As a kid, I grew up watching a lot of drag racing, either at home on television with my dad or he would take me out to our local track to watch racing on the weekends. It was safe to say I was hooked from an early age and my first time down the drag strip come not long after obtaining my driver’s license when I turn 16.
Back then, having a 13-second street car was rare. Now you can go to your local Chevrolet, Dodge, or Ford dealer and take your pick of 10-second, 11-second, or 12-second perfectly refined, daily driveable street cars. It goes to show how far we have come over the past 20 years.
As life eventually got in the way and I got out of the sport for a while, I had my chance to pilot a 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon at Grand Bend Motorplex in Grand Bend, Ontario and it instantly got me hooked again. It wasn’t soon after that Dodge announced its 2019 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack 1320 package, an affordable grassroots drag racing package taking technology from the Demon and putting it into the 6.4-liter (392 cubic-inch) HEMI V8-powered Scat Pack.
I didn’t keep that car long. Manly to a paint issue from the factory which I expressed in an earlier article, along with the fact the R/T Scat Pack 1320 was the wrong platform for where I wanted to take the car performance-wise.
After that, I had a couple of Hellcat-powered Jeep® Grand Cherokee Trackhawks (2018 and 2020 models) which were featured on the site as well. While they were a lot of fun, I was never going to turn one into a dedicated drag vehicle.
Our Newest Project Car –
That is where our new 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat comes in. My goal is to eventually build it into an 8.5-second 1/4-miler and this is a car I won’t feel bad about putting a cage in. This particular 2015 model is an excellent starting point for such a build.
The previous owner had already added a ton of great parts to this car. Upgrades already include…
- ATI 10% Overdrive Balancer
- Whipple 4.5-liter Supercharger with 5-Inch Pulley (Also Have 4.5-Inch Pulley Available)
- Alky Control Meth Kit
- ID 1300X Injectors
- Kooks Long Tubes
- Catless Mid-Mufflers
- Fore Fuel Pump Module with Twin TI Automotive F90000274 Pumps (119 GPH, Flex-Fuel Compatible)
- 160-Degree Thermostat
- DSS Aluminum Driveshaft
- Driveshaft Loop
- 3.09 Rear Gear
- Differential Brace
Thus making this a great starting point for our build.
The car also came with a set of HHP Bogart 3-piece drag wheels with skinnies for the front, a 4-piston front brake kit to fit the 17-inch front runners, and some other parts as well. The car has already been put on a hub dyno, where is put down 931 rear-wheel-horsepower and has completed the 1/4-mile with a 9.80-second pass.
I have already begun to order some parts for the car, something we will be talking about shortly. The plan is to have the car re-tuned, so I know where it is at and we can optimize the current setup through the rest of this season. During the off-season, my plan is to pull the motor and rebuild it with a forged 426 cubic-inch rotating assembly, add a cam, heads, as well as a few other things, and throw some more boost at it.
Be sure to subscribe to our MoparInsiders.com YouTube channel, to get a view of the videos before they hit the website. This car should be a lot of fun, tuning for the next several months this summer. You can watch the introduction video at the top of the page.
