Everyone Wants More Power

We want it and automakers try and deliver it in a variety of ways.  Now that Dodge has successfully offered 707 horsepower on their Hellcat twins it’s time to take the same principles and apply them to an SUV.  The SUV of choice is the Jeep Grand Cherokee which will be designated as the Trackhawk when the vehicle has finally come to fruition, but there are some specific hurdles that need to be jumped over in a big way in order to actually have a Trackhawk with the monsters power of the Hellcats.

First of all the Grand Cherokee already has an SRT model and with the Hellcat engine don’t you just put the two together and get the right mix; not quite.  The first challenge that faces this possibility is ensuring the airflow is maximized for the Jeep Grand Cherokee.  The 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat V8 is a heavy breather and needs to have enough air for the combustion and for the cooling of the heat exchangers once the engine reaches the temperature that runs the 707 horsepower.   This could be one of the easiest hurdles for the new Trackhawk because the frontal area of the Grand Cherokee is larger and gives the engineers more surface area to work with.

The massive amount of power that needs to be fed to the wheels is too much for the current SRT all-wheel drive system, which will need to be beefed up to handle the power.  The transmission will be no problem though as the ZF-eight-speed automatic is already in use in the other Hellcat models, so this area will just need to be upgraded to handle the power, but the AWD will be a huge benefit to the power and necessary function of this new amazing vehicle.

The engine appears to be able to fit in the compartment of the Grand Cherokee with no problem because the current SRT version is a 6.4-liter V8, but the Hellcat is a taller engine due to the supercharger which may require the hood be resculpted to fit correctly but this is really a minor detail and easy enough as many vehicles have been produced over the years with superchargers and hoods that were designed to not only fit them but also provide some added air flow to the cooling system underneath.

Once all these hurdles have been covered there are a few other challenges.  The first part is the distinction between quick and fast.  The Jeep with its AWD system will put the power to all four wheels in a more manageable way than the Dodge twins do.  This should give the Jeep much better acceleration than the Dodges.  With the launch control in place the Jeep is expected to finish a quarter mile in the mid-to-high ten second range and reach sixty mph in close to 3.0 seconds, besting the two Hellcats on both fronts as a quicker vehicle than either one.

As for fast the Jeep will probably not be as fast as the two Dodge cars.  The first reason is the aerodynamics which is of course much worse for the Jeep than the two Hellcats.  With a claim the Trackhawk would reach 200 mph, the reality is that speed is highly doubtful, but 185 might be very possible.  This could actually be too fast and require an electronic speed limiter to be installed in order to get the overall approval of the lawyers who do hold the final hurdle that must be jumped over in order to bring the Trackhawk to production and make it a vehicle we can all enjoy.

Of course nothing I have presented is insurmountable.  Each of these hurdles is well within the possibilities from FCA and will make for an amazing vehicle for us to discuss and purchase.  When you finally see the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk it will be able to surpass  many of the European offerings and give you a certain sense of pride and patriotism to know this awesome SUV came from an American manufacturer.