05 Viper 625 H.P. hardtop

Nice Wayne, what did you do with it? Are you going to CC this weekend?

 

Happy days are here again in the Motor City! I am eagerly awaiting the new coupe, I've always wanted a bad-ass Mopar in the stable.

I fear that we are near the end of the horsepower war going on in Detroit. Just as in the early 70's, high gas prices and insurance may put an end to all this before we know it.

 

Ive been thinking the same thing, but there is a lot of money out there in the so-called 'super'car market.

 

In 1979, in Chicago's north suburbs, premium gasoline was selling for (that I saw) as much as $1.85. This is back when a Corvette was around $10,000. In today's money, that's app. $3.73. From this perspective, I don't think that gas prices will be the problem (but I've been wrong before). Insurance? I don't think that's going to do it either. Government regulations (depending on who is elected this year) might be the greatest threat. Remember, it was a Hayabusa commercial (highspeed on the Autobahn) plus the pending introduction of Kawasaki's ZX12R that got the Euroweenies to come down on these two factories to keep the bikes from their logical potential (200 mph plus out of the crate).

 

Drove on public highways/streets for a thousand miles flipped
it to a Canadian racer who had the time to do what it is designed for...race it!
re:CC No I work Sat 's I've only been there once.

 

I wasn't referring to current prices, which ARE cheap - people don't want to believe that - I think Saudi Arabia will become a very unstable place in the next few years and we will be looking at ridiculous gas prices and shortages.

You're exactly right, Paul. Government regulation might be the one to do it. But insurance companies may catch on to these high hp numbers and slap huge surcharges on the really egregious ones.

 

How do you know this car is going to be made? I'd be highly interested.

 

If the factory announces this car, it won't come with this 10 throttle body layout. It is not street legal. This would also be a mistake to come out with a fixed roof version that looks this much like the convertible. I predict that they will come out with a hardtop option on the convertible.

Now the key question is, will they come out with a hatchback coupe version that resembles the Comp Coupe racers.

When you say limited production, what do you mean? ALL Vipers are limited production (about 1,000 per year). The smallest run was the 100 GT2's that went mostly to speculators (who lost their shorts).

Brad

 

So is the car that you are talking about the convertible with a removable hardtop roof, or are you talking about a hatchback coupe? If it is just a stupid hard top option for the convertible, then Daimler has completely lost touch with the market.

Brad

 

Out of curiosity, is it the individual throttle bodies themselves that aren't street legal? Or is it the apparent lack of any airbox or filtering device that would make it illegal? I'd imagine there could be EGR and PCV issues without such plumbing in place.

 

There are no plans for a 600+ HP street legal Viper Coupe or SRT. It's fun to talk about, but it just ain't so. If there was a new street legal coupe, it would be closer to 525-575HP. D-C knows that they need to work on weight, not HP.

 

The throttle bodies aren't street legal and they have a carbon fiber airbox that can be built around them. Caldwell Development designed this for GTS-R Le Mans cars. They are based in my backyard in Carlsbad (CA). I have never seen a race car with the throttle bodies that are built to fit directly into the hood. The reason for this is because Le Mans and FIA restricted the hell out of them and required airboxes. I'll see if I can dig up a picture of one.

The problem is that there are no emissions connected to this because they were designed for racing applications only. Therefore they won't work with the OE ECU.

What this should tell everyone is that the Viper engine is way underrated. With just an swap of better intake, this engine just screams. Who's ever seen a pushrod engine with an 7,700 rpm redline? If you guys didn't know it, the Vipers ran the same engines for the entire Le Mans season. You didn't see them rebuilding them after every race like many other have to do...

The engine on street Vipers are built to run 150,000 miles between rebuilds.

 

Ah, ok. I see what you mean. Here's the airbox, and its seal, on the PVO Carbon Concept:
http://www.fast-autos.net/dodge/srt10acr.jpg

And the throttle bodies.

http://www.fast-autos.net/dodge/srt10acr23.jpg

It looks like it's already got the plumbing for the PCV hose routing back into the airbox? (Little black "nib" at the back of the valve cover.) Seems to be a step in the right direction. The question is, can they make it smog legal with the federal emissions durability mandates in mind. I hope they can; that'd be awesome.

BMW's M models (E46 M3's S54, M5 & Z8's S62 engines) have individual throttle bodies:
http://www.bmw-m.net/Gallery/m5s62.htm
Although the valves themselves are electronically actuated, and a 4-valve head with Double VANOS might help things run cleaner than without. But they've had the individual throttle bodies in their street cars since the E30 M3's of the late '80s. I think advancements in engine management controls should help Dodge to pull this off. Not that they'd need to to make 625 bhp...

 

Here a few pics that I dug up of the CDI racing engines... do they look familiar?

 

Last 2 pics aren't working. But yeah thanks, that's about what I was expecting. Here it is in the race car:
http://www.3d-gfx.de/viper/screen/viper6.jpg

I think Dodge could use a similar setup for their Carbon Concept: keep the airbox and intake with its filtering element of the standard road car, and develop an emissions-compliant individual throttle body setup. Whether they want to invest that much remains to be seen. But it'd be nice to keep the throttle bodies.