Hellcat Features Air Catcher

There's something odd about the front end of the new 2015 Challenger SRT Hellcat. Although it doesn't look much different from the standard Challenger, there's a gaping hole in one of the headlights. That hole is an "air catcher," an intake which helps the 6.2 liter V8 produce a whopping 707 horsepower.

What is an Air Catcher?

Air catchers have long been a feature of street car-based drag racers. If the intake doesn't need to protrude through the hood, it makes sense to get the widest opening possible to help get air into the engine without having anything external to the existing body. The simplest way to do this is to remove one of the headlights and use the opening as the start of the intake. For cars with dual front headlights, one or both of the high beam lamps would be removed, leaving the standard lights intact to keep the car street legal.

How does it Work?

During the intake stroke, the engine acts as an air pump. At the start of the stroke, the piston is at top dead center (TDC,) with exhaust gases filling the small space between the piston crown and the head. As the piston moves downward, the gases stretch to fill the increasing space, lowering the pressure. When the intake valve opens, higher pressure air outside the car rushes through the intake into the cylinder until the pressure is equalized. It's a lot like opening a bottle of soda: once the seal is broken, the high pressure inside the bottle causes the familiar hiss as carbon dioxide escapes through the opening.

Restrictions can slow down the movement of air through the intake, creating a low pressure area that limits the amount of air that can enter the engine. A traditional intake would have an inlet under the hood or inside one of the front fenders, requiring a number of bends and a less than optimal opening shape. These types of inlets also collect still air that likely has been heated by the engine; the warmer the air is, the less dense it is. Less air means less combustion, which results in less power.

The Hellcat Air Catcher: An Automotive First

The Hellcat has a supercharger, which is basically an engine-driven air pump. It also has an intercooler, which cools down the intake air after it's been through the supercharger but before it enters the engine. At first glance, it may seem that any intake temperature and pressure problems could be taken care of by making these parts bigger. However, that means increasing vehicle weight and drag on the engine which affects performance both on the road and at the gas pump. With an engine that can pump in as much as 30,000 liters (about 1,000 cubic feet) of air each minute, the intake was an obvious area for improvement.

In 2009, the Challenger 1320 show car made its debut at SEMA. Built for drag racing, it used an air catcher front end. Although both inner lights had been removed, only the left side was functional, leading directly to a cone air filter attached to a Mopar Performance intake.

Building a production car is a lot different than building a show car since things like reliability and drivability have to be taken into account. However, when the engineers were trying to find a way to lower intake temperatures and improve airflow, they looked to the 1320 for inspiration, realizing they could make the air catcher work in a production car.

The driver's side light hasn't been completely eliminated. Instead, the center bulb has been removed, leaving the outer LED ring light for parking and signaling turns to keep the car road legal. That left enough space for a 2.6 inch (66 mm) hole. The exterior of the light was then reshaped to better direct air towards the intake. Wind tunnel testing was performed to ensure that water could not get inside the intake, nor would the hole cause whistling noises during driving. Although a handful of technically street legal factory racers have used air catchers before, this is the first time this setup has been used on a regular, daily drivable car.

There's no word if the design has a "ram air" effect, using aerodynamic resistance to help push air through the hole at high speeds. However, the design does have two clear benefits for this application: It reduces intake restriction, increasing air flow to the engine, and it draws cooler air from outside the engine compartment, increasing air density.

A finished engine was never tested with a traditional intake, but Chris Cowland, the director of SRT Powertrain Engineering, estimates the air catcher is directly responsible for around 7 horsepower. That's to say nothing of the decreased intake temperatures, which helps keep knocking at bay and improves engine life. In stock form, the Hellcat Air Catcher is paired with a more traditional intake for optimum air flow. However, both left and right-side inner lights use the same design. If the owner wants to run a dual air catcher setup, it's simply a matter of running some piping to the right side light and removing the plug covering the intake hole.

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