Sorry but its a 20 yr old truck engine for god sakes!!! Getting 640 hp outta 8.4l is a joke! The new car deserved a new power plant, no ands ifs or buts about it!!
I quote Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy: "Well, maybe a few butts...."
Mike, seriously you have a point on the one hand, but on the other hand, the concept of the relatively lower revving 8+ liter V-10 with all that torque and tall gears is what has made the Viper such a legend. I drove the living daylights out of my 1996 GTS, hitting the top speed the car would go virtually every time I drove it. I held the pedal to the floor at 190 MPH for 5 miles trying to get the car to go faster(thinking in my head I hope it does not blow up!) and when the motor came out of the car to be built for forced induction back in the day at 73,000 miles, the bearings and the cross hatch pattern cylinder liners still looked perfect. All I ever did was change the oil and flog it after checking the tire pressure before I left each time!
People kind of have a point here about wishing that the Viper could be the undisputed king of power based on the factory HP and TQ specs like it did back in 1992 and 1996 where even a Ferrari Testarossa that was over $200,000.00 at the time had only 390 HP and 360 LBS/FT. Flat 12, dry sump, 6750 RPM and it was still not as fast as the GTS in the 1/4 mile or on the track. I am sure everybody here would love a dual overhead cam motor and 800+ NA HP, the problem is that setup would be expensive as hell and from the bean counting perspective, would be a nightmare to warranty. Hell, I read on a forum somewhere the other day that a testarossa engine refresh with all the bells and whistles was around 15K. That car did not have anywhere near the miles that were on my GTS and I am positive that owner did not drive the car nearly as hard as I did. The 'Truck Engine" concept/layout design was built to last and take a ton of abuse. The pie in the sky stuff is a bit more finicky and not as reliable. Look how the GTS-R spanked the prototypes at the 24 hours of Daytona in 2000, or how the 1968 Ford GT 40 spanked even the Long tail Porsche 917 prototypes with their flat 12 cylinder engines and cutting edge technology for the time? Why did the Viper and FGT beat all the prototypes?RELIABILITY.
If somebody wants to have a car that can destroy all the current "factory supercars" on the the street for around 50K, just get a forged Gen 2 GTS and put on a mild turbo system and be done with it..... People usually think a well maintained GTS is new when they see it anyway.
What SRT has done with the Gen 5 is an incredible, world class machine that is derived from the GTS DNA, yet has stepped into the modern age of high end interior acoutrements, I love the dash with shift light and all the road course data logging capibilities and such. I bet the traction control will be able to control how much torque goes to the wheels making the car hook beautifully. It is an amazing car period.
Does anybody know if the 3.55 combined with tire height transmission gearing will allow for 60 MPH in 1st gear or will 6200 RPM/3.55/28" tire need to shift to 2nd?
To mod this Gen V for big power forced induction is not going to be cheap either. ECU wise, unless an acceptable form of piggyback can be devised, we are talking about 7-12K minimum for a PRO EFI, Pectel or MoTeC once everything is wired and ready to go. The compression ratio of the motor and piston quench will determine how much boost could be added to the stock setup. But I think that somebody who will be spending 120+K on a new Viper will not be trying to do an economy piggyback ECU setup. Footwell turbo setups are difficult on the Gen 3 and 4 cars due to the frame and engine compartment layouts in terms of achieving gravity draining turbo placement as well as fitment of properly sized air filters. So, in absolute terms, unless somebody is willing to see how much power a stock Gen V motor can hold before letting go, a big power Gen V with engine build, ECU, fuel system, turbo system, driveline upgrades ie clutch,rear end/halfshafts, and tuning will probably cost at least 80K when it's all said and done. Now we are getting into TT Lambo range....There may be a few ********* Viper guys out there who might want to do this, but not many. I hope I am wrong.
So with all that said, I think this car will fare very well against anything in it's price range from the factory as there is a lot more competition in the automotive industry for big power street 'super' cars than there was when the Gen I and Gen II Vipers came out.
People crying about how the Mustang has more power are not looking at the big picture IMO.
