Short Take Road Test
Just 20 years ago, when Porsche and Ferrari unveiled the astonishing 444-hp 959 and the 478-hp F40 supercars, 400 horsepower was a very big number. Nowadays, the horsepower wars have gotten so crazy that there are a number of sedans—thank you, BMW and Mercedes—that muster at least 500 horsepower. The base Corvette now starts with 430 ponies, and there's a Mustang out there with 500 genuine horsepower—not the inflated SAE gross numbers that muscle cars of the 1960s claimed. So, to get attention nowadays, you need a really big number. Like 600 horsepower, which just so happens to be the figure produced by the latest Dodge Viper SRT10.
But the new Viper is more than a big horsepower number. While the Dodge engineers were extracting more grunt—horsepower has increased from 510 to 600 and torque from 500 pound-feet to 560—they tweaked many other aspects of the car, and the result is one spectacular automobile.
Let's start with that engine. By increasing the cylinder bore by one millimeter, the engine capacity went from 8.3 to 8.4 liters. A new block has cross-bolted main-bearing caps for better durability, and there are new cylinder heads, too. An ingenious cam within a camshaft uses hydraulic pressure to vary the exhaust valve timing by up to 40 degrees. All the valves are larger, and those on the intake side are now hollow. There is a new two-piece intake manifold and a tubular-header exhaust system that flows 20 percent better. And they've abandoned the old exhaust crossover pipes under the car, which created a huge amount of cabin heat.
With the increase in torque, Dodge went to a twin-plate clutch, an industry first, which it claims reduces rotating inertia by 18 percent. The six-speed Tremec manual transmission has been beefed up, with wider gears, triple-cone synchronizers on first and second, and a shifter with 30-percent-shorter throws. A speed-sensing GKN ViscoLok hydraulic clutch-pack-style differential is new.
The suspension retains its control-arm architecture all around, but there are myriad changes. The spring rates have been increased by five percent, the alloy-bodied Multimatic shocks have increased front and rear compression and decreased rear low-speed rebound, and the rear anti-roll bar is now solid rather than hollow. There is far more negative camber all around—up from 0.25 degree to 1.4 degrees at the front and from 0.6 to 1.2 degrees at the rear—and more front castor.
Externally, there are new wheel designs—all wrapped by Viper-specific Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 tires—and a much more aggressive hood that takes its inspiration from the Competition coupe: The extra slots have the benefit of extracting engine heat as well as increasing downforce. There are also some vibrant new exterior colors, including Snakeskin Green.
According to Dodge, the Viper now tops out at 202 mph. The convertible managed 197 in Dodge's testing with the top down, which is pretty impressive. According to our tests, the Viper (we tested a coupe) is monstrously fast from a standing start, blasting to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and to 100 mph in 7.6 seconds. The quarter-mile rips past in a Corvette Z06-humbling 11.6 seconds at 126 mph. The last Viper we tested managed these increments in 3.8, 8.5, and 12.1 seconds at 120 mph, respectively.
But even better than the improved performance is the improved behavior. The Viper has always been pretty easy to drive quickly, but it always felt, well, a bit tame. Fast, sure, but you always expected a car that had more than 500 horsepower under your right hoof to feel more dramatic and quicker in its responses. The engine sounded a bit flaccid and was almost too linear in its power delivery, and the shifter was agricultural.
The first surprise in the new car is that the shifter is pretty sweet and much more positive in feel. On the street, you notice the Viper is still geared for supersonic speeds in sixth gear, but slam it down a couple of gears, and you realize that it's really, really quick. The engine now has a definite step in its power delivery at about three grand on the tach, yet it puts the 600 horsepower down amazingly well for a car that doesn't have traction control (or stability control, for that matter).The ride is pretty good, but the steering is too nervous off-center at normal speeds.
Find a more challenging road or, even better, head off to a track like Virginia International Raceway on the Virginia/North Carolina border, and the Viper comes alive. The car turns in much more readily than the old one did, and it's easier to rotate by breezing off the gas on corner entry, which helps to dial out its tendency to understeer. On the exit of the tighter bends, the car can be steered sideways on the throttle, but it remains super-stable on the high-speed sweepers at VIR.
The upshot of the changes is a car that was, despite high ambient temperatures, a full 4.2 seconds quicker around VIR's 4.2-mile Grand Course (the circuit we use for our Lightning Lap competition) than we managed with the old Viper and 0.8 second quicker than the previous champ, the Corvette Z06. On a cooler day, the margin would likely be higher. The convertible wasn't quite as good around VIR as the coupe, tending to snap from understeer to oversteer, but it was just as fast at the end of the straightaway, edging toward 160 mph.
As for faults, the exhaust note is more prominent than before, but it trails those of Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis, and Z06s in aural excitement. The cabin isn't up to snuff for an $80,000-plus vehicle, and the seats are plain annoying, being too heavily bolstered and too long under your thighs. The Viper is not as usable everyday as a Corvette, either, but the snake is definitely more dramatic to look at and creates more of a stir.
The Viper remains, essentially, a toy rather than an everyday driver—but it's a mighty fine, explosively fast toy, especially on the track.
