Samuel Hubinette's Dodge Charger SRT8 barks to life and settles into a snarling supercharged idle. It's a wicked-looking car with a huge grille and thick, hulking shoulders. It's also big enough to have given birth to the Toyota Corollas and Nissan Silvias it competes against. A linebacker among drifting ballerinas.
At 200 inches long, the Charger stretches more than 2 feet longer than the stiletto-sleek Viper Hubinette used to win the 2006 Formula Drift series championship and an amazing 3.5 feet longer than the Pontiac Solstice GXP run by Hubinette's archrival Rhys Millen during the 2007 Formula Drift season.
But it's not just big; it's thick. A stock Charger R/T weighs in at a thick 4,085 pounds. That's about a half ton more than most drift machines and an absolutely agonizing amount of metal to heave sideways around a racetrack.
"The size is a disadvantage," says Hubinette in a voice that mixes high-energy enthusiasm with his Swedish accent. "The more mass you have, the more the car will want to come out of the corner and push out of the line the judges are looking for. The car was good at low speeds, but higher-speed drifts needed work."
Carbon Fiber Fakery
Formula Drift rules require that a vehicle's stock chassis be retained, but bodywork is open to interpretation. If it looks stock, that's close enough.
So, while the Charger's original steel unibody structure and mile-long 120-inch wheelbase are intact, virtually every body bolted, tacked or glued to it is a lightweight carbon-fiber replica of the original sheet metal.
"We wound up at 3,300 pounds," says Hubinette. "It takes time and money to make all the other parts in carbon fiber. That's what SRT [Dodge's Street and Racing Technology department] helped us with. But I'd still like to drop even more weight."
Of course subtraction only takes a car so far. Hubinette's NuFormz team integrated a roll cage into the Charger's structure both for safety and stiffness, and the driver seat was moved rearward to bias the weight rearward. In fact, the seat is so far back that Hubinette's head lines up almost perfectly with the B-pillar. "Visibility is a little tricky," Hubinette reports. "I can't see the front end of the car. That's something you get used to."
Hit enough things, however, and you learn where the front and rear bumpers are. "That's something I've got dialed in," says Hubinette, who goes by the nickname "the Crazy Swede."
It also helps that his daily driver is also a supercharged Charger.
Suspension of Disbelief
The Charger's bodywork may not have much Charger left in it, but the suspension system is surprisingly close to stock. The rules say that the suspension type and mounting points must remain unchanged from production. So, as in the street-bound Charger R/T, the front is suspended on short and long A-arms on either side, while the tail is held up by a five-link system. Since the Charger's suspension is basically the old Mercedes E-Class design executed in steel instead of more expensive aluminum, it's a solid foundation upon which to build a competition machine.
In order to shed more poundage off the car and give the team more freedom to tune the suspension for conditions at specific tracks, KW coil-over shocks have replaced the standard shocks and separate coil springs. And of course, everything legally possible has been done up front to gain extra steering angle — the holy grail of drifting performance.
Braking is handled by Brembo discs at each corner, with the front set measuring a full 14 inches in diameter. A second set of calipers on the rear discs are plumbed into a separate master cylinder that Hubinette operates using a lever inside the cockpit to induce slides.
When the Charger began competing during 2007 it was fitted with 19-inch-diameter Racing Hart wheels at all four corners. The fronts are still 19s, but over the course of the season the rear set of 19s were dropped in favor of 18s fitted with Viper-size 335-millimeter-wide BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW tires. "The 18s are lighter, and the less weight there is back there, the better the engine is able to turn those tires," Hubinette explains. "Wheelspin response is important in drifting."
Meanwhile, the 19s have their advantages in front, says Hubinette. "In front you want really good steering feel. And the big front wheels give more feeling into my arms. It's good dynamics when the car is going sideways."
Hemi on the Slide
The Charger R/T's one clear advantage as a drift machine is that it's powered by Chrysler's outstanding Hemi V8 engine. In Hubinette's Charger, the Hemi is Mopar Performance's fuel-injected 392-cubic-inch (6.4-liter) crate engine. And instead of a five-speed automatic, it's backed up by the Viper's Tremec-built six-speed manual transmission.
While the 392 honors the classic Hemis of the '50s by dint of its displacement, it's based on the current Hemi that powers the Charger R/T in 350-horsepower, 5.7-liter form and the Charger SRT8 at 6.1 liters and 425 hp. Electronically fuel injected, the 392 is rated by Mopar at 525 hp (at the crank) in its catalog.
"We thought we had 600 hp at the beginning of the season," says Hubinette, "but it was really closer to 450 hp at the rear wheels." And that just wasn't enough.
So midway through the year, a centrifugal supercharger was added to the 392 to boost output to somewhere near 750 hp. "More horsepower definitely helps you," Hubinette states with numb obviousness. "Now we can handle the high-speed drifts without hesitation. The car was already good at low-speed drifts, but the higher-speed drifts needed work."
Wingless Wonder
Out on the track, that initial impression is confirmed. It's not just that the Charger dwarfs other cars, but that it seems to swallow up Hubinette, too. He's not a short guy, but the driver seat is bolted to the bare floorpan so his helmet is barely visible through the side window. While every other driver seems crammed into his car, Samuel Hubinette is rattling around in a cavern.
There's simply no way to describe Hubinette's 2007 season with the Charger as anything except challenging. The car debuted in April at the Long Beach Grand Prix and struggled just to make the field. That frustration carried forward into Round Two at Road Atlanta where the car couldn't even qualify. But then at Summit Point in West Virginia, a small miracle happened and Hubinette and the Charger actually won.
That small miracle, by the way, was the excision of the car's rear wing.
"The track in West Virginia is a high-speed track and we didn't have enough power to maintain a 4th-gear drift," explains Hubinette. "So my solution was to pull off the rear wing and take out downforce."
That trick worked that one time, but soon after that the supercharger was added to the program. And then it was one frustration after another. By the end of the season, Hubinette and the Charger were 5th in the standings...one place behind Rhys Millen.
But Hubinette won an event. And Millen, whose Solstice was just as fresh and untried as the Charger, didn't.
A Challenger for the Future?
After a year with the Charger, the NuFormz team is thoroughly familiar with the workings of the Chrysler LX chassis and suspension system. And BFGoodrich has used it effectively in its advertising.
And there may soon be a slightly smaller, LX-based alternative available.
The new 2008 Dodge Challenger two-door coupe is based on the same chassis design as the Charger sedan but uses a 4-inch-shorter 116-inch wheelbase and is shorter overall. "Every inch would definitely be to my advantage," Hubinette said, contemplating a move to the Challenger. "Now that we've developed all the components for this year, it would be shorter and slightly lighter. We've done all the main development during 2007. And the Challenger would be spectacular for people to watch out there. A lot of Americans would be thrilled to see that thing going sideways at 100 mph."
But just as the choice of the Charger wasn't Hubinette's going into 2007, it's up to Dodge and Mopar to decide if they want to switch to the Challenger. And so far, no Challenger body has shown up at NuFormz for conversion into a drift machine.
It's almost inevitable that the Charger will be more competitive during 2008 than it was during 2007. But seeing the Challenger out there would be spectacular.
At 200 inches long, the Charger stretches more than 2 feet longer than the stiletto-sleek Viper Hubinette used to win the 2006 Formula Drift series championship and an amazing 3.5 feet longer than the Pontiac Solstice GXP run by Hubinette's archrival Rhys Millen during the 2007 Formula Drift season.
But it's not just big; it's thick. A stock Charger R/T weighs in at a thick 4,085 pounds. That's about a half ton more than most drift machines and an absolutely agonizing amount of metal to heave sideways around a racetrack.
"The size is a disadvantage," says Hubinette in a voice that mixes high-energy enthusiasm with his Swedish accent. "The more mass you have, the more the car will want to come out of the corner and push out of the line the judges are looking for. The car was good at low speeds, but higher-speed drifts needed work."
Carbon Fiber Fakery
Formula Drift rules require that a vehicle's stock chassis be retained, but bodywork is open to interpretation. If it looks stock, that's close enough.
So, while the Charger's original steel unibody structure and mile-long 120-inch wheelbase are intact, virtually every body bolted, tacked or glued to it is a lightweight carbon-fiber replica of the original sheet metal.
"We wound up at 3,300 pounds," says Hubinette. "It takes time and money to make all the other parts in carbon fiber. That's what SRT [Dodge's Street and Racing Technology department] helped us with. But I'd still like to drop even more weight."
Of course subtraction only takes a car so far. Hubinette's NuFormz team integrated a roll cage into the Charger's structure both for safety and stiffness, and the driver seat was moved rearward to bias the weight rearward. In fact, the seat is so far back that Hubinette's head lines up almost perfectly with the B-pillar. "Visibility is a little tricky," Hubinette reports. "I can't see the front end of the car. That's something you get used to."
Hit enough things, however, and you learn where the front and rear bumpers are. "That's something I've got dialed in," says Hubinette, who goes by the nickname "the Crazy Swede."
It also helps that his daily driver is also a supercharged Charger.
Suspension of Disbelief
The Charger's bodywork may not have much Charger left in it, but the suspension system is surprisingly close to stock. The rules say that the suspension type and mounting points must remain unchanged from production. So, as in the street-bound Charger R/T, the front is suspended on short and long A-arms on either side, while the tail is held up by a five-link system. Since the Charger's suspension is basically the old Mercedes E-Class design executed in steel instead of more expensive aluminum, it's a solid foundation upon which to build a competition machine.
In order to shed more poundage off the car and give the team more freedom to tune the suspension for conditions at specific tracks, KW coil-over shocks have replaced the standard shocks and separate coil springs. And of course, everything legally possible has been done up front to gain extra steering angle — the holy grail of drifting performance.
Braking is handled by Brembo discs at each corner, with the front set measuring a full 14 inches in diameter. A second set of calipers on the rear discs are plumbed into a separate master cylinder that Hubinette operates using a lever inside the cockpit to induce slides.
When the Charger began competing during 2007 it was fitted with 19-inch-diameter Racing Hart wheels at all four corners. The fronts are still 19s, but over the course of the season the rear set of 19s were dropped in favor of 18s fitted with Viper-size 335-millimeter-wide BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW tires. "The 18s are lighter, and the less weight there is back there, the better the engine is able to turn those tires," Hubinette explains. "Wheelspin response is important in drifting."
Meanwhile, the 19s have their advantages in front, says Hubinette. "In front you want really good steering feel. And the big front wheels give more feeling into my arms. It's good dynamics when the car is going sideways."
Hemi on the Slide
The Charger R/T's one clear advantage as a drift machine is that it's powered by Chrysler's outstanding Hemi V8 engine. In Hubinette's Charger, the Hemi is Mopar Performance's fuel-injected 392-cubic-inch (6.4-liter) crate engine. And instead of a five-speed automatic, it's backed up by the Viper's Tremec-built six-speed manual transmission.
While the 392 honors the classic Hemis of the '50s by dint of its displacement, it's based on the current Hemi that powers the Charger R/T in 350-horsepower, 5.7-liter form and the Charger SRT8 at 6.1 liters and 425 hp. Electronically fuel injected, the 392 is rated by Mopar at 525 hp (at the crank) in its catalog.
"We thought we had 600 hp at the beginning of the season," says Hubinette, "but it was really closer to 450 hp at the rear wheels." And that just wasn't enough.
So midway through the year, a centrifugal supercharger was added to the 392 to boost output to somewhere near 750 hp. "More horsepower definitely helps you," Hubinette states with numb obviousness. "Now we can handle the high-speed drifts without hesitation. The car was already good at low-speed drifts, but the higher-speed drifts needed work."
Wingless Wonder
Out on the track, that initial impression is confirmed. It's not just that the Charger dwarfs other cars, but that it seems to swallow up Hubinette, too. He's not a short guy, but the driver seat is bolted to the bare floorpan so his helmet is barely visible through the side window. While every other driver seems crammed into his car, Samuel Hubinette is rattling around in a cavern.
There's simply no way to describe Hubinette's 2007 season with the Charger as anything except challenging. The car debuted in April at the Long Beach Grand Prix and struggled just to make the field. That frustration carried forward into Round Two at Road Atlanta where the car couldn't even qualify. But then at Summit Point in West Virginia, a small miracle happened and Hubinette and the Charger actually won.
That small miracle, by the way, was the excision of the car's rear wing.
"The track in West Virginia is a high-speed track and we didn't have enough power to maintain a 4th-gear drift," explains Hubinette. "So my solution was to pull off the rear wing and take out downforce."
That trick worked that one time, but soon after that the supercharger was added to the program. And then it was one frustration after another. By the end of the season, Hubinette and the Charger were 5th in the standings...one place behind Rhys Millen.
But Hubinette won an event. And Millen, whose Solstice was just as fresh and untried as the Charger, didn't.
A Challenger for the Future?
After a year with the Charger, the NuFormz team is thoroughly familiar with the workings of the Chrysler LX chassis and suspension system. And BFGoodrich has used it effectively in its advertising.
And there may soon be a slightly smaller, LX-based alternative available.
The new 2008 Dodge Challenger two-door coupe is based on the same chassis design as the Charger sedan but uses a 4-inch-shorter 116-inch wheelbase and is shorter overall. "Every inch would definitely be to my advantage," Hubinette said, contemplating a move to the Challenger. "Now that we've developed all the components for this year, it would be shorter and slightly lighter. We've done all the main development during 2007. And the Challenger would be spectacular for people to watch out there. A lot of Americans would be thrilled to see that thing going sideways at 100 mph."
But just as the choice of the Charger wasn't Hubinette's going into 2007, it's up to Dodge and Mopar to decide if they want to switch to the Challenger. And so far, no Challenger body has shown up at NuFormz for conversion into a drift machine.
It's almost inevitable that the Charger will be more competitive during 2008 than it was during 2007. But seeing the Challenger out there would be spectacular.
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