Dodge’s SRT Demon Challenger makes fast lap times the old fashioned way: big displacement, big supercharger, big tires. But it has some 21st century tricks up its bulging fender flares, too.
The SRT Power Chiller
A common problem with high powered engines is the enormous demands for cooling. Some cars can’t keep up and the result is an engine that must reduce power output until things cool down. Drag racers will put bags of ice on the heads of their engines to reduce this “heat soak”.
Dodge’s SRT team came up with a novel approach to this problem. In addition to the car’s already substantial cooling, they routed the car’s air conditioning system to cool the air compressed by the supercharger. Cooler air is more dense. More air means more fuel. More fuel means more power. In this Challenger’s case, 840hp.
This is a powerful demonstration of the utility of Principle 6 – Universality, finding a new use for a system already on board, the air conditioner.
Headlight ports
To meet this car’s massive airflow needs, Dodge hollowed out the inboard headlights which are surrounded by LED lights. This merges a signal element with a practical air source element in an aesthetically appealing and cohesive element. Principle 5 – Merging.
Fob for you, fob for me
The car comes with two key fobs. My fob tells the car it can make its full 840hp. The fob I lend you restricts the car to only (sniff) 500hp. This is an example of Principle 1 – Segmentation, dividing up the user groups of a system to reduce the risk involved.
