Things You Might Not Know About the Hellcat Redeye

Meet the Top Dog

The 707 hp Hellcat Challenger set the world ablaze, only to be topped by the 840 hp Demon. With all 3,300 Demons spoken for, the top spot was up for grabs and Dodge did the grabbing with the 797 hp Dodge Hellcat Redeye. While those figures are likely burned into the memory banks of every Mopar fan worldwide, we thought we’d dish out a few more facts about America’s current most powerful muscle car. The Redeye may not match the Demon in the wheelie department—because no production car on earth can—but it more than holds its own, as we shall see.

Eleven Horsepower

Eleven Horsepower—that’s the real-world difference between Demon and Hellcat Redeye outputs. But 840 minus 797 is 43, right? Is our calculator broken? Not at all, we simply subtracted the 32 hp the Demon makes when running on 110-octane racing gas. Switching to 91-octane pump gas, the Demon’s output is down to ‘only’ 808 horses, so just 11 more than the Redeye. While the Redeye’s 6.2-liter Hemi is force-fed by the same 2.7-liter supercharger as the Demon and runs the same 14.5 psi of boost, the Redeye’s slightly-detuned ECM and slightly less hungry dual hood scoops account for the barely-double digit drop in peak output.

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No Hypermiling Here

No one buys a Challenger Redeye for its fuel economy, but its 22 mph highway rating just so happens to exactly equal the mileage figures obtained by the inline-four-powered Volvo 242 owned by one of our writers. Let your foot get a little heavy though, and all bets are off. The Redeye’s two dual-stage fuel pumps deliver 1.43 gallons per minute at wide open throttle—which means you’ll be filling up every 11 minutes.

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Faster and Cheaper

Good things come to those who wait. If you sat out Demon madness, your willpower has been rewarded with a Hellcat Redeye that, thanks to the lack of an artificially-limited top speed, runs by the Demon’s regulated 168 mph on the way to a 203 mph mark. Not only that, but the Redeye receives the 2019 Challenger line’s full list of benefits, including a $4,000 pride drop, due mainly to a now-standard cloth interior.

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Measured Gains

While the Demon was an athlete on a strict diet, the Redeye adheres to a careful weight-gain plan. The standard (Narrowbody) Redeye, with rear-seat delete, comes in at 4,400 lbs—only 120 lbs up on the Demon. The Widebody Redeye naturally weighs a little more, coming in at an also-reasonable 192 lbs heavier than the Demon.

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Chilled Out Tech

The Demon’s pioneering SRT Power Chiller and After-Run Chiller also make the transition to the Redeye. In Drag Mode, the Power Chiller uses A/C refrigerant to cool the air flowing through the blower’s heat exchangers. After-Run chilling reduces engine heat-soak when the vehicle is turned off by keeping the radiator fan and intercooler water pump operating.

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Improved Hood

While the new Hellcat dual-snorkel hood is down on flow as compared to the Demon, it adds 10 hp over earlier Hellcats, adhering to Dodge’s SRT directive that styling features need to be functional.

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Improved Steering

While developing the Hellcat Redeye Widebody, Dodge SRT engineers noticed the car’s hydraulic power-steering wasn’t able to meet demands from the wide tires in fast transitions. Their solution was an electronic power-assist that not only keeps up, but provides improved feel and reduced effort at low speeds, and is modulated according to different driving modes. The system worked so well that all 2019 Challengers sport electric power steering. If it’s not true that racing improves the breed (it is true), then it’s at least true that wide tires improved the Challenger. Now if they could only find a way to make those tires last longer.

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