By Mopar has earned itself a legendary heritage in drag racing. The 3rd generation Dodge Challenger is no exception; high-output packages like the Hellcat and Demon take off from the starting line in a similar fashion to the slingshots that launch fighter jets off of aircraft carriers. Unfortunately, thanks to their Americana-incarnate powertrain and all of the featherweight finesse of a brick house, the new Challengers don’t perform nearly as well in cornering from the factory as other modern muscle cars. To help your ‘08-’18 drag strip beast handle corners, Whiteline offers a few simple upgrades.
Whiteline Performance Sway Bars
When a vehicle (especially one as weighty as a Challenger) goes around a corner, forces pull the body away from the apex of the turn. This is called body roll. Besides pulling the outside tires down into the pavement, it pulls the inside tires up, lessening their contact with the road. This can induce oversteer, and in serious cases, cause the vehicle to spin out. Sway bars (aka anti-sway bars, anti-roll bars) work as a lateral brace between the left and right side of a car. The front and rear swaybars attach with links to the wheel hubs, and use torsional stiffness to keep the vehicle as close to level over its axles as possible. This allows the outside wheels to force the body and the inside wheels back down towards the ground. Aftermarket sway bars are usually both thicker and lighter than the OEM parts.
Whiteline Performance makes sway bars for the Dodge Challenger to help keep your vehicle level and steady around corners. The OEM setup on the Dodge Challenger has a 30mm front bar and 16mm rear bar; Whiteline’s replacements are significantly larger with the front swaybar at 32mm and the rear end at 18mm, offering much more rigidity. These are adjustable sway bars, with multiple mounting points for their end links. This means you can keep your car loose for soft, highway cruising, or tighten it up for more advanced canyon carving.
Whiteline’s replacement sway bars also include new bushings to replace your squeaky, basic factory ones. In the front, they offer large polyurethane bushings with pockets for grease, and in the rear they offer PTFE bushings with an interior liner that does not require greasing. Additionally, clamp on locks are included to keep your sway bar from shifting left or right through the bushings under heavy load.
Whiteline Performance Bump Steer Correction
The Dodge Challenger suffers from a significant amount of bump steer. Given the Challenger’s significant girth, it isn’t immune to bumps and dips in the road. These imperfections combined with the weight of the vehicle and soft stock suspension make it even more prone to jerking the steering wheel around when it comes into contact with unexpected surfaces and obstacles.
Whiteline’s bump steer correction kit installs in the rack and pinion of the vehicle to help absorb impacts from road conditions. This does make the steering feel a little bit less responsive to the pavement beneath, but significantly increases steering precision and ride quality.
A few handling upgrades from Whiteline can change the experience of driving your Challenger in the twisties from wrestling a mechanical bull to guiding a 707-horsepower ballistic missile around corners. Check out Whiteline’s sway bar kit BCK003 and bump steer correction kit W13327 at the Motoroso marketplace, along with tons of other awesome upgrades for your brick house on wheels!
