Dodge Viper
ACR
By Richard Truett
Transportation Writer
As if
the standard Dodge Viper wasn't mean enough, Dodge has developed an even
faster, better-handling version of America's most powerful sports
car.
It's called the Viper ACR -- American Club Racer. And nothing
you have ever experienced in an automobile can equal what you'll see, hear
and feel behind the wheel of this very venomous snake.
Apparently
there's a big enough group of people with enough money and time to buy
their own wheels and play race car driver.
With a Viper ACR, you
don't have to be a mechanic, and you don't need a trailer and a big truck.
You can drive the car to the race track -- such as Speed World Dragway in
Orlando -- burn up the pavement and then drive home -- legally.
The
base model, which we tested, doesn't even come close to reaching the full
absurdity of performance available.  For those with extremely large wallets,
you can order from Dodge a factory-built, race-ready engine with as much
as 650 horsepower. But this optional motor, which Dodge will deliver to
your door, is not street legal because it doesn't meet federal emissions
standards.
I found the 460 horsepower in our test car to be more
than adequate. So did the Oviedo Police Department. And thereby hangs a
tale ...
Performance, handling
Dodge engineers
extracted 10 extra ponies and better response from the massive 8.0-liter,
V-10 engine just by changing the air filter from the stock setup to a less
restrictive unit made by K&N.
The Viper's raspy engine is far
and away the most powerful automobile engine I have ever experienced.
Though I have driven cars with more horsepower, such as a Lamborghini
Diablo, not one has had the massive thrust of the Viper.
Press the
accelerator and the Viper strikes. In the blink of an eye, you're knocked
back in the seat and headed to 60 mph. Because the V-10 has so much power,
the engine doesn't need to be revved high for awesome performance. I
rarely saw the tachometer needle cross into the 5,000
rpm
range.
In fact, the engine has so much power that you can
make the giant rear tires burn rubber at 45 mph on an
upshift.
Wow!
The Viper comes only with a six-speed
manual transmission. The clutch pedal takes quite a bit of muscle to
press, and the clutch is either in or out. There isn't much in between, so
you have to be prepared to move once you let the clutch pedal
up.
All this power would be useless if it could not be
controlled.
Not to worry.
The ACR has
high-performance adjustable Koni racing shocks, special springs, one-piece
aluminum wheels made by BBS and the best street tire Michelin makes. All
these things help keep the Viper ACR under control when the speed picks up
and the corners come quickly.
Because of the Viper's low center of
gravity, the car is nearly impossible to flip over. About the worst that
could happen is that the rear end could get loose and the car could slide
while cornering. But an experienced driver who knows how to manage the
accelerator, shifter and brakes
will find that the Viper is an easy car
to drive safely at triple digit speeds.
The power rack-and-pinion
steering makes the Viper easy to steer, but because of the giant tires,
the turning radius is about as wide as your average battleship.
An
impressive set of four-wheel disc brakes erases the Viper's speed
as
efficiently as the engine delivers it. From the very start, the
Viper was envisioned as a back-to-basics sports car. But anti-lock brakes
in a car this powerful are a necessity -- yet an ABS system is not
available.
Fit and finish
As an everyday car, though,
the Viper is barely tolerable. It has several huge shortcomings:
It's
cramped.
It's loud.
It's hot.
And yet all these
things don't seem to matter when you're driving down the road knowing that
nothing can be ahead of you unless you allow it to be there.
The
ACR comes from the factory without air conditioning, a radio and power
mirrors. Leaving out these optional items saved about 60 pounds but makes
the ACR very tough to drive in city traffic. And in the summer, this car
would be a killer to drive.
The absence of a radio and an air
conditioner leave you with nothing to
fiddle with (so that all of your
attention can be fixed to the road), but the ACR can leave you physically
drained after a couple of hours behind the wheel.
The V-10 engine
generates an enormous amount of heat, much of which travels into the
cockpit and leaves you with a just-emerged-from-a-sauna feeling. You drive
down the road with the vent open and the fan running at full blast, but
hot air from the engine gets sucked into the vent at
speeds lower than
30 mph. That's because the vent is behind the motor.
I found the
Viper's cockpit to be nicely designed and arranged. Yet the massive
drivetrain takes up much of the room. The transmission tunnel is so large
that the seats are narrow and there isn't much elbow room.
The
Viper never was about comfort. The dimensions and the heat are two of
those things you just learn to live with. Because the ultrahigh
performance charms you, you forgive the Viper its
shortcomings.
When you have a car like the Viper, the biggest
challenge is not seeing how fast the car will go from 0 to 60 mph. It's
leaving your ego at the door.
For most of the week that I drove the
bright red Viper, I behaved myself. I did nothing as drivers in hopped-up
Mustang GTs revved their engines at stop lights and squealed away in
triumph.
I would not be provoked into tangling with lowered,
louvered, Japanese sporty cars.
Not even the odd Corvette got me
to lower my guard.
And then came the Sunday trip to my girlfriend's
house in Oviedo. There is a subdivision there where the streets are paved,
but the houses are not yet built. Like most other American kids, my
girlfriend's two boys like cars, especially fast cars. So I took them for
a ride (one at a time, of course) around the unbuilt
subdivision.
Let's just say I was eager to show off the ACR's
cornering ability and made some excessive noise with the tires. Let's also
say someone with a cell phone felt it was his civic duty to alert the
authorities.
Not long after I parked the car, there came a knock on
the door. Oviedo's finest had heard reports of a red Viper slicing through
some curves, and they weren't happy about it. I issued the perfunctory
apologies and promised it wouldn't happen again, not in their city at
least.
That's the thing about the Viper. No matter how hard you
try, you can't always be an angel behind the wheel. If there is one
corrupt molecule in your law-abiding body, the Viper will somehow expose
it.
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