Hellcat Challenger on Custom HRE Wheels
Hellcat Challenger on Custom HRE Wheels
The 2015 Hellcat Challenger has been the talk of the car scene for over a year. Everybody either wants one or is trying to show that their ride is faster. They are trying to modify their car to be fast enough, while the Hellcat owners enjoy their factory warranty and air-conditioned seats. Dodge’s latest has become a staple in the car world in no time.
The Hellcat is a bad ride, but taking one from the dealership to the drag strip may prove disappointing. The factory 275-series Pirelli’s don’t stick off the line. You have to feather it and roll into the throttle to get traction. My dad learned this lesson after he bought his Hellcat Charger. The only solution is bigger, stickier tires.
The wheel wells have room for more rubber, but because of wheel width, it is very limited. Dodge’s 707-horsepower monster only comes with a 20×9.5″ wheel. By most people’s standards, the max that you would want to put on a 9.5″ wide wheel is a 285 or 295. Some have installed 305-series drag radials, but that a tire with a lot of bulge makes the tire roll and reduces stability in corners and at high speeds. The obvious solution is custom wheels.
The owner of this ‘Cat went to Wheels Boutique in Miami to order a set of HRE wheels. The nice part about custom wheels like HRE is that you can pick your width, offset, etc. to fit the wheel and tire perfectly inside the wells. Their wheels are cut out of Aerospace-grade 6061-T6 forged aluminum to ensure they are strong and lightweight. They also have side cuts and pockets into the back pad to minimize unsprung weight.
Their wheels look great on just about any car, but these monoblock 1-piece P101’s are my favorite design. They look sweet in Gloss Bronze; a shinier take on the original Brass Monkey finish on the factory rollers.
Wheel Boutiques did some measurements to figure out just how wide they could fit safely. The front wheels measure 20×10″ with 275/40R20 tires. Some people may think it’s silly that they didn’t go wider up front, but the .5″ width increase will help with sidewall flex in hard cornering. A square setup is ideal for any racing involving turning.
The back is where the width increase is most important. The rears are 1.5″ wider, which allows them to safely mount a 315/35R20. The 40mm width difference may not seem like much, but it amounts to roughly 1.6-inches more section width. This size is almost identical in diameter and circumference to the factory tires, so there will be no problems re-calibrating the speedo. They wrapped these in one of Nitto’s best performance tires; the NT05.
The factory wheels look good, but who wants to fit in with the rest of the low-11 factory muscle cars? The wider rears should help the car hook, but the HRE‘s give it the standout look the owner was hoping for. What do you guys think? I dig it.
Photos by Keenan Warner via Wheels Boutique
