I've always greatly admired Hennessey. Any tuner that even thinks about boring-out a 500hp Dodge Viper mill to 9.5 liters gets my respect. And one that straps a brace of turbos on the result– boosting horsepower from a "mere" 800 to a Veyron-beating 1200–gets what Sajeev insists on calling mad props. According to Motor Authority, the Texas-based tuner is now turning its tuning talents towards Japanese metal. Specifically, the two hottest cars to come from the Land of the Rising Sun: the Lexus IS-F and Nissan's world-beating GT-R. While I have a slightly different opinion of the IS-F than Mr. McCombs (I friggin' love it), I think we can both agree that the last thing the lunatic Lexus needs is more power. So naturally Hennessey is going to bolt on a supercharger and fit the beast with headers, exhaust and a new intake. No word on the power, but you can bet it will be, "adequate." And by adequate I mean seven kinds of bonkers. Look for it later this year. As for Godzilla, it won't show up until 2009. I'm thinking the sky [line] will be the limit. Either that, or there won't be any limit whatsoever. The No Limits GT-R. Sign me up.
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Did I read that correctly? A Dodge Viper will get 500BHP from a 9.5 Litre engine?
KatiePuckrik :
Did I read that correctly? A Dodge Viper will get 500BHP from a 9.5 Litre engine?
No–it makes 500bhp stock. bored out to 9.5L it makes 1200hp
I’ve just read that the current Dodge Viper churns out 600BHP from a 8.4 litre engine……an Audi RS4 can get 420BHP from a 4.2 litre engine!
That’s pathetic from Dodge…..
It’s all about the torque…
But i bet it would take a heck of a lot more to build a streetable Audi with 1200 hp. Whats the fun in only getting 420 hp if thats close to your max? Plus the Audi is a High rev motor where the power kicks in lower in the Viper.. They are both nice cars.. but don’t go bashing the Viper just yet.
I hear, with great frequency, about shady dealings with Hennessey. I’d like to know the veracity of these claims, because usually it’s something to the tune of “They held on to my car much, much longer than expected, then when I dropped by to check on it, they hadn’t done any of the work and/or parts were missing that were on it before I took it to them,” and considering these are usually “toy” cars that aren’t relied upon for daily transport, that’s saying a lot.
Yeah, I used to admire Hennessey until I started reading about all of his unhappy customers…check out any of the Viper forums for plenty of reasons to steer clear of his business.
Everybody has *some* pissed off customers – he has way more than his fair share.
Pretty much has already been stated, but the RS4 engine is different than the Viper’s. The 4.2L does push 420HP but its redline is 8250, much higher than 6250 rpm on the 8.4L. The Viper has smoother power delivery and much more available torque at any rpm. The Audi manages 317 ft-lb of torque compared to 560 ft-lb on the Viper. Once again, peak HP/L isn’t the benchmark of engine design and the 8.4L is far from pathetic.
JL: admiration isn’t the right word for his business practices when he’s fighting a cash flow problem. Hennescrewed pictures on the internet, anyone?
Katie: don’t be that person who judges sports cars by hp/liter. Its about area under the (power) curve.
We’ve wasted too much bandwidth on this topic.
What about power-to-weight ratio? Isn’t that of some import too?
Oh yes! Power-to-weight is of great importance, unless you live in an area where 100+mph driving is commonplace.
HP/liter is best reserved to compact hatchbacks normally found in Europe. Its almost meaningless in the world of sports cars.