more like a broadsword, a big brute of a car weighing 4,152 pounds.

Remember, the new Dodge Challenger is really a Dodge Charger sedan underneath with a scant 4 inches chopped out of the wheelbase. But Dodge tuned the suspension to be more compliant this time around. Softer than the suspension on the Charger SRT8 we tested a few months ago.

According to Gladysz, the engineering team realized it was unnecessary to tune the suspension so uncomfortably stiff to get this rear-wheel-drive platform to handle.

A Big Brute

With all that bulk and its softer shock tuning, I frankly don't expect much in the handling department. Like that Charger, around town the Challenger is a big, heavy, ponderous car, a feeling amplified by its heavily bolstered, leather-upholstered bucket seats and the greenhouse of mail-slot-size windows.

But the harder I push the Challenger on the endless curves of the Angeles Forest Highway, the lighter on its feet it gets. This car belies its nose-heavy 54 percent front/46 percent rear weight distribution with a neutral feel right up to the point where the electronic stability program (ESP) starts to activate.

In fact, the ESP is programmed to let you play a little with oversteer if you want to balance weight transfer with throttle in tight corners. And in broader sweeping turns, you can actually hang the rear end out a little before the ESP selectively applies braking and modulates throttle input to save you from yourself.

Later, at the test track negotiating our 100-foot slalom, the Challenger's capabilities once again became obvious on the first flat, controlled pass. From then on, it's only a matter of finding the quick way through the cones. Our testers note a quite neutral balance despite being a little vague on turn-in, but the short suspension travel helps transitions from left to right.

At the Test Track

When it's all over, the big 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 records a fine 66.2 mph through the slalom. On the skid pad, its mild understeer on the limit transitions to gentle lift-throttle oversteer, which translates into nice 0.86g lateral acceleration.

Likewise, the Challenger excelled in our braking tests, recording 60-to-0-mph in just 115 feet. Its Brembos provide a firm pedal with excellent feel, very little ABS noise and no fade whatsoever throughout the test. Brake dive is also kept in check.

No doubt contributing to the Challenger's fine handling and braking are the optional 245/45ZR20 front and 255/45ZR20 rear Goodyear F1 Supercar Performance three-season tires. Standard are 245/45ZR20 Goodyear RS-A all-season tires all around.

A Citation Makes History

Of course, with 425 horsepower at 6,200 rpm and 420 pound-feet of torque at 4,800 rpm thumping out of the 6.1-liter Hemi engine, you can do just about anything you want with this car, including passing a

Paladin06

Concerns in bold below.
[quote]ORIGINAL: joeyr

The 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is a muscle car, right? An American muscle car. So naturally, the first thing I want to do when I jump behind the wheel is a big American smoky burnout.

"Not here," says Pete Gladysz, the Dodge guy babysitting our test car and riding shotgun, as he looks around the leafy, tranquil residential street we're on in the middle of Pasadena. "Wait 'till we get to the track."

Gladysz, powertrain senior manager for Chrysler LLC's SRT Group, sounds serious. So I wait.

Carving up Mountain Roads

Instead of the burnout, I carve our way up into the mountains east of Los Angeles on the Angeles Forest Highway, a tortuous two-lane road that cuts and weaves its way northeast toward Willow Springs International Raceway. It's a road custom-made to test the new Challenger's handling mettle.

The 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is no rapier of a pony car, and it even makes its iconic 1970 inspirational predecessor, which I road-tested many times back in the day, seem compact. Instead, this new 2008 Dodge Challenger is more like a broadsword, a big brute of a car weighing 4,152 pounds.

Remember, the new Dodge Challenger is really a Dodge Charger sedan underneath with a scant 4 inches chopped out of the wheelbase. But Dodge tuned the suspension to be more compliant this time around. Softer than the suspension on the Charger SRT8 we tested a few months ago.

According to Gladysz, the engineering team realized it was unnecessary to tune the suspension so uncomfortably stiff to get this rear-wheel-drive platform to handle.

A Big Brute

With all that bulk and its softer shock tuning, I frankly don't expect much in the handling department. Like that Charger, around town the Challenger is a big, heavy, ponderous car, a feeling amplified by its heavily bolstered, leather-upholstered bucket seats and the greenhouse of mail-slot-size windows.

But the harder I push the Challenger on the endless curves of the Angeles Forest Highway, the lighter on its feet it gets. This car belies its nose-heavy 54 percent front/46 percent rear weight distribution with a neutral feel right up to the point where the electronic stability program (ESP) starts to activate.

In fact, the ESP is programmed to let you play a little with oversteer if you want to balance weight transfer with throttle in tight corners. And in broader sweeping turns, you can actually hang the rear end out a little before the ESP selectively applies braking and modulates throttle input to save you from yourself.

Later, at the test track negotiating our 100-foot slalom, the Challenger's capabilities once again became obvious on the first flat, controlled pass. From then on, it's only a matter of finding the quick way through the cones. Our testers note a quite neutral balance despite being a little vague on turn-in, but the short suspension travel helps transitions from left to right.

At the Test Track

When it's all over, the big 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 records a fine 66.2 mph through the slalom. On the skid pad, its mild understeer on the limit transitions to gentle lift-throttle oversteer, which translates into nice 0.86g lateral acceleration.

Likewise, the Challenger excelled in our braking tests, recording 60-to-0-mph in just 115 feet. Its Brembos provide a firm pedal with excellent feel, very little ABS noise and no fade whatsoever throughout the test. Brake dive is also kept in check.

No doubt contributing to the Challenger's fine handling and braking are the optional 245/45ZR20 front and 255/45ZR20 rear Goodyear F1 Supercar Performance three-season tires. Standard are 245/45ZR20 Goodyear RS-A all-season tires all around.
A Citation Makes History

Of course, with 425 horsepower at 6,200 rpm and 420 pound-feet of torque at 4,800 rpm thumping out of the 6.1-liter Hemi engine

1971Chall

This is roughly what I would expect from an automatic SRT-8. I think it can break 12's with the right driver and conditions but time will tell. A stick car will for sure. The 14 sec advertisement that had everybody alarmed was a joke. Maybe if you pulled a plug wire or 2 it would run that number. It will be interesting to see what an R/T will run. My guess will be 13.5 or so at about 103 - 104mph.

Andre@Edge

I would bet anything that the 13.2 will be easy 12's with the torque converter upgrade. The 107+ is great, but 1.90 - 2.0 60' times are the problem. Even at 4200 lbs I expect to see at least a .4 drop in ET's. If we ever get gearing options I expect to see another .10 on 3.73's. The CAI will only help, but I cant even guess what the gains will be.


Cant wait to be kicked off my local track in a daily driver for lack of roll cage!

DSkippy

Great article! I wonder how much the 100 plus mph ticket dinged him for.....

Cuda340

In the Edmunds road test article, they remarked that "both the 1970 426 Hemi and the 2008 370 c.i. Hemi are rated at 425 hp. But the 08 car is 647 lbs. heavier (at 4,189 lbs.). As 1/4 mile speeds of these cars are almost purely a function of horsepower-to-weight ratio, you have to wonder which horsepower rating is fiction."

I plugged the 2008's weight (4,189 lbs.) and flywheel horsepower (425) into a 1/4 mile ET calculator. I got 13.2 sec. The Edmunds article cited 13.3 sec. Close enough.

If you input 425 hp and 3,542 lbs. for the 1970 Hemi you get 12.4 sec. Too fast. To get the same ET as the 2008 Hemi, you have to input 350 flywheel horsepower.

This roughly shows that the 2008 Hemi is making more horsepower at the flywheel, as compared to the 1970 street Hemi.

1/4 Mile ET Calculator

Paladin06

The 426 Hemi was produced for consumer automobiles from 1965 through 1971, and new crate engines and parts are available today from Chrysler. There were many differences between the Hemi and the Wedge-head big-block, including cross-bolting and a different head bolt pattern. The street Hemi version was rated at 425 hp (317 kW) with two Carter AFB carburetors though in actual dyno testing, it made 315 rear-wheel HP in purely stock form which would be approximately 360 gross HP at the flywheel using generally accepted conversion formulas. The engine could produce much higher HP figures with relatively few modifications, but those modifications drastically affected the engine's drivability on the street as they usually were made to take advantage of the free-breathing nature of the heads at high rpms.

lear4406

Man nothing but good things to say about the new Challenger This has been a good Challenger day for sure. The over 100 mph ticket I don't know, but 83 in a 55 in NC will cost you $380.00 and 6 points If you get a chance check out the 1/4 mile and 0-60 times. I think you will like them

RLSH700

The other thing you have to take into account is that the tires that we have nowdays are far superior to the tires they had back in the 70s as well as the already mentioned modern electronic fuel injection over using two-four barrel carbs, that helps the efficiency and consistency. The transmission if comparing auto vs. auto, the current one has more ratios that will hopefully let the engine rev quicker to begin with as well as keep it within its peak range. The other thing as Paladin mentioned is the fact that we are comparing a gross hp rating to a net hp rating. The truth is the engines according to either MT or C&D (can't remember who did the comparison), found that the engine's were pretty much even in the hp output. Let's just say there are so many different factors which make up this difference, we can't pin it on one particular thing.

Jeremiah 29:11

They had not even invented steel belted radials back then.

I will not have to worry about that with a manual transmission.....6-speed of course.