Just as the Dodge Viper brand is about to be quietly euthanized or sold to a den of Cub Scouts, along comes the far less expensive but equally tweakable Challenger—a tuner’s dream come true. Not surprisingly, major Mopar power hogs are now making pilgrimages to John Hennessey’s Texas shop. As this was written, 15 Challengers had filled 20 of Hennessey’s service bays, and the man had prepared a menu of seven different engine upgrades for the stock 425-horse SRT8.
For our test, we chose the third-strongest recipe, the HPE600 Turbo, which retains the Hemi’s stock displacement but benefits from 6 psi of boost, courtesy of a single Precision 67HPSH turbo with a 44-millimeter waste gate. The cylinder heads were aggressively ported and polished until enough metal was removed to lower compression to 9.6:1. Hennessey then installed an air-to-air intercooler, cold-air induction, a turbo oil-pump scavenge system, stainless headers, and a Corsa exhaust.
The result: 620 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 650 pound-feet of torque at 4200 rpm. The engine package alone costs $29,500 installed, although that works out to only $151 per bonus horsey.
Keep Reading: 2008 Hennessey Dodge Challenger HPE600 Turbo - Specialty File
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