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2019 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack 1320 gets race-focused upgrades

The Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is one hell of a machine. It's a single-minded 840-horsepower jackhammer, meant solely to burn rubber and win drag races. It's packed with all sorts of goodies like a transbrake, line lock, and a torque reserve mode. Still, it was an extremely limited-production model. It's also sold out. What do you do if you want some fun on the drag strip and you can't find our don't need the power of a Demon? Buy the new 2019 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack 1320. You can really think of the Scat Pack 1320 as a Demon without the wide bodywork and the supercharged 6.2-liter V8. Instead, you'll find Dodge's tried-and-true 6.4-liter naturally-aspirated V8 under the hood making 485 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque. The TorqueFlite 8HP70 eight-speed automatic is the only available transmission. It's required equipment to use the TransBrake and Torque Reserve system. All-four wheels are wrapped in Nexen SUR4G Drag Spec 275/40R20 street-legal drag radial tires. The 1320 names comes from the length of a quarter-mile drag strip — 1,320 feet. The Scat Pack 1320 can run the quarter-mile in 11.7 seconds at 115 mph and hits 60 mph in just 3.8 seconds. Of course, that's in its lightest configuration. Like the Demon, the Scat Pack 1320 only comes with a driver's seat. The passenger and rear seats are each $1 options. The goal was to give grassroots racers a bare-bones performance car at a relatively reasonable price. You don't need passengers if you're only racing. You also shave 114 pounds from the car's curb weight. Other upgrades include an SRT-tuned suspension, a 3.09 rear axle ratio, 41-spline rear half-shafts, 20 x 9.5-inch aluminum-forged wheels with knurled bead seats (to keep the tires from slipping on the rim) and upgraded Brembo brakes with four-piston calipers. The Challenger R/T Scat Pack 1320 joins a number of other upgraded 2019 Dodge models. That includes the Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye and the upgraded 2019 Charger SRT Hellcat. The Scat Pack 1320 adds $3,995 to the Challenger R/T Scat Pack's base MSRP. That's not the whole story. Since the automatic is mandatory, you need to tack on another $1,595. Add in destination, and the Scat Pack 1320 will set you back at least $45,980. Cars will hit dealer lots early next year. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

How to tune a car right: Part 3, tuning Mopar with OST Dyno

Not long ago, I wrote a story about a pony car tuned with a supercharger. The blower install had been done properly. Then the car's owner bolted on a set of great looking wheels wrapped in good looking but inexpensive rubber. On my first test drive, I couldn't get any of that supercharged sweetness to the ground. It was the perfect ride for parking in a Burger King parking lot on a Friday night. I tooled around on a Sunday drive, shaking my head that someone had spent five figures to get more power the right way, with a clean install, then wiped out the gains so thoroughly that the stock engine would likely have overwhelmed the tires. This got me thinking about the ways people ruin their quest for horsepower, either on the front end by not insisting on a clean install and paying the money for it, or on the back end with supplemental purchases like cheap tires or cheap gas. So I called three tuners, one focused on GM, one on Mopar, one on Ford, to find out what people should know about how to get the best power for their goals, and how to make sure they are able to use all that power. The first interview in this three-part series was with Blake Leonard at Top Speed Cincy in Cincinnati, Ohio, the second with Brandon Alsept at BA Motorsports in Milford, Ohio. This third and last interview is with Micah Doban at OST Dyno in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, a family business with more than 40 years of Mopar expertise specializing in Gen III Hemis, but tuning everything from land-speed cars and drag racers to Jeeps The interview has been edited for clarity and concision. Do people who come to OST generally know what they want? Probably 80% of the people who come in simply want more power with no particular ET goal [ET is a kind of bracket handicapped drag racing – ed.]. WhatÂ’s the best way to start a Mopar tune? The first thing is what people often skip, and that's to find a tuner or a shop. People will throw parts on their cars that the Internet said to, then go to a tuner who does things a different way, and [the tuner is] like ‘No we don't like to use these injectors, we don't like these parts.Â’ You have to find someone familiar with the parts that are on your car or that you're planning to put on your car. So having a goal and then finding a tuner who can help you with that goal is proper way to start. Exactly. And a lot of tuners have their own formula – and when I say tuner I mean someone that also does work to the cars.

Cars with the most reckless drivers are full of surprises

Insurify is a site for comparing auto insurance quotes. Because insurance shoppers need to submit information like the vehicles they're driving and the infractions they've compiled while driving those vehicles, Insurify has quite the database of correlations tying certain models to a habit of breaking certain laws. When the site's data analysts decided to compile a list of the top ten models for reckless driving citations in the decade from 2010 to 2019, the ranking contained a few wild entries. The Dodge Challenger making the countdown will surprise precisely zero people. But the Saturn L200? First, a definition: USLegal.com defines reckless driving as "driving with a willful or wanton disregard for safety. It is the operation of an automobile under such circumstances and in such a manner as to show a willful or reckless disregard of consequences." So this list is a caution about particular drivers more than the cars. For a baseline, according to Insurify data, for any random model, 15 out of 10,000 people who drive that model have picked up one citation for reckless driving. Back to that Challenger, then. No shocker for being here, but it's actually number 10, with 44 out of 10,000 Challenger drivers nabbed for a willful disregard of consequences on the road. That's better than the first surprise entry, the Saturn L200, a sedan only on sale for six years, with the least horsepower on the list, and out of production since 2005. The data set put drivers of GM's extraterrestrial sedan at 45 reckless pilots per 10,000 drivers. There are two pickups on the list, the only modern one being the Ram 1500 at eighth, with a rate of 46 in 10,000. Somehow, drivers of the third-best-selling pickup in the U.S. outrun the overwhelming numerical superiority of the best-selling vehicle in the States, the Ford F-150. The other pickup is the Chevrolet K1500 at number five, with a rate of 56 in 10,000. This is not only the oldest vehicle on the list, it went out of production in 2002, before any other vehicle on the list. Between the trucks, the Volkswagen CC slotted in at seven with 47 in 10,000 reckless driving chits, the Cadillac ATS slipped into sixth with 48 in 10,000.  The top four is a bag of unexpected. The Nissan 370Z is the first hardcore sports car on the list at number four, with 61 in 10,000 Z drivers flaunting their Fairladys in the face of Johnny Law.