I don’t have any special insight, but I’d be surprised if we never see a new Dodge Charger with a Hemi again. Dodge CEO Matt McAlear all but confirmed the car was coming when we spoke with him a year ago, and shortly after our conversation, the automaker unveiled a track-only Drag Pak with a supercharged V8. Some enthusiasts are growing weary of waiting for such a car; meanwhile, others are modifying the Hurricane I6-powered Charger that’s on sale today to unreal horsepower numbers.
YouTuber Rob Dahm firmly fits in the “others” category. Of course, it helps that Dodge sent him a Charger to tinker with as part of a big influencer push, but either way. Dahm has been cranking up the boost on his Charger project with a big single turbo, and the car is now making 968 horsepower at the wheels—and that’s with the transmission slipping.
See, Dahm has done a lot to upgrade the air and the fuel on this 3.0-liter engine, but he hasn’t cracked it open once. The Hurricane now runs a Garrett 7275 turbocharger, as well as a CPC Manufacturing billet intake manifold with a secondary fuel rail to ensure it’s getting plenty of E85. Dahm also installed a Fuel Lab surge tank that sits where the passenger seat once was; that way, it doesn’t run out of fuel on high-boost runs. Clearly, not everyone is going to strip interior parts from their new car to make more power, but this quick-and-dirty install could be cleaned up if needed.
The white two-door Charger was able to hit 848 horsepower with the full exhaust system attached. Dahm reckoned that back pressure was building so high that it limited the power, and after removing the exhaust, he confirmed that was the case. Power shot up to 920 hp on the next pull, and that was with 40 psi of boost. On the final run, with the same amount of boost and a shot of nitrous, it peaked near 970 hp and 863 lb-ft of torque before the transmission decided to stop cooperating.
It’s worth mentioning, too, that Dahm hasn’t messed with the stock eight-speed auto at all. The reason this car didn’t soar into four-figure hp territory is that the transmission forced a shift when it sensed danger. Even with manual mode engaged, it freaked out at the amount of boost it was seeing, so it kicked out of sixth and into seventh gear as a precaution. It’ll take some computer trickery to fix that, but rest assured, it’s possible.
In the end, I’m still not sure how much these performance metrics matter when people really just want the sound of a V8. They want it to be real, too—not faked. We’ve seen the Hurricane I6 make big power in other applications for some time now, but until Dodge caves to pressure by slapping a Hemi into the Charger, people might choose not to care about this platform.
It all boils down to what you want most out of a car. If going fast is what’s most important to you, the boosted six-cylinder is a riot. But if you prefer a rumbling exhaust to a whistling one, the V8 is the only one that’ll work.
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