We finally got the car back from the exhaust shop yesterday afternoon. We didn’t have time to do much with it because it was close to quitin’ time so we left it till this morning to strap it down to the dyno and see what this engine can do once it can breathe.

As you can see from the photos of the exhaust, it can be tricky to route the piping properly under the car. At a glance everything looks symmetrical, but that is far from the case. The differential is off center and the spare wheel recess in the trunk is also a bit different from one side to the next. Either way, Hector at Exhaust Depot took care of the Challenger and everything fits together perfectly. We decided to go 3″ from the header manifold all the way back. This includes a pair of Catco 3″ hi-flow catalytic converters and a Magnaflow muffler which has the X-pipe inside of it. Stock tips were reused, and the pipes where painted black with high heat paint so that people wouldn’t think anything out of the ordinary at first glance. Sleeper style…(if an SRT8 could ever be considered a sleeper)

If you look at max power and torque gains it really isn’t that impressive. But the gains across the rev range were impressive. At 4200 RPM gains were 15hp and 20 ft-lbs, not to shabby, and right in the area where it’s usable.

Somebody better call the feds, we got our hands on a Challenger SRT8.  In the coming week we’ll be bringing you news on our plans for this car.  Nothing too drastic, but power should be bumped up by about 150 or more.

This last Friday we took the car to Orlando Speed World for some baseline runs and the car performed admirably.  My best run was a 13.550 @ 104.12.  Over the course of the evening track conditions were deteriorating quickly and could never quite muster the same time.  Although they were consistent, I kept losing a couple hundredths per run.   So, we decided some wieght loss, and a drop in tire pressure was in order.  I got out of the car and sent in the owners son, Josh, to handle the strip.  Although it was his first time down the 1320, you wouldn’t have been able to tell.  With 50lbs less wieght and 22psi in the tires he managed to pull out a 13.511 @ 104.33. Hopefully the next time we take the car to the track we’ll be able to track down a set of drag radials.

All in all the evening at the track wasn’t a disappointment (except for the track condition itself).  The car did exactly what was advertised.  Although we missed the claimed 13.3 second 1/4 mile, we couldn’t blame the car.  It did have some unwanted weight in the back (7/8th a tank of gas) and my heavy ass in the driver’s seat.

Monday began with some baseline dyno pulls to see what the Challenger is capable of at the wheels.  We did two pulls, the first one being the best.  I think the engine fell victim to heat soak on the second pull and lost a few HP and lbft.  Tomorrow we should be doing a couple more pulls after the 3″ header back exhaust from Exhaust Depot is installed.

You can see from the pull just how quiet the factory exhaust system is.  I’m sure there is quite a bit of restriction that we’ll be getting rid of once the 3″ exhaust system is installed and this beast can breath a little better.