How Much Horsepower Does A 20-Year-Old Dodge Viper Make Now?

Doug DeMuro takes his 1997 Viper GTS on the dyno to see how much power it still has after two decades, and the result might not be what you'd expect...
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Pretty much all cars lose power over time, regardless of how well they’re maintained. As a car racks up the miles, engine parts wear and don’t work quite as well as they did when they left the factory.

Doug DeMuro decided to test how much horsepower his 20-year-old Dodge Viper GTS now has, to see how far off the original figure it is. As he explains, the second-gen Viper was made by the Chrysler group in the 1990s, and at the time, the firm wasn’t renowned for precision accuracy. Each individual engine will probably have a slight horsepower difference, but the official figure for the Viper was 450bhp from an 8.0-litre V10. And there’s plenty of lovely V10 noise in this video.

We’re not going to spoil the outcome, but suffice to say, it seems the original power figure might have been a tad conservative…

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Comments

Anonymous

Need some tweaking and whinny supercharger.

06/22/2017 - 03:15 |
2 | 0
Anonymous

Cars can loose hp?

06/22/2017 - 09:49 |
0 | 0
Scoops

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Yeah over time the engine loses horse power it gets worn out i believe

06/23/2017 - 08:41 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

I wonder if he knows the weight of his own car… i mean, hes never put the words power and weight in the same sentence of any review hes ever made

06/22/2017 - 13:58 |
0 | 0
MotoTom

New (claimed): 450bhp / 383.5whp
Now: 470bhp / 398.3whp

He uses the assumed 15% loss from engine to wheels to figure out new whp and now bhp.

06/22/2017 - 14:57 |
2 | 0
CaptainNutSack

Sounds Dodgy to me

06/23/2017 - 10:07 |
0 | 0