2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon Reveal

[UNGN]

Mopar Superstocks from the 1960's didn't run 11's or 10's on street tires. They used the same bias ply slicks we all used into the 2000's. On real street tires they would have been lucky to run a 12 back then. There are lots of vintage photos with super stocks pulling the front tires so the tires or the tracks could not have been too bad.

Vintage Super stocks didn't run anywhere near 140mph in the 1/4 even the '68 Hurst Hemi lightweight Barracuda's and Darts (Race cars not street cars) where 13 mph slower than this in the first few years of competition.

And only an idiot would use "three speed sticks" in 1964. Some guy's had Clutched 3 speed autos, but that is a poor man's Lenco and wasn't a 3 speed manual. Manuals were all 4 speeds by the end of the Max wedge and beginning of the Hemi.

 

[pontiacgp]

That Dart had a 3 peed stick, it was modified so they wouldn't miss a shift....

 

[motorheadmike]

It is pretty difficult to manage an apples to apples comparison between then and now.

 

[pontiacgp]

It is pretty difficult to manage an apples to apples comparison between then and now.

it is but at least cars like ours and back then could be modified the way the owner desired.......with the cars like the Demon it is what it is and if you want to change anything the engineers have already chosen what you can do with the car.

 

[UNGN]

That Dart had a 3 peed stick, it was modified so they wouldn't miss a shift....

The 62-64 Max Wedge cars came with a 3 speed manual std, but Max Wedge cars were low 13/high 12 second cars @ 102-105 mph, uncorked, with 4 wheel manual drum brake and manual steering... and 11 or 13:1 compression (102 octane was minimum). MAX wedges were actual cars you could license and drive on the streets, but they didn't run 11's anywhere close to stock, even with slicks.

The '64 Hemis that ran 11's were non street legal super stocks and had 4 speeds or 727 torqflites.

 

[UNGN]

It is pretty difficult to manage an apples to apples comparison between then and now.

I still like to make the comparison to shut "classic" Mopar guys up. The 426 Max Wedge dart was probably the quickest street car that mopar put out in the muscle car era, because it was basically a race car (before the later Super Stocks made it official Mopar was selling factory race cars). You could order one with 4.89 gears, so the top speed @ 6500 RPM was barely 105 mph - very practical. It had exhaust cutouts from the factory, it could be had with 13.5:1 compression so it needed leaded race gas, it had manual steering (5.3 turns lock to lock - very sporty) and manual drum brakes, so it turned and stopped very poorly. It had a stripped interior, and was designed to do one thing, go down a 1/4 mile as quick as possible.

The fastest 13.5:1 Max wedge on race gas and slicks, with the exhaust uncorked, tuned and driven by the best teams/drivers in the nation went mid 12 in the 1/4.

My 1986 Buick T-Type, that I bought from the original women owner with 85,000 miles on it with 100% stock motor (including injectors), Stock Turbo, Stock Intercooler, Stock Suspension, Full Stock Interior (premium bucket seats and console), Stock transmission, Stock rear axle, stock wheels and has A/C, power steering and Power disk brakes, with the only real mods being a different chip, exhaust dump (just like a Max Wedge), adjustable wastegate and sticky street radials ran 12.20 (faster than any documented stock Max Wedge and faster than the 12.22 run by a super stock Max wedge run by the factory supported Ramchargers team at the 1963 US nationals) and on the same octane gas required by a Max Wedge.

That 12.20 not done by a big name team with a world class driver, but a guy who bought a 9 years old used car for $5000 in 1995 and performed some mods to it he read on this new thing called "the internet". I drove the T-type 100 miles each way to/from the track (on the tires I ran) and that 12.20 was done on a slick track with a 1.8 60ft time, so 11's should have been possible with better conditions/taller tires..

 

[jiho]

Not to get the advertised ETs. It runs 9s stock off the showroom floor. You need a 1200ish dollar cage to be NHRA legal. That's it.

Obviously equates to the same thing in the real world.

EDIT: Or more accurately for the point being made, in the NHRA world.

 

[jiho]

It's not a hard concept to grasp.

With the electronics, weight, price tag, warranty and insurance, yes it is hard to grasp.

 

[motorheadmike]

it is but at least cars like ours and back then could be modified the way the owner desired.......with the cars like the Demon it is what it is and if you want to change anything the engineers have already chosen what you can do with the car.

I am going to call BS on this blanket statement. The aftermarket is going wild in support of all performance brands with parts and software. It is just a matter of how dedicated you are to modifying the car. Yes, gone are the days of tuning a car up with a screw driver and wrench - but with some study the accessibility to modifying parameters in a late model vehicle is without equal.

I took my 5200+lb high-14 second (total estimate) slug of a TBSS and turned it into a high-11 second wonder with a few modifications and some well informed keystrokes. That is roughly 400hp stock to 650+hp with very little effort. There isn't a factory G-body or 60's muscle car that can even come close to responding the same way. Oh, and remain emissions compliant... that is 650+hp through the cats and is still Winter driven.

I still like to make the comparison to shut "classic" Mopar guys up. The 426 Max Wedge dart was probably the quickest street car that mopar put out in the muscle car era, because it was basically a race car (before the later Super Stocks made it official Mopar was selling factory race cars). You could order one with 4.89 gears, so the top speed @ 6500 RPM was barely 105 mph - very practical. It had exhaust cutouts from the factory, it could be had with 13.5:1 compression so it needed leaded race gas, it had manual steering (5.3 turns lock to lock - very sporty) and manual drum brakes, so it turned and stopped very poorly. It had a stripped interior, and was designed to do one thing, go down a 1/4 mile as quick as possible.

The fastest 13.5:1 Max wedge on race gas and slicks, with the exhaust uncorked, tuned and driven by the best teams/drivers in the nation went mid 12 in the 1/4.

My 1986 Buick T-Type, that I bought from the original women owner with 85,000 miles on it with 100% stock motor (including injectors), Stock Turbo, Stock Intercooler, Stock Suspension, Full Stock Interior (premium bucket seats and console), Stock transmission, Stock rear axle, stock wheels and has A/C, power steering and Power disk brakes, with the only real mods being a different chip, exhaust dump (just like a Max Wedge), adjustable wastegate and sticky street radials ran 12.20 (faster than any documented stock Max Wedge and faster than the 12.22 run by a super stock Max wedge run by the factory supported Ramchargers team at the 1963 US nationals) and on the same octane gas required by a Max Wedge.

That 12.20 not done by a big name team with a world class driver, but a guy who bought a 9 years old used car for $5000 in 1995 and performed some mods to it he read on this new thing called "the internet". I drove the T-type 100 miles each way to/from the track (on the tires I ran) and that 12.20 was done on a slick track with a 1.8 60ft time, so 11's should have been possible with better conditions/taller tires..

And yet, by modern standards a stockish Turbo Buick is now considered "slow", "poor handling", and "inefficient". The winds of change...

 

[pontiacgp]

I am going to call BS on this blanket statement. The aftermarket is going wild in support of all performance brands with parts and software. It is just a matter of how dedicated you are to modifying the car. Yes, gone are the days of tuning a car up with a screw driver and wrench - but with some study the accessibility to modifying parameters in a late model vehicle is without equal.

what I am taking about is you can't change the engine from any other car and you can't change the transmission etc, with the new cars you end up with the same car anyone else can have. I am not talking about having the fastest car or the best handling car. I don't find it satisfying in pulling out the laptop to upgrade a program on the car as I do with making a cam upgrade.