Hi, I'm Wade from Thoroughbred Diesel and today we're going to be showing you our 2019
Chevy Colorado with a baby Duramax in it.
So we did another thing, we went out, we got a 2019 Chevy Colorado.
This is the ZR2 package with the 2.8 Duramax in it.
I was really excited about this little truck.
I had saw the 2.8 Duramax at a couple of the other automotive shows that we've been to.
Our owner's been tossing around the idea of getting one so we went ahead and got one.
A side note, this is our third truck that we've got here at the shop for testing in
the non 3/4 ton market so we now have the the 3.0 PowerStroke, the EcoDiesel and now
the Chevy Colorado with the 2.8 Duramax in it.
This truck is running right now.
That's one of the things that I wanted to let you be able to hear.
It is super quiet and in most of Chevrolet's sales literature they talk about the quietness
of the engine.
It is quiet, but I'll be honest with you, it sounds like a diesel, and I really like
that.
I really, really like it.
You know that there is a diesel in here when you hear this thing running.
If you guys are wanting that absolutely whisper quiet thing, this might not be the truck for
you.
It's quiet, but it sounds like a diesel.
There you are.
I took a bunch of notes on this, I try not to work from my whiteboard back here.
Let's just kind of do a walkthrough on it.
So this is, we ordered, this is a ZR2 package.
I'm going to talk to you just a little bit about that.
ZR2 package has got the increased ground clearance, 17-inch wheels I think it is.
It's got remote reservoir shocks on the front.
It's really, really got a nice stance on it, but the absolute coolest thing about this
package hands down, the absolute coolest thing about the ZR2 package is it has the on-demand
locking front differential.
Locking front differential in this truck, this truck will climb a telephone pole for
lack of a better word.
The 2.8 Duramax truck's standard equipment on these is going to be the exhaust brake
and the locking rear differential, but this has also got the selectable locking rear differential
and the selectable locking front differential.
That's right kids, all four tires on this sucker are going to pull.
It will absolutely climb a telephone pole.
It'll get a young man in trouble, I can tell you that right now.
This motor is again 2.8 Duramax, it is the Duramax family and designated as such.
However, this motor is built in Thailand.
It is from, I wrote the name of the little town down, [Patong 00:02:50], Thailand, I
don't know how to say it, but so far, so good.
Chevrolet has been in the Ford six cylinder diesel motor market for a while but this one
was marketed as a Duramax.
Yeah, so block on this, this is an inline Ford 2.8 liter again, it's an inline Ford,
it's got inline Ford, it has got a cast-iron block on it, aluminum heads on this, dual
overhead cams.
As far as power goes, the truck is rated at 181 horsepower at 3400 RPM and 369 foot pounds
of torque at 2000 RPM. looking at the dyno graphs on this, very, very wide torque and
horsepower curve.
You're going to get the power through a broad range of RPMs which is really, really nice.
I'm super stoked to get this on our dyno and try it out and see what we find about it.
Just really, really good looking torque and horsepower curves so I'm stoked about it.
It's got a Honeywell VGT Turbo on it.
This has a Denso fuel system in it.
You guys that are kind of watching Denso right now, this is another entrant into the Denso,
into the common rail fuel market.
This is a solenoid injection system.
This is not piezo, this is solenoid injection, but it does have multiple injection [inaudible
00:04:18] so I think that kind of lends itself into the noise that you hear from this motor.
Again, this motor sounds like a diesel.
I like that.
You may not like that, I like that.
You purist diesel guys, you're going to get that diesel sound.
Overall compression of the motor is 16.5 to 1 compression on the motor.
It's got a continental ECM is what I had read on the spec sheet on it.
I have not looked at the ECM to make sure that it's not a Bosch controller but I do
think it is continental.
You can look underneath of the hood, you can already see some things that are actually
glaring to you in, to be able to jump into the aftermarket.
This is the inner cooler pipe, that's going to look like, I'm sure there's going to be
a quick jump in on that, somebody's probably already got it out.
Air intake is super accessible.
Underneath the hood, one of the things I really, really like about this motor, one thing that
I talked about in the small PowerStroke motor is I did not like the oil filter position
on that motor.
The Chevrolet is on the very front of the motor, super, super easy to get to.
I really, really like that.
You can see the inner cooler pipe in here.
Quick and easy to get to.
I have not had the engine cover off to see what the middle of the motor looks like yet
but we'll get to that in a later video.
First glance, not too bad to work on.
What else Adam?
We're going to take you a little bit of a ride along here, [inaudible 00:05:53] this
one I think has got the six speed transmission here.
The reason why I say I think is because I saw some of the spec sheets on this truck
showing an eight speed transmission in it and then I saw some with six speed.
Six speed, this was locked out to six speed so seven and eight might have been locked
out, I don't know, but six speed is as far as it went for me on the manual shift so yeah,
integrated exhaust brake too, integrated trailer brake controller so if you've got a trailer
with brakes on it, this will handle that.
GVW on it, sticker is 6200, but max trailer weight is 5000 pounds.
Combined GVW is 10.7 is what the manual's got it at so the truck's very capable for
a mid-sized, absolutely.
All right, that's enough talking.
Let's go for a ride along here.
So on our ride along here, like I said, power on this motor's really, really good.
It's another, just a really shining example of what you get with VGT turbos.
The throttle is super, super responsive.
Super responsive throttle in a 2.8 liter engine so it's really a lot of fun to drive, man.
It just goes.
Interior stuff like I was talking about, I was kind of nerding out on the front locking
differential.
I absolutely love that.
I'm so stoked to take this thing out and just try to stick it.
You got the selectable rear locking differential.
Here is your exhaust brake.
You can turn the exhaust brake on.
The cool thing about the exhaust break, when you turn the exhaust brake on, that also puts
you in automatic tow haul mode so the transmission is integrated into that entire braking operation
that's going to go on with the exhaust brake control.
I've got it too hot in here, Adam, it's a little warm.
Four-wheel drive shifter Chevrolet in this, this is just a condensed Silverado.
You've still got pretty much the same positioning on your four-wheel drive shifter which for
this truck is over here.
Yeah, I really like the interior.
The interior on it.
This is not my strong suit, so talking to you about interiors of a truck is obviously
not my strong suit but to me, this seems very, very functional.
It's got USB slots in it.
This mat right here is automatic phone charger so you can lay your phone down there, it will
charge your phone.
Adam's a big old dude, he's got plenty of room inside the cab here.
Backseat room looks pretty good.
Sorry the truck's a mess because our owner, he likes to pack his dog with him everywhere
he goes so you'll see a little dog hair in here but that's all right.
The seats, the seats are pretty tough.
The dog has been running around here and she hasn't tore up any of the leather yet so ... Nav
system, radio, everything is touch screen on here.
Super, super nice.
I like the manual shift too.
The manual shift on this, the shifter has got a L on it for low.
That gets you into the lockout of the manual shift, sorry about my bad driving Adam, [inaudible
00:09:04] down in the L and that puts you in manual at that point.
I like the responsiveness of the manual shift.
I think some of the manual shift trucks anymore have gotten to where they take some of the
shifting away from the user, they tell you it's manual shift but you call for a shift
and it won't do it.
I didn't have that in this.
This truck really responded well to the manual shifting so yeah.
If you're towing a trailer, I think this truck would be super, super cool.
Again, it's got the integrated trailer brake controller.
I didn't really like the positioning of the trailer brake controller.
That's my one knock on the interior of this truck.
The trailer brake controller is over here.
It's kind of in a blind spot.
I'll be honest with you, the way the steering wheel is on this truck, you kind of got a
couple of blind spots here on either side of it and that is probably distance, size
of the cab, so on, the trailer brake controller would have been ... I think it would have
been much better if you had put it right there and that would have given you a little bit
better access to it so if we've got a knock on the truck it's the positioning of the trailer
brake controller.
Awesome truck.
I really, really like this truck, man.
Yeah, I've kind of got a new love on Duramaxes right now.
I kind of gotten away from it just a little bit.
I've said this before in a lot of videos, I'm a Chevrolet guy at heart, I grew up with
Chevrolet but I have since crossed over into the dark side, I do own a couple of Dodges,
but I've got a newfound love of Chevrolet and when we got this truck I was really, really
stoked about it.
I don't know how much longer we're going to have this truck.
I don't know what the plans are for it.
It may be getting shipped off to the farm for some feeding duties but we hope to be
able to compare this truck to the other ... I want to call them light duty diesels, obviously
the Ford is in a half ton and the RAM is in a half ton package as well but we hope to
be able to compare this motor to those in a lot of different things, power, drivability,
so on.
That's what we're doing.
This is a new Duramax.
I'm definitely signing off on it.
If you guys were looking for a second vehicle and you're wanting to stay inside of the diesel
market, I really, really like this Duramax.
You're definitely getting the thumbs up from me.
The last thing is we need a name for this truck.
Adam and I were talking about this.
We really want to name this truck, we think if we give it a name, that kind of gets it
part of the family and maybe we get to keep it.
So while you're liking and subscribing to our channel, definitely let us know what you
think we ought to name this truck and hopefully we keep it.
So I'm Wade from Thoroughbred Diesel, Adam's with me, I'm scaring him to death because
I keep looking away from the road and looking at the camera.
We're going to go ahead and sign off.
Help us name this truck, our little Duramax, the 2.8 liter, go to your local Chevrolet
lot and check one out.
Like and subscribe to our channel and if you have any questions please give us a call,
let us know.
Thank you.