Dodge Hellcat Engines
The Dodge Hellcat HEMI V8 engine represents car engineering at its best. While it shares some basic architecture with its Chrysler cousins, the 5.7-and 6.4-liter HEMI V8 series, it is engineered from the block up to deliver more than 700-horsepower of turbocharged power.
Currently, this engine is only available in the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, making them the most powerful modern American muscle cars on the freeways of today. To truly understand the Hellcat power and performance, it is important to understand all the aspects of the automotive system that is the Dodge SRT Hellcat series.
Modern Muscle Car
Rising from the ashes of the Great Recession of 2008, the Chrysler Group, owned by Fiat Automotive with the subsidiaries of Ram Trucks and Dodge Cars, combined the racing engineering excellent of Fiat with the American passion for the open road and brought University Dodge 2016 Challenger SRT Hellcata new line of vehicles to the market. The Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger and the Dodge Viper formed the street line. The Dodge Challenger was their mid-range muscle car and the Dodge Charger became their sports car.
In the redesign process, engineers wanted to recreate the Challenger and Charger as dynamic and modern muscle car dynamic with today’s technology and features but retain the car’s representation for being some of the most powerful engines on American roads, so they developed the Hellcat to use in both models.
Both the Challenger SRT Hellcat and Charger SRT Hellcat come with a choice of manual or automatic transmission and average 13 MPG city and 25 MPG highway. The suspension and the braking system have been performance-tuned to handle the engine’s 700+ horsepower and 650 foot pounds of torque. While both models have plenty of options for styling and interiors, the true attraction is the powerpack that drives the Challenger and Charger SRT Hellcat.
Under the Hood
The Hellcat shares the basic of architecture with its HEMI cousins, specifically that of a 103.99 bore. Opting for a higher strength block, Dodge created the Hellcat engine block out of cast iron with thicker webs and cooling channels. Additionally, the crankshaft was hardened steel forged to handle the extra power demands while providing a 90.9mm stroke. Even the connecting rods have been beefed up to adding cracked bearing caps to provide for better clamping and thus a smoother power transition.
The newly designed and created aluminum pistons can withstand 21,000 pounds of compression force and the wrist pins have a diamond like coating to reduce friction, thereby allowing for faster power passage. The intake valves are 52.3mm with the exhaust valves having a smaller diameter of 42mm, both with hollow cores and sodium filled for fantastic heat transfer. Even with all these engineering changes from the normal HEMI design, Dodge added more power with the addition of a turbocharger.
Turbo Power
While on-board turbocharging has been around for some time with mixed results, the Dodge Hellcat turbocharger is not a redesign but a new engine design that is built for reliability and longevity. Producing over 30,000 liters of air per minute, this American made turbocharger uses a single path clutch to prevent back blocking the engine during power transitions. The transmission rotors have a Teflon coating to prevent accidental contact and the washers for the internal shaft has a industrial diamond coating to provide the correct clamping force, each and every time.
The gears and bearings have a special sealed for life system that provides the lubrication and therefore reduces the potential failure times significantly, thereby prolonging the life of the turbo. There are also two air intercoolers that reduce the air temperature and oil temperature to a steady 100 degrees. All of these features and innovative engineering combined have created a long lasting and very powerful turbocharger — a rare combo.
Effectively, there is no mid-range car, muscle or otherwise on the market with the power and performance of the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat or the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. The packaging of power and performance with the modern styling and features have created an automotive masterpiece that stays true to its roots while opening the door for the future.
Rob Lambdin’s University Dodge has a great selection of all Dodge models and we currently have 3 Hellcat models in stock. We have Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcats and Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat in stock. Come in and test drive it today — you’ll be happy you drove a car with an engine like this.