A year ago the Roadkill team told Dodge President Tim Kuniskis they wanted to be the first to swap a Hellcat V8 into a classic muscle car. Tim told them he never thought they would be able to do it due to the complex electrical system. The system included several computers that all talked to each other and if just one of those computers sensed something was wrong it wouldn’t work.
Since Dodge became their title sponsor the Roadkill team had access to a Hellcat V8 from a 2015 SRT Charger development car that was going to be crushed. Somewhere a light went off to use this engine and put it into their famous General Mayhem 1968 Charger. If you don’t remember this was previously powered by a 440 ci V8 sourced from a motorhome. But swapping a carbed 440 is a lot different from a very advanced EFI supercharged V8.
Roadkill turned to Diversified Creations in Brighton, Michigan to figure out how to swap the Hellcat V8. Their solution was to swap the entire electrical system from the SRT Charger into the General Mayhem Charger. It only took three weeks for Diversified Creations to get General Mayhem to drive.
Here is a list of the things they needed to get the engine to work:
- large notch in the stock K-member
- custom solid mounts
- transmission tunnel needed cutting
- trimming and reinforcing factory torsion-bar crossmember
- shortened 2015 Charger driveshaft from the transmission connected to a Ford F250 carrier bearing connected to a custom shaft into the rearend
- modified Pacesetter 1 5/8 headers for a Chysler 300 with 5.7 L Hemi
- 2015 SRT Charger cooling system with firewall modification to work
- 2015 SRT Charger steering column and wheel
- 2015 SRT Charger instrument cluster
- 2015 SRT Charger fuel tank and EVAP system
- 2015 SRT Charger brake-pedal assembly
There were other modifications made but they was based on improving drag racing performance and nothing to do with the engine swap. You can read about all the modifications and how the Gas Monkey drag race went in a very detailed article by Roadkill.
The guys are planning on taking the new and improved General Mayhem to a real track and try out the nitrous system. So far their best time without nitrous was a 10.90 at 125.24 mph in the quarter-mile. For some comparison they ran a stock 2015 SRT Charger Hellcat on drag radials and went 11.49 at 121.2 mph. You can also expect this build to be featured in an upcoming Roadkill video.
Update 9/25/2015 – Added Roadkill Episode 43 which shows the install
Source: Roadkill (detailed article with 86 photos)