Viper raises stakes in horsepower arms race

Dan Carney • E-mail

Since the arrival of the Dodge Viper in 1994 as a latter-day Shelby Cobra roadster, its creators at Dodge have staked their banner atop the horsepower mountain. That original car’s monstrous 8-liter V-10 engine bellowed out a then-hard-to-conceive 400 horsepower, a power peak that towered above other cars’ output like the Matterhorn over the local sledding hill.

But pesky pretenders to the Viper’s throne won’t stay down, which prompted an upgrade to 8.3 liters and 500 horsepower in 2004 and now, for 2008, 8.4 liters and an astounding 600 horsepower.

As in every arms race, similar weapons are available to all participants, so what seems like an impenetrable Maginot Line of engine power can be quickly bypassed.

Cross-town rival General Motors already offers 500 horses in the Chevrolet Corvette and is rumored to be readying a 750-horsepower, supercharged reply to the Viper. That is the territory of NASCAR Nextel Cup, Indy Car and Formula One racers.

But for now, the Viper rules.

Press the red “start” button (like a race car; no twist of the key here) and the Viper’s V-10 bellows to life with a Harley-Davidson smoker’s cough out the side pipes.  Nothing says untamed and barely legal like a little bit of incivility.

As iconic a piece of Detroit iron as the Viper may be, the car’s pavement-pounding power is not solely the product of hard work by Michigan gearheads.  A big chunk of the credit for the Viper’s output — and the industrywide upward spiral of propulsive force — goes to the computer gurus of Silicon Valley, officials said at a recent press event held at Virginia International Raceway.

Immensely fast and powerful engine management computers that fine-tune every aspect of the engine’s operation, combined with computer design, modeling and simulation tools, allow engineers to divine improvements in virtual reality long before moving to aluminum and steel.

Underhood computers tweak the ignition timing, valve timing and fuel mixture continuously, based on data gathered from sensors that check the throttle position, engine speed, engine coolant temperature, ambient temperature and oxygen in the exhaust to ensure near-perfect combustion in every cylinder, every time.

Fact file: Dodge Viper 2008 Dodge Viper 0-60 mph: Under 4 seconds 0-100 mph: 12 seconds 60-0 mph (braking distance): Less than 100 feet Top speed: 200 mph EPA gas mileage: Not announced yet Base price: $83,895 As tested: $88,445 MSNBC

Such perfection not only makes more power and less pollution while using less fuel, it also lets the engine run closer to its theoretical limits with less margin for error — because there is less error to account for.  Running nearer the limit also contributes to improved efficiency, which translates again to more power, less fuel and less pollution.

(EPA mileage figures have not yet been announced for the 2008 Viper, although the previous model was rated at just 13 miles per gallon for combined city and highway driving.)

All these improvements also contribute to a hefty price tag, starting at $84,000.

Even with improvements in efficiency and emissions, the Viper’s raison d'etre is being extreme.  Extremely powerful, extremely brutal, extremely uncompromising.  It must have the most, or it will become disillusioned and possibly join a commune.

The trouble is, as rivals ramp up the horsepower, they could set the bar very high for the Dodge guys to match.

“You can’t be No. 1 in everything, all the time,” concedes Herb Helbig, vehicle synthesis manager for the Viper.  So if Chevy rolls out a super-expensive, limited edition 'Vette with more power?  “Then you have to continue to be the top of the heap in price/performance,” he said.

Four-door sedans like the BMW M5 have 500 horsepower at the ready for milk and diaper runs to Costco with the kiddies snuggled into their child seats in the back.  The Dodge Magnum station wagon boasts 425 horsepower in SRT8 trim — perfect for humiliating sports cars at the drag strip if not fetching plywood from Home Depot.

Engine power may not have obeyed the Moore’s Law of the computer world that posits a doubling in power every 18 months, but just a couple model years of age can let prestigious names like Porsche and Corvette be outgunned by the likes of a Dodge Magnum wagon.

Today’s Porsche 911 Turbo has 480 horsepower, plus an “overboost” button that permits it to crank out extra power at lower revs — here again computers are wringing every possible calorie of energy from a drop of fuel.  By comparison, a millennial 911 Turbo made “only” 415 horsepower.  The limited production 2001 Corvette Z06 model debuted with a then-impressive 385 horsepower.

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