Hi and welcome. I'm a little confused though...
NO cars produced today match my
ultimate preferences. Not since manufacturers used to go head-to-head with cars that were somewhat realistic semblances of daily drivers have they. Can you imagine a road racing series with almost-stock offerings from the Big Three, these days? My guess is that showroom sales of those Trans Am-flavored cars would be phenomenal, especially if they designed them to run rings around the Usual (ovepriced) Suspects of European origins.
I don't call 6.2 liters "massive" displacement, either. Pro Stockers are 500 cubic inches and turn around 10,500 RPM. The Trans Am cars were 302 cubic inches and revved far higher than all the North American cars as a whole do at the present.
The Hemi as it stands now has a great deal of rev potential that is largely not used due to the tendency for high-revving engines to have dismal fuel economy numbers, high cost per hp, choppy idle, faster wear, and, really, people not wanting to wait until 5000 RPM before, BANG, there's the powerband!
There is no American V8 produced now that can touch the Hemi's breathing capability with a ten foot pole.
Strangely, to actually be competitive in Pro Stock the so-called Pro Stock "Hemi" these days is not a Hemi at all. it seems that positioning the valves for very aggressive horizontal swirl (taking piston travel direction as "vertical") somehow aids in power production in a naturally-aspirated engine (as in, very little difference between ambient pressure on intake and exhaust.)
What works GREAT for one kind of induction/exhaust system (THE HEMI AND SUPERCHARGING) doesn't seem to fly in Pro Stock, where ambient pressure is close to equal for intake and exhaust. In fact, when Dodge once again dipped its toe in Pro Stock, the engine topped with the B1 with its fist-sized ports and very, very un-Hemi-shaped valve layout was its main contender. The valve positions, basically side-by-side, aka putting the intake flow direction tangent to the diameter of the cylinder, seemed to work well, and most Pro Stock heads seem to favor some version of having the intake flow direction tangent to the cylinder diameter.
Something about this horizontal swirl seems to help fuel homogenization, combustion efficiency, and power production.
The Challenger is kind of smooth in a 90's vein, yet still sharp enough to look modern AND retro at the same time (I really like the shape of this car, and four doors on a "performance car" is something I will never find interesting, such as the execrable RX8, Porsche Fourfarter or whatever it's called, etc.)
I know the Chevy LS(x) engines have more modern layouts than the venerable Mouse Motor, but tall cathedral-shaped intake ports are THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what engine builders design when they have a clean sheet of paper and not a lot of external constrictions.
I understand that opposed valves, such as used by Dodge, Porsche (type 912 engine, for example), VW, OSCA, and various others, can flow well, making intake charge dilution less likely, but, alas, with a naturally-aspirated engine operating in a very narrow powerband, it CAN be more desirable to swirl the intake charge about the pistons linear travel axis, aka tangent to the diameter of the cylinder.
Any "swirl" activity in the Hemi-shaped combustion chambers, whether they are DOHC or OHV tends to rotate about an axis that changes with the position of the piston but is always parallel to the axis of the piston pins.
Honda designed THEIR combustion chambers in a TSCC (twin-swirl combustion chamber) manner, so the swirls would be initiated by the air skating in across the tops of the intake valves for starters, then continue, past the exhausxt valves, then as I said, about the axis parallel with the piston pins. They ESPECIALLY did this with their eight-valve oval-piston screamers. No sane person would try to laterally swirl an air column around a "cylinder" that was twice as wide as it was long.
So, in short, yes, I like high-revving small engines like the little (Gen III) Hemi, but the sheer output, reliability, fuel mileage, and low idle fuel consumption and rpm of the Hellcat accomplish so many goals while delivering the performance anyone can appreciate, NO WAITING.
In these modern days of fuel injection versus carburetion, the Hemi cylinder head does not outright discard so much fuel as it used to, as the timing of the injection can be better tailored so that most of the fuel arrives after the exhaust valve is shut even though the air arrives first and helps exhaust scavenging and exhaust valve cooling dramatically.
It will be interesting to see if Dodge tries to foist a six-banger off on the American public. I-6 engines are as smooth as and less exciting than sewing machines.
