Specific outputs have been put to engines in the 2011 Dodge Challenger lineup, and the increases are substantial at the bottom and the top of the range: the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 will turn out 305 horsepower and 268 pound-feet, the 5.7-liter Hemi will crank 379 hp and 410 lb-ft., while the 6.4-liter Hemi tops the charts with 475 hp and 460 lb-ft.
That's a 50-hp and 18 lb-ft. rise for the 3.6-liter V6 over the current 3.5-liter, which ought to make Dodge's muscle car much more competitive with base models of the Camaro and Mustang. Moving up, there is a 50-hp bump in ponies alongside a 40-lb-ft. increase in torque for the top-shelf 6.4-liter that should help the SRT8 compete with Ford's GT500. The man in the middle, the 5.7-liter, makes do with an increase of seven horsepower and ten pound-feet.
Much more intriguing than that is the tale that Ralph Gilles, Dodge's CEO, said that the SRT8 would do the 0-to-60 run in less than four seconds. The current Challenger has been tested by various outlets to run anywhere from 4.8 to 5.5 seconds. Dodge doesn't officially list its own time, but the EVIC information page on the Challenger site displays a 4.90-second time.
If Gilles did actually say the 2011 would get it done in "the 3-second zone," then there's a year's haul of Deadly Catch in Denmark because 50 additional horsepower won't cut an entire second. A Cadillac CTS-V weighs about 60 pounds more than the Challenger SRT8 but has 81 more ponies that help it break the four-second barrier. The truth is in there somewhere – the question is, where is it, and how fast will it be?
