The Dodge Viper has always been a fast and fearsome thing. So much so that Matt Hardigree once opined that giving one away on a game show was like signing someone’s death warrant. Still, the rate of acceleration was always held back by the driver’s ability with a stick shift. However, one shop has changed all that, giving the Viper a transmission “upgrade” to fling it ever faster towards the horizon.
Remember the Getrag GS7D36SG? It’s a dual-clutch transmission used in a wide range of BMW performance models (E9x M3, F10 M5, F8x M2, M3 and M4, and the F06, F12, and F13 M6). Last year, we examined how this ‘box has become a darling of the tuner scene, able to handle serious power figures while shifting in just 50 milliseconds flat.
It sounds like the perfect transmission to throw behind a massive 8.4-liter V10 engine with forced induction to boot. Indeed, the result is a steroidal American snake that shifts like the European exotics of today.
View this post on Instagram
As reported by Road and Track, the build is the work of Carma Performance. The twin-clutch Viper has been shown off in videos by shop owner Erin Carpenter, who jumped behind the wheel to put the machine through its paces, as seen in the video above. Armed with a supercharger setup from Procharger, it’s making somewhere in the realm of 1,200 horsepower. Gripping the sequential stick as the Viper surges, Carpenter slams through the gears in the blink of an eye.
The gearbox for this build was lifted from a F10 BMW M5. “The reason we like the F10-generation box is because it’s a long ratio box, and I just felt like that was probably better suited for a car that was going to be driven on the street,” Carpenter told Road and Track.
View this post on Instagram
The swap naturally took a great deal of work. It required fabricating an adapter plate to bolt the transmission to the Viper V10, as well as a custom driveshaft to send drive to the rear end.
Beyond the mechanicals, there were some electronic problems to solve, too. These dual-clutch boxes are all computer-controlled, and they expect to speak to a network of BMW computers from the original vehicle they were installed in. When you yank the transmission out and throw it in a Viper, all of those computers are gone, and the transmission generally doesn’t like that.
“It was a huge pain in the ass,” Carpenter told Road and Track. “We kept the factory [transmission control module] inside of the transmission, and then we’re using a computer from a company called Maxx ECU that is basically spoofing the factory transmission control module into thinking it’s still in the F10.” MaxxECU sells its custom DCT controllers to enable the transmission to work in a wide range of swap applications. Without an aftermarket controller talking to the transmission and feeding it with the necessary speed, RPM, and other signals, the dual clutch would simply fail to function.
As you might expect, a lot of tuning and tweaking goes into a swap like this. “I probably have dozens and dozens of hours of laptop time just driving around [and] tuning, in order to get it happy,” Carpenter told the outlet. The Viper is set up to manage the amount of boost per gear. The full 1,200 horsepower isn’t available until third gear, helping make launches safer and the car more controllable.
The build isn’t complete just yet. There’s still work to be done to tune the transmission’s automatic mode to suit the Viper’s power delivery. It’s part of the benefit of the dual-clutch swap. Done right, you can have a great deal of manual control, and you can also let the ‘box row the gears for you when you’re just cruising around. For now, it also remains a one-off—Carpenter isn’t sure if Carma Performance will offer the swap on an ongoing basis to more customers. Carpenter estimated jobs like this one would land around the $15,000 to $20,000 range, no surprise given the amount of work involved.
View this post on Instagram
It’s easy to see the appeal of a dual-clutch swap in a build like this. These are readily available performance transmissions that are relatively straightforward to work with and handle an absolute boatload of power. Besides, if you want to make a Viper much faster around a race track, faster shifts are a great way to do it. While you lose the romance of shifting your own gears, you do get that thrill ride acceleration that only a rapid-fire dual-clutch can provide. If you’ve got a ridiculous yearning for that modern supercar feel in a roaring American bruiser… this is exactly how to do it.
Read the full piece over at Road & Track; we figured we’d share it since we’d previously written about the glory of the Getrag GS7D36SG in our article “Here’s Why Geniuses Are Swapping BMW Transmissions Into Everything From Muscle Cars To S2000s.” Turns out, we’re not totally full of it!
Image credits: Dodge, Maxx ECU
People will complain about this. I understand. I’ve had a bunch of fun in manual-transmission cars. But it’s too late, folks. The world has moved on. All you’re doing is encouraging companies to make electric cars with fake shifts.
I honestly think this swap would have helped that Viper group score their Nurburgring record all those years ago…
All the comments I’ve seen. Is a DSG a bigger performance upgrade vs driver feels is entirely off.
The reason why people don’t like this is that the Viper is one of the last bastions of “I bought a supercar that can kill me if I messed up.” goes away.
All we need to do is go back to the iconic Ferrari “Those were good tires but not great tires” crash of a 512 boxer. At what point does “This Clutch is too heavy for starbucks” mess up the reason for the car?
For the mere purpose of showing up in a supercar pre-1980s was that you liked messed up stuff, but knew how to handle a wild bull. Sure you may not stay on 5 seconds but you may last ten!
Now, supercars are “I can afford it and require absolutely no safe talent doing it.”
Somebody who can own a tiger just because they can afford it, is not reason that they can purchase that tiger.
How can I put this simply
Somebody doing a faster Nürburgring Nordschleife in DSG Lamborghini will NEVER have the skill of the manual-gearbox driver. EVER. UNLESS they beat them. Give it a mark of shame. Fuck Them.
It’s not like using a manual transmission is particularly tricky or difficult once you’ve learnt, and it’s a long way from being the most difficult part of driving a car at 10/10ths round a track.
Is it easier to set a fast time with a DSG vs a manual? Yeah, almost certainly, in the same way that it would be easier to do if you had better tires, or more power, or better aero etc. etc.
“Ferrari Killer” brings back so many memories of which 90s car magazine was going to put that on its cover that month. Look, I know the new Mercury Villager Nautica Edition is pretty quick for a minivan, but come on.
Ferrari 810 Viperelli
They should’ve done that. They could charge double the Viper’s price for the automatic, slap a horsey badge on the front and make bank LOL
Instead of the DCT, they could’ve used the ZF8 or a GM automatic.
not to be That Guy, but with 1200 hp, they could probably use an aftermarket th400 and still be faster than the stick, not to mention waaay less complicated (and possibly more reliable compared to the DCT).
There used to be several 1000+hp Vipers running around Houston with either TH400 or 4L80E transmissions in them. The main downside to those transmissions, which work great on the strip, is they aren’t much fun on the road. The dual-clutch idea is probably an attempt to do both well (or, at least as well as a car with 1200hp can do both).
Who is this guy arguing with in his comments?
I didn’t think it was controversial to say that sequentials or DCTs are faster than H pattern 6 speeds, that the latter becomes less and less suitable when the power crosses into 4 digits, etc.
If you’re building a drag car, something like this is a fine swap. The specific BMW transmission might be new or unique, but the basic idea has been around the Viper world for decades.
While there’s always someone who’s going to argue, there’s also this thing on social media where content creators just claim there are a bunch of “haters” and you see piles of comments dunking on the bad takes that no one is even posting.
Engagement is king, and they know arguing is the best driver of engagement.
Ah yes, the fabled “making up a guy and getting mad at what he would have said” strategy.
The manufacturing of straw men to support your argument is hardly unique to the automotive tuning world.
I hear that there are whole fields supported by straw men. Corvid fear response in agricultural settings, for example.
It was the number one crop raised during the Johnson administration. Sadly we’ve never been able to get anyone interested in them for exports.
Yeah, that’s called the Straw Bro Fallacy in Internet Psychology. The DSM v5.13.2 recommends 25-50mg of Haterade daily to help reduce symptoms.
I love “Straw Bro” fallacy!!
The Autopian: Turns out, we’re not totally full of it! ™
The word “totally” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
I’m not really a fan of the “on a public highway, balancing a laptop on their lap, holding a phone in one hand, and shifting with the other” video.
Get a mount or a friend to ride passenger seat and focus on driving and the other cars around you.
I’ve been tempted many a time to laptop-debug while driving but never stupid enough to do it.
I’m waiting for two known accounts to chirp in on this one.
Ah, yes.
We are all waiting for the valuable member contributions of noted engine and transmission enthusiasts Wankelfan75 and Powerglide4life.
I won’t blame our resident Viper aficionados if they boycott this post. Putting a DCT into a Viper is going to ruffle some feathers.
Viper aficionados? I am just waiting to hear about how well a Jatco CVT would fit this project. That’s the transmission the Viper really needs.
Idk, I think that guy’s unshakable. I threatened him the other day with a touchscreen shifter on a Viper and he said he’d still be paying attention to developments in the Viper space
That’s because there are so few performance coupes left that I’m willing to overlook even some awful decisions if the basic bones are there.
To put it more clearly, I don’t think there’s a single plausible UI decision that would completely rule me out from purchasing a vehicle I’m otherwise interested in. I don’t have the same reflexive touchscreen hate as many here.
Seems like they’re answering a question no one was asking. I’m thinking the stock Tremec 6060 is a really sweet manual that fits the car’s character quite well.
Paraphrasing here: there are old Vipers and there are bold Vipers, but there are no old, bold Vipers.
They should lend this car out for marriage counseling services. One spouse, let’s just say “husbands” for the sake of argument, could show up at home with the DCT Viper. Then you record the other spouse’s reactions to the car and the price tag. It would give you something to unpack, at least.
And then once the offendee has been made aware of the tactic, there’s a whole new level of trust and privacy issues to discuss. It’s like two layers of counseling for the price of one.
They used to call this thing the Widowmaker, they just never knew the widow was the one doing the making.
Sounds more like a way to drum up business for a struggling divorce lawyer
Available for hire with a Turo Gold Membership