Last time we checked, the Jeep Renegade doesn’t come with any HEMI V8 engines. We’re talking about a motor usually found in a muscle car with twice the number of cylinders and about three times the displacement. They don’t even mount the same way, but that didn’t stop the absolute mad lad Mike Martin from HEMI-swapping his Jeep Renegade. What? How?! Why?!
Mike’s Jeep Renegade was already a total unit and an Instagram star. It grabbed my attention four or five years ago because it was the first Renegade I’d ever seen with a widebody kit.
And I’m not talking about adding half an inch of plastic trim and calling it a widebody. No, this had and still has custom-made widebody inserts that almost double the width of the front fenders. On top of this, the Jeep mini crossover had been slammed to the ground and fitted with the type of wheels you’d normally see in the JDM scene: deep-dish wheels with stretched tires, and a lot of negative camber.
The Jeep wants to be a Civic and a muscle car
Right now, the standard Renegade is a little 1.3-liter 4-cylinder with a turbo making 177 horsepower. But older models had either 1.4-liter turbos with a manual or a 2.4-liter Tigershark MultiAir producing about 175-185 horsepower.
Basically, nothing has too many cylinders or that much power. However, Mike felt he could change all that with an engine swap. Sensible people might try a 2.0-liter turbo because of the longitudinal layout of the Renegade engine bay. But he opted for a HEMI.
Specifically, the engine is a 5.7-liter HEMI out of a 2016 Dodge Charger R/T wreck bought off Copart. This was rated at 370 horsepower, more than twice the output of a normal Renegade.
To make it fit, the little crossover had to be completely gutted, and an old-school custom sub-frame fabricated so that the V8 could fit the other way around. The firewall needed to be moved, and a shorter driveshaft sends power to a Hellcat LSD at the back. Of course, all the suspension systems needed to be customized.
The Renegade is Jeep’s smallest model, and it’s often not taken seriously. It’s competed with small crossovers like the Honda HR-V, Chevy Trax, Hyundai Kona, and Toyota C-HR. Some of those don’t even come with 4×4. The Jeep does and is an excellent off-roader for its size.
Jeep had been making small SUVs for many years, the Patriot and Compass. But when the Renegade burst onto the scene in late 2014, it completely changed the game with its looks and MINI-like attention to quirky design and features.
It’s based on the FCA Small Wide 4×4 platform. I distinctly remember covering spy photos of early prototypes many years ago, as they used a Fiat 500L as the mule. The baby Jeep is even built in Italy at a Fiat Factory.
