Hennessey Performance says their Exorcist Camaro has 1,000 hp, but how many horses manage to get loose between the crank and the rear wheels?
Shortly after Dodge revealed their Challenger SRT Demon, Hennessey decided that the other American muscle car needed to fire back. So they took the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, gave it an ungodly amount of horsepower, welded two wrenches together, and called it the Exorcist.
The marketing, which included a black-suited man wearing a black motorcycle helmet and wielding the welded wrenches like a cross, was brilliant.
Unfortunately, the car itself seemed to suffer a bit in the performance department. Sure, Hennessey had taken the 6.2-L supercharged V8 engine and given it all manner of upgrades, including a new camshaft, ported cylinder heads, and a new high-flow intercooler, but all those tweaks were in the pursuit of more power than the Demon’s 840 horses.
Hennessey succeeded in giving the Exorcist 1,000 hp, but they didn’t provide it the brakes, suspension, or drag race launch control features of the Demon. This meant that in the real world, the Demon could defeat the Exorcist in a quarter-mile drag race despite being the heavier, less powerful car.
RELATED: WATCH HOW FAST THE EXORCIST CAMARO REALLY IS
This was proven on the first episode of The Grand Tour’s current seasons, much to the dismay of James May.
That hasn’t stopped the Exorcist from being a popular upgrade choice at Hennessey, which still has no plans on giving the Exorcist anything besides more power that it can effectively deal with.
With 1,000 hoses at the crank, the question some Exorcist owners might have is just how many it has at the rear wheels. Hennessey reveals the Exorcist’s rear-wheel power figures in their latest video.
From 1,000 at the crank, the Exorcist loses about 100 by the time they get to the rear wheels. Rear wheel power was rated at 902.1 hp, while rear wheel torque was measured at 795.2 lb-ft. That roughly translates to 10% power loss, which is surprisingly efficient for Hennessey’s builds and is about the same loss to the stock Chevrolet powertrain.
Now if only Hennessey gave it a few suspension tweaks to actually use all that power. Ah well.