Maryland man builds world’s first manual Dodge Demon from $20K salvage auction find
- Maryland man made the world’s first manual Dodge Demon
- It required a lot of rewiring
- But considering it started severely burnt, it’s made huge progress
Published on Mar 30, 2025 at 4:13 AM (UTC+4)
by Ben Thompson
Last updated on Mar 27, 2025 at 12:40 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
This Maryland man built the world’s first manual Dodge Demon from a $20k salvage auction find.
ScrapLife Garage picked up the Demon after it had been badly burnt in a fire.
After spending a year doing it up, he realized that it didn’t run.
Thus began the arduous process of ripping it apart and starting over, all in the name of making this a manual car.
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Turning a Dodge Demon into a manual car
Dodge Demons are a special breed of car, however you look at it.
They’re Hell on wheels, which is why they often show up in drag races, whether against Teslas or muscle cars.
And they often pop up in fascinating restoration projects, as was the case when a guy created the world’s first Demon Truck.
All of this to say – it’s a really cool car.
But turning one into a manual would not be easy, as this YouTuber came to find out.
Rewiring the car with the electrical system from a 2018 Hellcat eliminated the car’s biggest problem, but it created a few additional ones.
One was that the Hellcat operated with a single fuel pump system, whilst the Demon had a dual fuel pump system.
This meant he needed to ‘get creative’ to think of a way to power the second pump.
He explained: “This conversion harness should allow us to do exactly that.
“Generally these are used to power aftermarket set-ups in really big horsepower cars.
“But I think with a little modification, we can get it to work on a factory set-up too.”
How did things work out in the end?
As you might expect, it’s a complicated matter when it comes to wiring a car.
The car had six wires for each fuel pump, which didn’t match the single wiring harness of the Hellcat.
To me and you, that might be a head-scratcher.
But for a pro like ScrapLife Garage, he was able to work around that and found a solution that powered both pumps.
There were a few minor issues to address along the way, but the Demon eventually got taken out for its first test drive.
ScrapLife Garage commented: “Oh, it’s driving-driving!
“Holy s**t, we just drove the Demon!”
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to change out one of the side mirrors, however – the previous fire had melted it into an awkward angle, meaning it didn’t serve much use to the driver.
But on the whole, the test drive was a positive development.
There were still some things that needed to be ironed out, but it’s a massive achievement overall.
To see the Dodge’s journey for yourself, head over to the ScrapLife Garage YouTube channel.
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