The upcoming Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is here to drag race and chew bubble gum — and it’s all out of bubble gum. While the Hellcats were something of a 707hp multi-tool of mayhem, the Demon is focused on its mission. With the daily driven compromises removed (like all of the passenger seats), the Demon can optimized further for the quarter-mile.
Newton’s third law of motion says that, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” There’s no area in a car that more clearly demonstrates this than in suspension, where springs and shocks react to a variety of load forces.
With the Demon, a “Drag Mode” will tailor the active suspension and shocks for hard launches with good weight transfer. While it’s easy to soften soften the rear springs while upping compression damping to get weight on the rear tires while upping the front rates with minimal rebound damping to get it back there as soon as possible, that “old school” combination wouldn’t handle lateral loads, be it daily cornering or an out-of-shape pass, as well.
Thanks to the active Bilstein suspension, SRT can tune in both the physical and digital worlds by utilizing 35-percent lower rate front springs with 28-percent lower rears coupled with a 75-percent softer front bar and 44-percent softer rear bar. From there, the shock can be tweaked to control weight transfer according to the situation.
Never wanting to leave us unteased, Dodge left a little puzzle at the end — we think it’s active suspension settings at wide-open vs. off-throttle, but what do you think?
Hardware:
35 percent lower rate front springs/28 percent lower rate rear springs
75 percent lower rate hollow front sway bar/44 percent lower rate rear sway bar
Drag-tuned Bilstein Adaptive Damping Shocks
Software:
Rear = F/F and Front = F/S
F/F – F/S maintained @ wide open throttle (WOT)
F/F – F/F < WOT
Traction control disabled/ESC maintained
Result:
13.5=575@500
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