2017 Chevy Colorado ZR2 - The Ultimate Off-Road Adventure

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Chevy forges off-road cred with Colorado ZR2

Automotive News  /  November 15, 2016

Chevrolet hopes to take advantage of surging demand for midsize pickups with an off-road, high-performance version of the Colorado.

Chevy unveiled the Colorado ZR2, touted as having the most off-road technology of any vehicle in its segment, at a private event ahead of the Los Angeles auto show.

The ZR2 has a 3.5-inch wider track than the standard Colorado and a lifted suspension. Modified bumpers give the truck better off-road clearance, while functional rockers improve handling over rocks and other obstacles.

Chevy did not give details about market launch or pricing for the 2017 truck.

“Our engineers have been incredibly successful developing Corvette and Camaro performance variants with broad performance envelopes,” Mark Reuss, GM’s product development chief, said in a statement. “The ZR2 applies that same philosophy to off-road performance. You can go rock crawling on Saturday, desert running on Sunday, and comfortably drive to work on Monday. This truck can do it all, and do it all well.”

The ZR2, visually similar to a concept version shown here two years ago, builds on the Colorado’s momentum at a time when sales in the segment are up 25 percent this year. That compares with a gain of just 2.4 percent for full-size pickups this year through October.

U.S. sales of the Colorado, up 29 percent, and its GMC sibling, the Canyon, up 21 percent, account for a large portion of the segment’s gain.

Chevy says fewer than 8 percent of Colorado buyers previously had a full-size Silverado, suggesting that its sales have been overwhelmingly incremental to the brand rather than cannibalizing a more expensive and undoubtedly more profitable product. More than 50 percent of buyers are new to Chevrolet, said Alan Batey, General Motors’ president of North America.

Batey said the vehicles most commonly traded in for a Colorado are the Ford F-150 and Toyota Tacoma, but that many buyers previously drove cars and never owned a pickup before.

“They come from everywhere,” Batey said in an interview. “They don’t need a truck. They want a truck.”

Chevy partnered with Multimatic Inc., the Ontario motorsports company that’s building the GT supercar for Ford Motor Co., to create the ZR2’s dampers. The ZR2 will be the first use of Multimatic dynamic suspensions spool valve dampers in an off-road vehicle.

The technology, previously used on the 2014 Camaro Z/28, enhances ride and handling performance both off road and on, while offering increased precision and manufacturing repeatability, Chevy said.

“From our experience on Z/28, we knew the performance advantages offered by DSSV dampers,” said Mark Dickens, Chevrolet’s executive director of performance variants, performance parts and motorsports engineering. “For the driver, this translates to greater confidence and control in a wider range of driving experiences.”

Chevy said the ZR2 shares powertrains with the standard Colorado and will be available in nine drive configurations. It can tow 5,000 pounds and has a 1,100-pound payload capacity.

To develop the ZR2, Chevy said it created new off-road test areas at GM’s proving ground in Yuma, Ariz., including high-speed desert sand trails, low-speed loose river-rock crossings and steep hills. The truck’s components also were tested in Moab, Utah, and the Rubicon Trail.

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Autoblog  /  November 16, 2016

Supercar suspension dampers in a midsize pickup truck. It ultimately is that simple, despite being a tremendously complicated engineering feat that literally required a 48-deck Powerpoint presentation and a wild-haired engineer to completely explain.

The 2017 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 features the same Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve (DSSV) damper technology as an Aston Martin One-77, Ford GT, Mercedes-AMG GT and the Red Bull F1 cars that won the constructors' championships from 2010 to 2013. It was pretty incredible when they were fitted to the 2014 Camaro Z/28, so when Chevrolet asked DSSV producer Multimatic to create spool valve dampers for a performance off-road midsize truck, there was no shortage of eyebrows raised. It would be a challenge, as one couldn't simply pop in a set of dampers from a Z/28 and expect them to do the same job in the ZR2.

But, therein lies the first benefit of spool valve dampers: their adaptability. No two applications are alike since Multimatic has made it so easy for manufacturers to specify the exact damping characteristics they seek. Those characteristics can be put into numerical values, you see, which are then entered into special "SpecFinder" software. Multimatic then precisely crafts spool valves that create those exact characteristics.

OK, so what the heck is a spool valve? They are small metal cylinders, roughly half the height of a C battery, with several customized ports that allow for the controlled passage of hydraulic fluid through a suspension damper. It is the precise shape of these ports, which control both suspension compression and rebound that were specified by Chevrolet and created by Multimatic.

Besides customization, they are easily reproduced, have virtually no variation from part to part (a problem with typical shocks) and dramatically reduce the amount of fine-tuning engineers must do with typical dampers. Multimatic was able to run 15,000 simulations before a single part was built, and as a result, the ZR2's real-world tuning and development took a quarter of the time it normally would to sign off on a suspension.

So it makes the lives of Chevrolet engineers easier, why exactly is it so great when you're actually driving the ZR2? Since those little spool valve ports can be shaped to let more or less hydraulic fluid through as the wheel travel dictates, the ZR2 will have a much greater ability to provide the firmness and control needed when driving aggressively, yet be soft enough to deliver a comfortable on-road ride over bumps.

But wait, there's more! Thus far, what's been described is what you'd find in the Z/28 or an AMG GT. To produce a DSSV suspension for a performance off-road application like the ZR2, a third spool valve was added to the typical pair. Think of it as the emergency off-road back-up. When more severe suspension compression occurs, say when landing hard off-road, the third, larger damper and spool valve is put into action by the damper exceeding its usual amount of travel. Through this greater stroke, the third spool valve is still able to precisely control its dampening force. The addition of this third valve allows for what is called Position Sensitive Damping.

Altogether, the Colorado ZR2's trick suspension allows a similar amount of wheel travel as more traditional damper designs, but it's capable of absorbing more energy. Specifically, there's 35-percent less load going through the truck, and occupant movement is reduced by 50 percent. That means Chevrolet didn't need to strengthen the truck as much to withstand the added demands of high-speed off-road driving, while simultaneously allowing you to drive even faster. Plus, it's a far more comfortable truck to drive on-road.

By comparison, trucks with regular monotube dampers are swell at dealing with the rigors of off-road performance, but result in a comparatively punishing ride. Twin-tube dampers are essentially the opposite and both designs are inherently restricted from providing a best-of-both-worlds scenario. The ZR2's Positive Sensitive Damping apparently does just that, according to 25-year off-road racing vet Bryan Kudela, who assisted in the real-world testing. He seemed genuinely floored by the ZR2's on-road comfort as much as its performance capabilities.

Now, you might be wondering why GM's already renowned magnetorheological dampers weren't used instead. Don't they do roughly the same thing? They do, however, they are far more heat sensitive, which is a serious factor in a hardcore, high-speed, off-road application. There is also much greater complexity, whereas DSSV is a mechanical solution less impacted by temperature and fluid viscosity. Which is all just a complicated way of saying the ZR2 has a supercar suspension.

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