Project Super Trooper

Here is my new project car. Named with the help of the GRM gang, Super Trooper since it was a former Ohio Highway Patrol car and I plan to use in a bunch of different type events such as Drag racing,autocross,trackday,speed run (1/2 or 1 mile airstrip type thing) and maybe even a rallycross.

The car is too big and heavy and won't be heavily modified to be competitive in any event so it is all about fun,participating and getting to more events than anything serious.

Below are a few pics of the car after I got it home and a quick clean up.

And here is one that helped name the car appropriately

No spankings were given at the traffic stop.

I came for this:

But I'm not sure I'm disappointed.

First mod or repair is the brakes. On the test drive and drive home to OH from Chicago the brakes were awful. They had a grinding sound and vibration along with some pulsation and wiggle of the steering wheel.

I ordered new rotors and Hawk HPS pads all around.

From a casual glance and feel they didn't look too bad with no grooves, no lip and plenty of pad material from and rear with even pad wear.

Upon getting the wheels off I discovered a ton of asphalt stuck to the inside of the wheels and suspension parts. There were also 2 large cavities in the chassis and a hole normally covered with plastic sheet/tar sealing it that were full of dirt,sand and gravel. I scraped off the asphalt and dug out all the sand and gravel then blew out the cavities which made a mess. Sweeping it up it turned out to be 2 1/2 full dustpans for each side in the front.

Everything came off well and I cleaned up all the old parts,did my usual antiseize for future work and removed the wheel well liners to clean them.

The brakes are good size at 13.6 vented front and 13.5 vented rear with aluminum calipers and phoenelic pistons.

The old pads had a very wide groove in the middle unlike all the others I have used where it was just a small slot.

I never liked cross-drilled rotors or even really slotted rotors even when the holes are chamfered. Here is why the brakes were so bad.

About half the holes had a visible crack emanating outward from the hole and in at least 2 places the crack was 1" long on each side of the hole.

After the brakes were reassembled I went out and bedded them in. So nice smooth and quiet now.

Today was Ebay install day.

The missing rear grab handle cover was first up.

Next was the defroster button which looked like it was burned or the finish wrinkled. The car didn't smell like smoke and no evidence of being a smokers car so maybe it was just a bad finish.

Last up for the day was swapping the full plastic wheel covers for proper dog dish caps. The caps require different lug nuts to fit which are shorter open ended nuts vs closed longer nuts.

The dog dish caps felt a lot lighter as did the lug nuts for them so I weighed them to see if there was as much difference as I felt in my hand scale. I guess it is as calibrated as my butt dyno.

And the caps vs wheel covers

That is about 1.5 lbs less weight per wheel. Not huge but kind of surprising since the plastic wheel covers are thin and flimsy and the dog dish caps are double thickness metal.

Now it looks more like a cop car.

I ordered a Hellcat airbox since it was cheap at $29 and looks like stock while working like a CAI. I ordered a K&N filter to go with it since the old filter is ready to be changed. Now I have to figure out a good ducting set up.

I don't think I ever realized those Charger "wheels" were just plastic covers. Well, it looks more the business now anyways so I guess Fiat-Chrysler's general cheapness has given you an inexpensive appearance upgrade.

Ohhhh. I like where this is going. Would you mind telling us how much you paid for the car?

Where did you find this gem?

Meow that's nice.

I got it at Asia Motors in Chicago. There are 3 dealers in Chicago all near each other that specialize in Government vehicles and particularly police cars. I paid just under $8k getting some off because of the brakes. I looked at some closer to home but with 3 dealers and 14+ Hemi Chargers to choose from the trip was worth it.

Matt B, I didn't either until I started looking for one of these and I think there are almost identical wheels as the full wheel covers in aluminum.

Say "car Ramrod!"

That's enough shenanigans.

Very cool project

I'm assuming this is a hemi? 5.7?

What year is this one and how many miles did you buy it with?

Yes it's got a Hemi. Mine is a 2013 with 108K on it now. One of the things that helped in deciding on this car was the Carfax showed really good and consistent maintenance records. Almost all was done at a Dodge dealer and the mileage for each service showed no odd problems and proper fluid and filter changes for the whole life of the vehicle.

I'm seriously interested in this thread. Please keep it going.
Food for thought: Linkey McStinkey

Replaced the old worn out spotlight bulb. I thought it had a separate lens and reflector/bulb assembly like a modern headlight but it ended up being more of a sealed beam with lens,reflector and bulb as one unit.

Before

After

The K&N air filter came in for the Hellcat airbox so that is up next. I need to figure out a good way to run ducting from the airbox to the grill.

You need to tint the windows nice and dark and reinstall the antennas on it. Then it would be a perfect match for a few of the ones the Washington State Patrol have cruising around.

Worked on the Hellcat airbox install. The reasoning I went with the Hellcat airbox is because I like using OEM parts where I can for best fit and function with real engineering behind them. Upon researching CAI and the Hellcat airbox the airbox looked to be a better choice and cheaper to boot.

Stock airbox

Hellcat airbox

The Hellcat box has a larger volume,a 3.5" dia hole on the front side for ducting and smoother walls with more gentle curves. It uses the same size and shape air filter as SRT,R/T and even V6 cars, with all using the same airbox lid.

With the box removed you can see where all the air enters the stock box through the triangle shaped hole leading to a cavity usually behind the foglight in the bumper cover. This area is completely enclosed except for 3 small holes that are approx 1/2" dia. Since the Pursuit version I have doesn't have fog lights the covers are solid letting in no additional air but not for long.

Here is a shot from the rear looking forward from the airbox perspective. Notice the black plastic piece next to the headlight. That is the radiator ducting piece.

76mm Holesaw later and direct flow from the grille to airbox.

I cleaned up the area and pulled the coolant pressure tank to clean out the grunge in it and allow for more room to work and photograph. Here's another shot without flash showing the back of the grill.

Sorry for the blurry shot, I was up against the garage door, but this is where a foglight normally sits and the area right in front of the cavity where the stock airbox picks up air from.

Once the hole was cut and cleaned I prepped the Hellcat airbox by adding foam piece to prevent rubbing wear, foam weatherstripping to seal the bottom of the airbox to the triangle opening and moved the rubber grommet and washer grommet from the stock airbox for isolated mounting.

To duct air on 2011-2014 Chargers that don't have the same headlight or routing paths as 15-16 Chargers I used an old hard tube from a shop vac. I cut 2 wedge sections out of the side and glued them back together to get a bend in the tube while maintaining the tube diameter. Here is a shot with it in place to show the direct path to the grill.

Here is another shot of the ducting tube with wedge cuts visible as well as the coroplast panel I added next to the side of the airbox to go along with a foam piece at the top of the airbox to prevent any engine compartment air from entering the airbox.

Here is a shot from the cavity behind the foglight. I had to take the picture blind by sticking the camera in the cavity but you can see the black plastic foglight blanking cover with horizontal slashes in the lower left of the pic.

Now with the airbox base installed and sealed at the triangle shaped hole at it's base you can see the limited air intake potential with just 3 small holes and the mesh on the fender liner that allow air into that cavity. Also note the foam at the top of the airbox lip sealing it to the core support.

New K&N panel filter installed.

I went with K&N as I have always had good luck with them in the past, even with MAF cars and I know they flow well. The interesting part of all the Chargers and Challengers using the same airfilter size and shape is that the V6 and R/T cars use 1 paper air filter and the Hellcat( and possibly SRT cars)use a higher flow rated paper filter with stiffening ribs in the center of the filter. Once that was done all there was left to do was button everything up wit the airbox lid.

The total cost to do the airbox install was about $100 since I had some foam,shopvac tube,and coroplast. I only needed to buy the Hellcat airbox base,K&N filter and small weatherstripping for the base inlet seal.

The charger has air inlet temp sensor so I will seal up the 3.5" opening on the Hellcat box and take some temp readings. Then open it and take some more readings. I already ordered left and right foglight bezel covers from Rock auto at $7.50 each to get more air into the base airbox opening so I will test that also once they come in and spring arrives for warmer temps.

Very cool. It's interesting that all the engines share the same air filter housing, from the little 3.6 all the way up to the boosted 6.4! I'm very curious to see how this wakes up the 5.7. That smooth airbox is cool.

I was surprised as well. It makes sense but odd to see it in practice. Kind of like when Ford said they had 11 different hood prop rods and it was time to consolidate them.

Looking for a LSD diff from a Challenger 6 speed to get a 3.73 or 3.92 final drive as the next big mod. In the meantime I think I am going to modify the stock R/T console and remove the floor shift section. I have been looking for a police console but can't find one I like other than the Havis 24 or 25" which I can't find used. I am also looking to do a small lip spoiler on the trunk lid something along the lines of E39 M5 or SRT300C.

Love the air box mods. That's the kind of stuff I geek out on. I built a similar setup on my GTP Comp G but I had to lay up my box out of fiberglass. Ended up being very similar to your hell cat box.

Love this!

Zeitgeist wrote: Looking for a LSD diff from a Challenger 6 speed to get a 3.73 or 3.92 final drive as the next big mod.

Sorry if you mentioned it and I missed it in your posts. What final drive does it come with?

This is great. I wish I needed a sedan to follow in your footsteps.