Among the many vehicle debuts at the ongoing 2014 SEMA Show in Las Vegas is the 2015 Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car – a purpose built drag car that will help Team Mopar go after another championship in 2015 with 10,000 awesome Hemi horsepower.
Other Dodge SEMA Galleries:
The 2015 Dodge Challenger T/A Concept
The 2015 Dodge Viper ACR Concept
The 2015 Dodge Challenger T/A Concept
The 2015 Dodge Viper ACR Concept
You read that right – the supercharged Hemi V8 in the 2015 Dodge Charger R/T funny car is capable of producing 10,000 horsepower. That is enough power to send the 2,400 pound Charger race car down the quarter mile in the high 3 second range with speeds well over 300 miles per hour. It achieves this incredible power with forced induction and a monster nitro methane fuel system that delivers 90 gallons of fuel per minute.
That is 90 gallons of fuel every minute to make the prescribed 10,000 horsepower in the 2015 Dodge Charger R/T funny car.
NHRA 2015 Charger VS Hellcat 2015 Charger
To put the figures for the 2015 Dodge Charger R/T funny car into perspective, let’s compare this purpose built drag car to the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat road car. Of course, this isn’t a realistic comparison, but it helps to show what kind of power the new drag car (and all modern NHRA funny cars) makes in comparison to one of the most powerful production cars in the world.
To put the figures for the 2015 Dodge Charger R/T funny car into perspective, let’s compare this purpose built drag car to the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat road car. Of course, this isn’t a realistic comparison, but it helps to show what kind of power the new drag car (and all modern NHRA funny cars) makes in comparison to one of the most powerful production cars in the world.
The Hellcat Charger packs 707 horsepower and weighs around 4,500 pounds (estimated) for a power to weight ratio of 6.36 pounds per horsepower. The Charger R/T funny car has 10,000 horsepower and weighs 2,400lbs for a power to weight ratio of 0.24 pounds per horsepower. The Hellcat Charger is capable of dashing from a stop to 60 miles per hour in the high 3 second range while running the quarter mile in 11 seconds flat en route to a top speed of 204 miles per hour – all of which make the Hellcat Charger the best performance sedan in the world. In the same high 3 second range, the 2015 Charger R/T funny car is able to get to 300 miles per hour and it does so in the length of a quarter mile drag strip. Finally, while the world’s fastest sedan can reach a top speed of 204 miles per hour, the 2015 Charger R/T funny car can reach speeds in excess of 340 miles per hour – in the quarter mile.
Hitting the Track in 2015
While this new Dodge Charger drag car made its formal debut at the 2014 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, it will make its on-track debut when the 2015 NHRA season opens next February at the Winter Nationals in Sonoma California. One of the drivers piloting this new Charger race car will be Matt Hagan, who currently leads the 2014 NHRA funny car championship race in his Dodge Charger. Hagan took the title back in 2011 with a Charger while Jack Beckman claimed the title in 2012, also in a Charger. This means that the 2015 Charger funny car body will have some big shoes to fill, but I would expect to see continued success from the Mopar factory back drag racing program with the help of this new body.
While this new Dodge Charger drag car made its formal debut at the 2014 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, it will make its on-track debut when the 2015 NHRA season opens next February at the Winter Nationals in Sonoma California. One of the drivers piloting this new Charger race car will be Matt Hagan, who currently leads the 2014 NHRA funny car championship race in his Dodge Charger. Hagan took the title back in 2011 with a Charger while Jack Beckman claimed the title in 2012, also in a Charger. This means that the 2015 Charger funny car body will have some big shoes to fill, but I would expect to see continued success from the Mopar factory back drag racing program with the help of this new body.
When designing an engine to pull in more than atmospheric pressure, tuners often turn to forced induction. It’s one of the fastest ways to add significant power to almost any engine, and there are two prevalent ways it can be done: supercharging and turbocharging.
What’s the difference? A supercharger is an air compressor driven by the crankshaft of an engine, usually connected with a belt. Alternatively, a turbocharger is simply an air compressor driven by an exhaust gas turbine. That’s the one key difference; a supercharger requires engine power to run, while a turbocharger runs off waste energy created by the engine. You might assume that because the turbo is run off waste gases that it’s more efficient, and you’d be correct!
1. Turbocharger advantages and disadvantages:
Pros:
- Significant increase in horsepower.
- Power vs size: allows for smaller engine displacements to produce much more power relative to their size.
- Better fuel economy: smaller engines use less fuel to idle, and have less rotational and reciprocating mass, which improves fuel economy.
- Higher efficiency: turbochargers run off energy that is typically lost in naturally-aspirated and supercharged engines (exhaust gases), thus the recovery of this energy improves the overall efficiency of the engine.
Cons:
- Turbo lag: turbochargers, especially large turbochargers, take time to spool up and provide useful boost.
- Boost threshold: for traditional turbochargers, they are often sized for a certain RPM range where the exhaust gas flow is adequate to provide additional boost for the engine. They typically do not operate across as wide an RPM range as superchargers.
- Power surge: in some turbocharger applications, especially with larger turbos, reaching the boost threshold can provide an almost instantaneous surge in power, which could compromise tyre traction or cause some instability of the car.
- Oil requirement: turbochargers get very hot and often tap into the engine’s oil supply. This calls for additional plumbing, and is more demanding on the engine oil. Superchargers typically do not require engine oil lubrication.
