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Near Stock Dodge Challenger Demon 170 Runs a 9.08 in Positive DA
December 7, 2023 by Patrick Rall
Dodge is continuing to deliver more and more examples of the 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170 and as owners are getting them, some are quickly getting them through the break-in process and heading to the track. One of those people is Doug Reddicopp, who spent December 6th at Bradenton Motorsports Park with his F8 Green Demon 170 and the results were pretty impressive. On his first trip to the track, with the only change from stock being different wheels and tires, Redd made a handful of low-9-second runs, including a 9.08 at 147 miles per hour.
As a refresher, the official Dodge marketing number for the 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170 is 8.91 at 151.7 miles per hour. On that run, Dodge engineer Jim Wilder drove the Mopar muscle car to the 60-foot mark in 1.244 seconds and got to the 8th mile stripe in 5.677 seconds with a speed of 121.77 miles per hour. That was in a one-seat car with carbon fiber wheels. You can click here for a closer look at the Dodge time slip.
Doug Reddicopp’s F8 Green 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 is a factory full interior car with alloy wheels, but to try to get the weight closer to that of the Dodge test car, he removed passenger seat and rear seat assembly, along with swapping from the stock alloy wheels to a set of Billet Specialty wheels with skinnies up front and similar Mickey Thompson rubber out back. In swapping the wheels and removing the seats, Reddicopp’s car is likely closer to the weight of the Dodge single-seat car, but we should keep in mind that in single-seat cars, there are other items removed beyond just the actual seats and the factory leather seat in Reddicopp’s car is heavier than the single-seat option, so a full factory interior car with the passenger and rear seats removed is still a bit heavier than a factory single-seat car. Reddicopp also points out that he is a big guy, weighing around 260 pounds and leading to a track weight of 4,380 pounds with the driver. We don’t know what Jim Wilder weighs, but we would bet that it is quite a bit less than 260 pounds, so in the end, Doug Reddicopp’s car surely weighs more than the Dodge test car, but he is still pretty close to matching the factory number on his first trip to the track.
Reddicopp’s car is essentially stock, but since he changed the wheels and pulled some interior parts to mimic the weight of the Dodge test car, we went with “near stock” in our title. We suspect that many people will call his car stock, but to hush the haters a bit, we went with “near stock”. I suspect that, like most cars, the Demon 170 won’t be raced much with the factory wheels and tires, even though it comes with drag radials and relatively lightweight wheels.
Some other key details on Doug Reddicopp’s 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 during yesterday’s track session. He initially had about a half-tank of E85 from a pump and they added some E90 Ignite, leading to a dash readout of 80% ethanol mix. The car had 565 miles on the odometer when he arrived at the track that morning, so it was just beyond the break-in mileage.
Reddicopp made a total of 18 passes on December 6th, with the majority of the runs being in the 9.1X range as the density altitude fluctuated between +325 and +650. His best runs – a 9.08 and 9.09 – came with a density altitude of 325. Based on online weather information from the time of the Dodge 8.91 run, that official number was achieved with a DA in the -300 range, so in addition to being a bit heavier, Redd didn’t have as good of air quality as the Dodge team, but he still got within 19 hundredths of a second of the official time.
Seeing as how Doug Reddicopp and his 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 got down to a 9.08 with more weight and worse air compared to the Dodge 8.91 run, it seems very likely that we will see some of these cars in the 8s without any real changes to the car very soon. Reddicopp points out that there was a Demon 170 running at Bradenton on the 6th that got into the 8s, but it had tuning work done and to most people, any tuning pushes the car out of the “stock” discussion. As for Reddicopp’s car, we are comfortable calling his times near stock since all he changed was the wheels and we think that any car that can run 9.0s with nothing but a wheel change is pretty impressive.
December 7, 2023 by Patrick Rall
Dodge is continuing to deliver more and more examples of the 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170 and as owners are getting them, some are quickly getting them through the break-in process and heading to the track. One of those people is Doug Reddicopp, who spent December 6th at Bradenton Motorsports Park with his F8 Green Demon 170 and the results were pretty impressive. On his first trip to the track, with the only change from stock being different wheels and tires, Redd made a handful of low-9-second runs, including a 9.08 at 147 miles per hour.
As a refresher, the official Dodge marketing number for the 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170 is 8.91 at 151.7 miles per hour. On that run, Dodge engineer Jim Wilder drove the Mopar muscle car to the 60-foot mark in 1.244 seconds and got to the 8th mile stripe in 5.677 seconds with a speed of 121.77 miles per hour. That was in a one-seat car with carbon fiber wheels. You can click here for a closer look at the Dodge time slip.
Doug Reddicopp’s F8 Green 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 is a factory full interior car with alloy wheels, but to try to get the weight closer to that of the Dodge test car, he removed passenger seat and rear seat assembly, along with swapping from the stock alloy wheels to a set of Billet Specialty wheels with skinnies up front and similar Mickey Thompson rubber out back. In swapping the wheels and removing the seats, Reddicopp’s car is likely closer to the weight of the Dodge single-seat car, but we should keep in mind that in single-seat cars, there are other items removed beyond just the actual seats and the factory leather seat in Reddicopp’s car is heavier than the single-seat option, so a full factory interior car with the passenger and rear seats removed is still a bit heavier than a factory single-seat car. Reddicopp also points out that he is a big guy, weighing around 260 pounds and leading to a track weight of 4,380 pounds with the driver. We don’t know what Jim Wilder weighs, but we would bet that it is quite a bit less than 260 pounds, so in the end, Doug Reddicopp’s car surely weighs more than the Dodge test car, but he is still pretty close to matching the factory number on his first trip to the track.
Reddicopp’s car is essentially stock, but since he changed the wheels and pulled some interior parts to mimic the weight of the Dodge test car, we went with “near stock” in our title. We suspect that many people will call his car stock, but to hush the haters a bit, we went with “near stock”. I suspect that, like most cars, the Demon 170 won’t be raced much with the factory wheels and tires, even though it comes with drag radials and relatively lightweight wheels.
Some other key details on Doug Reddicopp’s 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 during yesterday’s track session. He initially had about a half-tank of E85 from a pump and they added some E90 Ignite, leading to a dash readout of 80% ethanol mix. The car had 565 miles on the odometer when he arrived at the track that morning, so it was just beyond the break-in mileage.
Reddicopp made a total of 18 passes on December 6th, with the majority of the runs being in the 9.1X range as the density altitude fluctuated between +325 and +650. His best runs – a 9.08 and 9.09 – came with a density altitude of 325. Based on online weather information from the time of the Dodge 8.91 run, that official number was achieved with a DA in the -300 range, so in addition to being a bit heavier, Redd didn’t have as good of air quality as the Dodge team, but he still got within 19 hundredths of a second of the official time.
“We tried several different launch methods, trans brake, launch control and foot brake. This car has so much torque we would have trouble leaving at the minimum 1500 rpm off the trans brake without taking a bunch of torque management out. Our best times we’re leaving at 1200 to 1300 off the foot brake.”
Even with what he called great track conditions, the Demon 170’s torque output on a hard launch was too much for tires, forcing him to sacrifice some power at the starting line. As mentioned above, Dodge recorded a 1.244 60-foot time, so with better grip and some more seat time, Reddicopp has room for improvement on the launch. He got to the 8th mile marker in 5.802 seconds at 119.57 miles per hour on his 9.08 pass.
Seeing as how Doug Reddicopp and his 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 got down to a 9.08 with more weight and worse air compared to the Dodge 8.91 run, it seems very likely that we will see some of these cars in the 8s without any real changes to the car very soon. Reddicopp points out that there was a Demon 170 running at Bradenton on the 6th that got into the 8s, but it had tuning work done and to most people, any tuning pushes the car out of the “stock” discussion. As for Reddicopp’s car, we are comfortable calling his times near stock since all he changed was the wheels and we think that any car that can run 9.0s with nothing but a wheel change is pretty impressive.
“These cars are faster than Dodge said, I’m betting we see Dodges record broken very soon.”
Needless to say, we will continue to watch the progress of the Demon 170 owner’s community as they work towards the official Dodge number of 8.91. Reddicopp believes that we will see plenty of owners hitting that plateau. In the meantime, enjoy this video of Doug Reddicopp running a 9.08 in his Demon 170.-
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