13's in a stock Trailblazer SS?

Back in January of 2008, we took delivery of a barely used 2006 Trailblazer SS. This muscle truck, hereafter referred to as Project "Tibber", is a 1SS strippo model, which translates into two wheel drive, cloth seats, no navigation or sunroof. This results in the truck weighing in at a relatively svelte 4400 pounds without driver. Anyway, with about 16,000 miles showing on the odometer, I took Project Tibber up to Great Lakes Dragaway on May 7, 2008.

When most folks think about going drag racing, they grab the keys to their muscle car, not the keys to their truck. As most truck and SUV owners can attest, making 16-second passes in the parts hauler is not much fun if you used to running 12's and faster.

The Chevrolet Trailblazer SS, which was manufactured from 2006 to 2008, is GM's counterpoint to the notion that all trucks are slow. Prior to the debut of this "muscle" truck in the fall of 2005, the only trucks built by the general that ran 14's or better were the GMC Syclone and Typhoon.

We took delivery of a pre-owned 2006 Trailblazer in January of 2008. This sano midsized SUV had 16,000 miles on it and still smelled new. It is a real wheel drive model, and was ordered as a 1SS no-option package, which stips cloth seats and no sunroof.

For folks used to the typical performance of a truck, the performance of a stock Trailblazer SS is nothing short of blistering. The last time a truck felt this fast in stock form was when we drove a bone stock Ford Lightning back in 2001.

Like most folks who browse automotive performance on the web on a daily basis, we came across various TBSS owners who were running low 14's bone stock. Then we came across individuals who proclaimed that they had run high 13's, and even 13.7's. This was hard to believe. GM's last muscle truck offering, the Silverado SS, typically runs high 15's from the factory.

So curiousity piqued, we took our white TBSS up to Great Lakes Dragaway on May 7th, 2008, to see what kind of time could be wrung out of this torquey but heavy truck.

I always like to make a pass right off the highway, just to see how the vehicle performs after sitting in traffic for an hour. The first pass looked like this:

14.73@94.81, 2.23 60 ft time

I was pretty unimpressed, and hotlapped the truck to see if I could run better by rolling into the throttle rather than flatfooting the go pedal right off the line, and went:

14.76@94.98, 2.25

Those 98-99 mph trap speeds I had read about now looked impossible. I was off over 4 mph from the best times that folks had supposedly ran, and my ET's over 6 tenths off the mark. I then recalled reading that LS2 powered vehicles tended to benefit from long cooldowns. So I propped the hood open, and got a sandwich. 30 minutes later the temperature gauge showed a marked drop, so I drove quickly to staging, and ran this:

14.20@97.18, 2.14

The results were now very promising. I had rolled into the throttle since I found that the stock tires would just spin if you gave more than 25% throttle off the starting line. Emboldened by the ET drop and the 3 mph increase, we let the TBSS cool for 30 minutes after the 14.2 pass. Again, the truck had cooled down quite a bit and after a very short wait in the staging lanes, i got to the line, stalled the engine up to 1000 RPMs, and rolled out and ran the following:

14.10@98.51, 2.14

We were now thoroughly impressed as were other racers at the track. Our TBSS had now run as good as three-quarters of the times posted on the internet after making only four passes. We did make a few more passes after that, but the sun went down and traction got worse so we packed it up and headed home.

A month later, we found some free time and went up to Great Lakes Dragaway again. We had some cooler air and wanted to take advantage. This time we made a few changes, as this would be the last time the TBSS would be run in stock trim. I removed the engine cover which I figured would help cool the truck down faster, and aired down the rear tires down to 25 psi. I also removed the extremely heavy spare tire. After a 35 minute cool down, I took the TBSS over to staging. I again repeated the same pattern that was used at the truck's first track outing. I went around the water box, and then staged. I avoided doing any sort of burnout since the engine would rapidly climb to operating temperature as got through the staging lanes.

I rolled into the throttle and received the following slip:

14.100@99.19, 2.20

The TBSS had now hit 99mph which was a new best. But the truck spun too much off the line as evidenced by the worst 60 ft time. I decided to cool down the truck again, and to leave the line with very little throttle. This is what the truck ran:

13.84@99.74, 2.111

.119
2.111
5.855
8.921
80.92
11.5789
13.840
99.74

The time was backed up by a 13.86@99.50, 2.14, and a
13.95@98.93, 2.11. I ran the truck a few times that night but as usual the track started going away around 8:30PM.

We never really espected to hit a 13.9, much less a 13.8. But good air, combined with some weight reduction and different launch techniques, resulted in the TBSS almost running 13.7's and almost hitting 100mph trap speeds. To put that in perspective, that's as good as a stock 1997 Camaro Z/28 with the LT1 engine.

The truck later dynoed 329RWHP at Speed Inc. in Schaumburg, which explains how this 4400 lb truck is able to run in the 13's. Future plans include a cold air intake, transmission cooler, electric fans, and a tune. 13.4's might not be out of the question and possibly even 13.2's. Stay tuned.