The 6.2-liter supercharged unit requires E85 to reach its peak figure — a fuelling caveat shops must plan around.
Stellantis put six turnkey Hemi V8 crate packages on the order sheet at SEMA 2026. The range runs from 385 hp to 1,025 hp. Each ships with a matched controller, wiring harness, and a powertrain warranty — not a common offer for swap-ready engines. That last detail changes the conversation.
Factory-backed warranty coverage on a four-digit-output crate engine is rare enough to stop and check twice. According to Stellantis's Direct Connection product announcement, published November 2026, every package carries a 3-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty. For comparison, independent aftermarket shops building 1,200 hp crate V8s offer no equivalent factory validation. Direct Connection's availability window opens in early 2027.
Six Packages, One Order Form: The Full Output Ladder
The Direct Connection lineup breaks down cleanly across three displacement families. The 345 (5.7-liter) enters at 385 hp and 417 lb-ft of torque in both Street Strip and Super Stock trim. Step to the 392 (6.4-liter) and both variants rate at 485 hp and 475 lb-ft — a 100 hp jump, or 26 percent more output than the 345. The supercharged Hellcrate Redeye 6.2-liter reaches 885 hp and 787 lb-ft in High Octane Mode. The range-topper, the Hellephant C170, adds 140 hp over the Redeye to reach 1,025 hp and 945 lb-ft on E85. That is a 166 percent increase — 640 hp — across the six-package span from bottom to top. The older Hellephant A30, built on a 7.0-liter 426 Hemi, rated 1,000 hp without a flex-fuel tune; the C170 therefore extracts 25 additional horsepower from 0.8 fewer litres of displacement, entirely through supercharger sizing, injector flow, and fuel chemistry. For context on how American high-output V8 development has tracked since the 2000s, the displacement-versus-boost trade-off visible here has been building across two decades of platform evolution.
What the Direct Connection Announcement Actually Specifies
According to the Direct Connection product specification sheet released by Stellantis at SEMA 2026, the Hellephant C170's headline hardware includes a 3.0-liter IHI supercharger running a 3.02-inch pulley, a 105-millimetre throttle body, an ethanol content sensor, an upgraded fuel rail, and higher-flow injectors. The ethanol sensor is not cosmetic: it feeds blend-ratio data to the powertrain control module in real time, adjusting ignition timing and fuel delivery automatically as the E85 concentration at the pump varies — a detail that matters to anyone sourcing flex-fuel outside dedicated racing facilities. The spec sheet also lists the full electronics package shipped with every unit: a pre-flashed PCM, a power distribution centre, oxygen sensors, an accelerator pedal assembly, and a starter relay. Automatic-transmission builds add a shifter, a transmission control module, and a brake switch. Builders speccing the TorqueFlite 8HP90 automatic or the TREMEC manual get transmission-ready calibration out of the crate — no separate tuning session required, according to the same document.
A Warranty on a Swap Engine Needs an Explanation
The 3-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty is the detail that does not fit the usual crate-engine model. Stellantis has not published the specific exclusions — what happens if the C170 is installed in a vehicle that then runs sanctioned competition, or if the builder uses a non-approved transmission adapter, is not addressed in the November 2026 announcement. That gap matters. Jared Hess, Direct Connection product manager at Stellantis, has not given a public statement clarifying claim eligibility for race-use installations, and the company did not respond to a request for comment on exclusion language before publication. Independent shops selling comparable four-digit-output crate assemblies — including the 1,200 hp packages noted by several SEMA exhibitors — carry no factory warranty at all, which makes the C170's coverage attractive on paper. Whether dealership service departments are trained and tooled to honour warranty claims on engines installed in donor vehicles from other manufacturers is a separate question the launch documentation does not answer.
C170 vs. A30: More Power, Less Displacement, Different Fuel
The outgoing Hellephant A30 used a 7.0-liter 426-cubic-inch Hemi and produced 1,000 hp without requiring a flex-fuel blend. The C170 produces 1,025 hp — 25 hp more — from a 6.2-liter block, but only on E85. That is a meaningful trade. A builder who cannot reliably source E85 gets a C170 that falls short of the A30's output on pump gasoline, despite newer hardware and a more sophisticated electronics package. The IHI supercharger on the C170 displaces 3.0 litres versus the blower architecture on the A30 platform; pulley sizing at 3.02 inches is specific enough that swapping to a smaller pulley to chase more boost would almost certainly void the warranty Stellantis is using as a selling point. The 392-based crate (6.4 litres, 485 hp) shares its displacement with the Dodge Durango R/T's production engine, though the crate versions are sold as performance swap units rather than service-replacement parts — a distinction Direct Connection makes explicit in its product classification.
Early 2027 Availability Window Shapes Shop Planning Cycles
Direct Connection confirmed orders open in early 2027, which gives custom fabrication shops roughly one to two quarters to finalise chassis plans, source fuel systems, and arrange transmission hardware before the first units ship. For builders running E85, that timeline intersects with regional fuel infrastructure constraints — E85 pump availability in the northeastern United States and most of Europe remains patchy enough that a flex-fuel build planned around C170 peak output requires either a dedicated storage tank or a confirmed local supply. Stellantis has not announced a retail price for any of the six packages; without that figure, project budgeting remains incomplete. The absence of pricing in the November 2026 launch documentation is itself informative — it suggests Direct Connection is still working through dealer channel and distribution agreements ahead of the order window. For comparison, the previous-generation Hellephant A30 crate engine carried a list price of approximately $29,995 at launch, a reference point builders will use until Stellantis publishes C170 figures.
The Hellephant name traces to a 2018 SEMA concept — the Dodge Super Charger show truck — where a 426-cubic-inch supercharged Hemi first wore the badge at 1,000 hp. That truck never entered production. The C170 is the first Hellephant variant offered with a factory warranty attached to a retail order form. The complete Dodge model history and specifications are catalogued in the Global Auto Index manufacturer database.
