2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk Lays Down Solid Numbers on the Dyno

The folks at Hennessey Performance have gotten their hands on one of the first 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk units to be delivered to a buyer and before adding big power, the crew put the supercharged SUV on the dyno for some baseline numbers – numbers which proved to be pretty impressive.

The 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk is the world’s most powerful SUV, with the supercharged 6.2L Hemi delivering 707 horsepower and 645lb-ft of torque at the transmission. When coupled with the 8HP95 8-speed automatic transmission and an advanced all-wheel drive system, that blown Hemi makes the Trackhawk is the quickest and fastest SUV on sale right now.

Even with all of those claims in mind, Hennessey Performance knows that Trackhawk buyers will want even more power and performance, so before the Hellcat-powered Jeep hit the street, the Texas-based tuner had packages ready for sale. That led one Trackhawk owner to head over to Hennessey for some upgrades, but before doing any work – the team made some baseline dyno runs to see how much power this super-SUV sends to the wheels.

Trackhawk on the Dyno
As you can see in the video below, the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk was tested on an all-wheel dynamometer, allowing the team to find how much horsepower the Hellcat Hemi sends to all four wheels. After we watch and listen to the dyno run from every angle, we get a look at the dyno chart for the 2018 Trackhawk.

The stock supercharged Jeep sent 575 horsepower and 533lb-ft of torque to all four wheels. Compared to the rated power numbers of 707 horsepower and 645lb-ft of torque, the numbers at the wheels represent a loss of about 18% of engine horsepower and 17% of engine torque. Those might seem like some lofty drivetrain loss numbers when compared to the average Hellcat car – which makes around 635-645 rear wheel horsepower – but we need to keep in mind how much extra drag is added to the drivetrain with the all-wheel drive system.

The Hellcat Challenger and Charger both show much larger wheel-power numbers, but they do with while only driving one differential and two drive wheels. When you consider that, the 17-18% drivetrain loss of the Trackhawk seems pretty reasonable.

Big Power to Come
Now that Hennessey has gotten baseline power numbers for the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, it will be interesting to see how much extra power they can add to the world’s strongest SUV. There is no question that the Hellcat Hemi can easily make well over 1,000 horsepower, as plenty of Challengers and Chargers are at those power levels with relatively simple modifications.

The real question is how much more power the Trackhawk’s AWD system can handle from the modified engine. The engine can easily make 1,000hp, but that might be too much for the transfer case. The key here is how much power it takes to break the stock AWD system and when that point it discovered, owners who want monster numbers will need to beef up that piece of the drivetrain in addition to the driveshaft, axles and differentials.

In the meantime, check out the video of the Trackhawk on the dyno below!