Here’s How A Hemi V8 Fits In The New Dodge Charger

When your brand stands for one big thing, it’s usually not a wise idea to get rid of that thing. Porsche almost axed the 911, and now they’re probably glad they didn’t. Chevrolet almost got rid of the Corvette until it made a business case as an American icon. Heck, Ford almost nixed the Mustang for the front-wheel-drive Probe. Dodge actually got rid of its V8 rear-wheel-drive cars, and the results have been a bit predictable. In 2023, Mopar dealerships across the country sold 75,920 Chargers. Last year, that figure was cut in half. While a straight-six gasoline model is nearly here, the fans want that crossplane thump. Well, Dodge has finally unveiled a new Hemi-powered Charger – but it comes with a catch.

See, this isn’t a normal Dodge Charger. It’s an NHRA Factory Stock race car, meaning you won’t be able to drive it on the road, and it doesn’t need to conform to the sort of safety and emissions standards a production car must meet. Sure, the National Hot Rod Association has its own safety standards, but those cover items like a roll cage, fire protection, a driveshaft loop, and an external kill switch rather than, say, DOT glass. This Charger has also been modified to accommodate a four-link live rear axle, a huge departure from the street car’s independent rear suspension. Still, this isn’t a full tube-frame car, so how did Stellantis manage to fit a Hemi into it when, back in 2024, Jalopnik reported that a Dodge engineer claimed the Hemi wouldn’t fit in the new Charger?

It all starts with what Dodge officially calls a “Lightweight front suspension K-member with integrated engine mounts” which seems carefully worded. It’s not uncommon to see tubular steel front subframes used in wild engine swaps, but Dodge has clearly shown off a largely stamped steel subframe with a removable tubular crossmember by posting a photo of the car’s entire underbody. Stamping such a complex part for a rather limited-run vehicle would be wildly expensive, and with the unibody mounting points being identical to those in the Charger Daytona EV, it’s likely Dodge modified a factory part for this application.

Of course, another big difference between the production Chargers and this Hustle Stuff Drag Pak (seriously) car is that the street cars are all-wheel drive, while the drag car is rear-wheel drive. Although the new Charger uses a bolt-in unit hub assembly up front, meaning the steering knuckles could theoretically be repurposed for a rear-wheel-drive application with new hub assemblies that don’t accommodate CV shafts, Stellantis went with entirely new “lightweight race-designed” front knuckles that allowed Dodge to go from divorced lower control arms with double ball joints to forged aluminum A-arms with spherical bearings, all of which are listed on this thing’s spec sheet. That’s a substantial change, although one that has more to do with pushing out the track width of those skinny drag slicks and cutting weight.

Go up top, and some more big differences appear. That 5.8-liter supercharged Hemi looks great, but it’s also quite tall. There isn’t much space between the top of the supercharger lid and the base of the windscreen, so if Dodge were to do a Hemi street car, the engine would likely need to sit forward of the tucked-back position seen in this drag car in order to make space for a windshield wiper transmission and HVAC fresh air intake. However, thanks to the Charger Daytona EV not covering its front strut towers and giving us a glimpse of what they look like in every photo of that car’s frunk, we can see that the Hustle Stuff Drag Pak appears to use factory strut towers, just without the studs for mounting additional bracing. Considering all Factory Stock Showdown cars from the COPO Camaro to the Mustang Cobra Jet use factory towers, it’s likely that Dodge stayed the course here. At the same time, check out the space between the towers and the heads. It might be tight, and Dodge may have gone with a set of stainless steel long-tube headers, but there appears to be visual clearance here.

Of course, the really hard bit about marrying a modern motor with a modern chassis is the electronics integration, and that’s where a race car has a huge leg up on a street car. Here, engine management is tackled by a Holley EFI Dominator ECU, a common aftermarket ECU for racing and custom applications, and the sort of thing enabled by starting with a body-in-white, then sending it down to Riley Technologies to be built.

So, while the first Hemi-powered variant of the new Dodge Charger does start with a factory body-in-white, it’s also taken a whole lot of modification, not just to get the drag-spec powertrain with its force-fed Hemi and three-speed automatic to fit, but to make the whole thing run a sub-eight-second quarter-mile. The electronics are completely different, packaging for stuff like wipers wasn’t a concern, the entire rear suspension setup is different, and even the front suspension components are new. It’s no surprise Dodge and Riley Technologies are only building 50 of these things, each at a list price of $234,995. Is this a sign of things to come? Who knows? All we can say for sure now is that Dodge has made a Hemi fit in the new Dodge Charger, and it rules.

Top graphic image: Dodge