The Future of Four Cylinders: A Deep Dive into the Chevy Colorado's Engine

When it comes to mid-size trucks, one thing is clear: the class has been dominated by V6 and V8 engines for years. However, with the rise of more fuel-efficient technologies, manufacturers have been working to bring these engines up to speed in terms of performance. The new Chevy Colorado takes a significant step in this direction with its all-new four-cylinder engine, which promises to deliver impressive power and torque without sacrificing refinement.

The Engine: A Game-Changer for Four-Cylinders

The heart of the new Colorado is a 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-four engine that produces 310 horsepower and 380 lb-ft of torque at 6,500 rpm. This is a significant increase over the previous generation's four-cylinder offerings, which struggled to keep up with their V6 and V8 counterparts. But how does this new engine perform? In our testing, we found that it delivers excellent low-end torque and a smooth, responsive power delivery throughout the rev range.

One of the standout features of this engine is its ability to make power without sacrificing refinement. Unlike some other four-cylinder engines in the class, which can feel a bit strained or tinny when pushed hard, the Colorado's engine feels substantial and well-behaved. It's a testament to the engineering efforts that have gone into this powerplant, which seems designed specifically with the needs of modern truck buyers in mind.

A Well-Engineered Drivetrain

But the engine is just one part of the equation - the drivetrain is equally important for delivering a smooth and responsive driving experience. In our testing, we were pleased to find that the Colorado's transmission and drivetrain work seamlessly together to provide a seamless and composed driving experience. Whether on-road or off-road, the truck feels well-balanced and predictable, with no weird hesitation or lag.

One area where the Colorado excels is in its off-road capability. The Trail Boss trim, which we tested, features a unique suspension setup that includes multi-matic dampers to help absorb bumps and improve ride quality. While it's not quite as rock-crawling capable as some other trucks in the class, like the Wrangler, the Colorado still manages to handle more than its fair share of challenging terrain with ease.

Rides Well, Handles Smoothly

But one of the biggest surprises about the new Colorado is how well it rides. Unlike some of its competitors, which can feel a bit canted or uneven on the pavement, the Colorado handles like a dream. The Z71 trim, which we tested, features a more aggressive suspension setup than other trims, but even with this setup, the truck still manages to absorb bumps and irregularities with ease.

In fact, one of the biggest surprises about the new Colorado is how well it compares to its competitors in terms of refinement. While some trucks in the class can feel a bit tinny or high-strung, especially when pushed hard, the Colorado's engine and drivetrain work together to deliver a smooth and composed driving experience that feels truly premium.

What's Next for the Colorado?

As the mid-size truck market continues to evolve, it's likely that we'll see more and more manufacturers jumping on board with their own versions of four-cylinder engines. The Chevy Colorado is likely to be at the forefront of this trend, as its all-new engine promises to deliver impressive power and torque without sacrificing refinement.

With its well-engineered drivetrain, comfortable ride, and impressive off-road capability, the new Colorado is a formidable contender in the mid-size truck market. While it's not perfect - and some may find the interior design or infotainment system a bit lacking - this truck is a serious player that's worth checking out for anyone looking for a reliable and capable mid-size pickup.

The Frontier, Tacoma, and Ranger: A Class of Dinosaurs

As we look to the future of the mid-size truck market, it's hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia for some of the classic models in this class. The Nissan Frontier, Toyota Tacoma, and Ford Ranger are all iconic brands that have been around for decades - but as they continue to age, it's clear that they're starting to show their age.

The Frontier, in particular, has been criticized for its creaky ride, lackluster infotainment system, and generally high-strung driving experience. The Tacoma is not much better, with some owners complaining about the engine's lack of refinement and the truck's tendency to feel a bit tinny when pushed hard.

The Ranger, on the other hand, has been quietly updated in recent years - but it still feels like an older model compared to some of its competitors. As we look to the future of the mid-size truck market, it's clear that these brands are going to have to step up their game if they want to remain competitive.

A New Era for GM

For General Motors, the new Colorado represents a major opportunity to establish itself as a leader in the mid-size truck market. With its all-new four-cylinder engine and well-engineered drivetrain, this truck is a serious contender that's worth checking out for anyone looking for a reliable and capable mid-size pickup.

As GM continues to evolve and improve its lineup of trucks and SUVs, it will be interesting to see how the new Colorado fits into the company's overall strategy. With its impressive power and torque output, comfortable ride, and impressive off-road capability, this truck is poised to make a real impact in the mid-size market.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the new Chevy Colorado represents a major step forward for the mid-size truck market. Its all-new four-cylinder engine delivers impressive power and torque without sacrificing refinement, while its well-engineered drivetrain provides a seamless and composed driving experience. Whether on-road or off-road, this truck is a serious contender that's worth checking out for anyone looking for a reliable and capable mid-size pickup.

As the mid-size truck market continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how manufacturers respond to this new wave of four-cylinder engines. With the Colorado leading the charge, it's clear that we're in for an exciting few years - so buckle up, because the future of the mid-size truck market has never looked brighter!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe all-new Chevy Colorado this truck is all new for the 2023 model year and we're going to be covering it in this video but the first thing and the most important thing we're going to do is talk to one of the senior engineers in charge of their recently revised 2.7 liter four-cylinder this engine is going to be the future for GM and many of their products it's replacing things like the 5.3 V8 and the 36 and this is going to be a unique opportunity to speak to one of the gentlemen directly responsible for this power plant thank you I'm in San Diego at the Colorado launch and I'm with the gentleman that is all things 2.7 liter would you introduce yourself yeah Kevin luchanski assistant chief engineer 2.7 liter so this is a very important engine for GM this Middle East and it's in various applications from the Silverado to the ct4v non-blackwing and now this Colorado is essentially taken a full-size power full-size truck powertrain and put it in a mid-sized truck walk me through what this engine is for those who aren't familiar let's start with block design head design cranks all that other fun stuff can you walk me through the individual components yeah so the block is an aluminum block a high pressure Die Cast made at our Bedford facility so many many components you'll hear if you want to know where they're made they're all made mostly at GM so aluminum diecast block cast in liners pretty cool liners they're they're super hard not to learn spun nodule iron it's a it's an open deck design we can look at part later it's got a five layer MLS head gasket 12 millimeter bolts that hold the head down so this engine was built for for a lot of boost because this I mean thinking about the output first off it's a very large four four cylinder to begin with it's 2.7 liters can you walk me through the boring stroke yep so 92.25 bore and uh two or 102 millimeter Strokes so pretty big you know four four inch sort of stroke big big block stroke and the the size of this was it sort of to make sure you got the torque out of the the engine application or why did you go with such a large four-cylinder um yeah so we actually looked at inline six which would have been you know small obviously smaller cylinders um we really wanted a 2.7 liter it was it was to to replace at the time we were trying to replace the V6 to start with the 4.3 liter and we were scaling it to to make enough horsepower that the truck was basically a seven second truck so that's that's what dictated the you know 310 horsepower ish to get the speed of the truck and then from there you kind of back back calculated into the displacement so we wanted to make around 115 horse per liter to keep it super durable um and that's so if you just do the math two points 2.7 liter and in some cases as well if you're coming from a legacy product if you're coming from an older say Silverado this is essentially replacing something like a 5.3 in many regards it is and actually the power and torque are very similar to the older 5.3 liter like the you know the ones from say 2009 sort of time so you're getting V8 power out of a much smaller displacement engine that's more efficient and lighter correct um before we talk about some of the technology involved I know there are different outputs for this engine so you have a work truck variant you have we need to find it in an LT and then you have a high output variant which you can tune to get the dealer or it comes standard on the ZR2 model so can you walk me through some of the mechanical differences between the different setups yeah mechanical so we start off with the work truck engine uh it's 237 horsepower one of the things that we did was really focus on value and Emissions so we took out some of the components that just aren't needed for that power output but it's the same turbo it's the same Block it's the same head um it's you know got all the real robust Parts in it the other thing that's changed is is really behind the engine there's a smaller transmission so lower inertia on the transmission it shifts faster it doesn't need the torque carrying capacity of the more power it is a smaller yeah it's basically almost half the torque capacity of the of the bigger bigger engine mission that that is the next step what physical Hardware changes is it the same turbo same turbo yep same turbo same same cam same it's all we've taken out is uh piston squirters so piston squirters end up squirting on the bores and you know you end up with a little bit higher oil consumption a little bit worse emissions so again we were focused on value oil consumption is important it's really more of a fleet buyer that's going to probably buy that engine so they really focus on value understood so when you go to the higher power applications you go to a more robust gearbox it's similar internals from the prior generation basically the same gear set same case but all of the control mechanisms involved with gear logic gear change logic have been a valve body it's got a it's got a pretty neat aux pump so when you key on it's got an electric aux pump so it's building basically line pressure throughout all the circuits to pre-fill as you're opening the door of the truck it's it's really good and and uh yeah and then a number of the the clutch applies and clutch packs and things all have more compliance in them and whatnot so going back to the 2.7 so the output difference in the non-fleet trucks it's purely software correct it is so yeah it was pretty neat um we we talked internally on again how do you provide some bandwidth in in the Colorado and then how do you really give choice to our customers so um that the the next engine up is 310 horsepower and 391 pound-feet of torque works out to be we talk more on newton meters so it's 530 newton meters um how much boost are you running to reach so that one's 20. uh the the one that we talked about previously is 10. okay um and then the h0 Cal which uh will be the base engine and the ZR2 um that runs 27 pounds of boost so not a boost so thus you need an engine that was designed from the onset for that level of boost um and to be a turbo engine and you want that torque to come in early essentially we do yeah yeah so it's what this what this engine was all about it's why it's four cylinders it's why it's big it's why it's got this cool dual Loop turbo on it speaking of truck customers durability is a big factor for really any truck at this point the two technologies that are worth talking about because there's controversy around them is di yep not so much in your applications but a lot of European applications carbon buildup is a real problem in pure di engines and I want to walk through AF more active fuel management and how your system has evolved from prior generation systems so let's talk about di first okay so di on this engine is a side injector a side injector we run 20 20 MPA so fairly High pressures um the pump is driven off the exhaust cam so uh and the and obviously the DI injectors come in from the side we can show the head in a bit and I think what you know what you're concerned about is uh carbon buildup on the intake valves and um I think it's more than the DI system it's the engine architecture as a whole and how to deal with that so how we deal with that is first and foremost again this was a turbo engine for truck application designed from the onset so many engines don't have this luxury but this was a clean sheet engine we were able to architect in a very large PCB system dual dual chamber PCB system so many folks talk about adding in catch jars and things like that because they're CV systems weren't necessarily architected for the types of loads that this turbo engine sees you know 27 pounds of boost you get you get some blow by so open deck as you mentioned open deck bores open deck block nice nice cylinder nice cylindrical bores so awesome sets of rings the Pistons everything about it try to keep the blow-by down try to keep bore Distortion down so we could we could look at that and some of the details that go there so keep keep the load up blow by down keep the PCB system functioning at high efficiency to keep the oil off the valves and then the way we've got our intake ports designed it's effectively creating a tornado that's going over the valves so you're it's like a like a there's enough air there's enough air pressure that's just blowing the oil off the valve so we've never had time to build up essentially never has time to fold up yeah so AFM we talked about it a little bit off camera but this is an evolution of design of how AFM Works walk me through how this system is different or how it works in general yeah so it's a really neat system we can show the parts later it has a pin that drops into an axial cam so an axial cam has been used you know back in paper mills back at the you know turn of the century and all it's doing is chunking um the camshaft over which has multiple valve lifts on it so the center ones are easy to talk about on the exhaust it's it's only two step we call it so when it's in normal mode the valve is Lifting and then when we drop the pin in the cam as it turns it's all mechanically timed the cam moves over on base Circle and it goes to zero left so we do that on the two Center cylinders so that's how the exhausts get deact and then on the intake we have three valve lifts so as an engine designer you're always struggling do I want a efficient cam or a power cam right um and in this engine we were able to do both so we have low lift which is an efficient cam we have high lift which is how you make high power and then we have zero lift on again on the center cylinders so the center cylinders drop out it's an electromechanical device there's no oil in it that's most of the other systems that we've had in production to date have had used oil oil as an actuator so this is versus a more hydraulic basis and this is electromechanical system electromechanical not hydraulic so is the ECU reading conditions like you're in Top Gear you're cruising the highway now it's time to turn off two cylinders Yeah we actually plot where the best fuel consumption is and ultimately it's based on engine speed and load and then we know which state to be in which whichever is the best fuel economy we go just think of like one two three do you want to be in one do you want to be in two do you want to be in three there's many things that would make maybe block it out but effectively it's it's just trying to chase the the best fuel economy at for the given conditions how do you manage the thermal differences of shutting down two cylinders versus having all four running all four generating heat um you don't run it when when you're in AFM there's limitations to how long it will run so it doesn't run indefinitely so not really too big of a an issue we also don't run it in boost so it's mainly running fairly low load in in our applications about 80 newton meters only so um so it's not the thermal issues really aren't that big of an issue but we also we and we can show the parts so we only run the outer cylinders so they've got longer longer exhaust paths with more cooling keeps it keeps the turbine and really that cat who under those conditions so is there from a durability perspective because this is a unique opportunity for potential buyers of this vehicle to hear from you directly and again if you're buying a vehicle like this ideally keeping it for a long time from a durability perspective obviously ground up design you put a lot of time in making sure this thing won't break what do they need to know from serviceability and durability like potential issues of the turbo or how easy is it to service what are sort of the things you want to tell the end consumer I think there's no issues with the turbo I would say the turbo lifetime part essentially it's a lifetime part yeah we the turbo folks and the engine part folks argue on Whose part's going to last longer honestly but I think the keys to making the turbo really live I think Turbo's got a bad rap in the 80s when we applied turbos the industry applied turbos to engines that weren't designed as a turbo engine and many of those turbos didn't have proper Cooling and they might have had they weren't positioned correctly on the engine so the oiling system wasn't designed around the turbo and the Turbo placement you've got to get cool clean oil as fast as possible so as soon as the engine starts you want to get the oil to the bearings you want to keep it nice and clean so on this engine the oil is literally it's the first thing off the oil filter it's heading straight to the turbo so even before the main bearings were feeding Fair Point okay feeding feeding to the turbo and then the other thing is just keeping the turbo cool so this turbo is positioned right in the middle of the engine so we get this natural thermal siphoning we also have an electric water pump that if the turbo was hot on shutdown we could bump the pump on with the engine off and keep the turbo cool so you know back in the day people would idle their engines or turbo engines and it was because they were mostly just oil cooled at that time and you want to keep the oil going while the engine's sitting there idle you just don't need to do that with these so the turbo is it's a really good turbo and we we talked a little off camera you said how big is the water pump for this particular application so it's a 600 watt water pump so 12 12 volts it's a 60 amp you know roughly big units it's big it's got some fairly large wires you don't only has three it only has three wires that are going to it so it's actually very easy to change but honestly they they run and run and run and run so just like most of the components that are on you know on engine mounted these days that are electronic like ignition coils you don't hear about those going bad anymore right in the 70s they used to go bad all the time so you just don't hear of that and it's because of the component testing that the automotive industry has developed where we thermal shock things we vibrate things right so three axis vibration the validation Cycles our validation Cycles at a component level and then at a system level and then at a vehicle level are so well known in the industry um you know the industry's been doing this stuff for a while so we know how to make these parts um work and even the manufacturing processes that go into them as well very well known so we have the opportunity to speak with a lot of the people behind these products and the more that we do this the more important it is to me to try to understand the big picture we also understand the pain points of trying to design a car and some of the things that have happened in the past while they don't openly admit and they won't on camera that they are trying to fix problems they know they're there and I think this engine family that's going in all these trucks is that admission that they needed to do better and they needed to do it not just because they wanted better reliability but because it becomes a big problem for every company right if you have a product that gives you bad reputation or has problems and you're if you're an engineer you don't want to hear that so I think the interesting part about this is it's not just that it's another four-cylinder it's that they had an insane amount of money to throw into it to make sure that all these issues were addressed and completely rewriting the script of how they did things in the past off camera and on camera they will admit this is one of the most important Drive trains I've ever developed for GM because this is replacing so many different engines at once and it has to cover so many different price points you can get the cheap variant of this which I'm sure you'll see in other vehicles in the future where they strip some of the content out for the work truck work truck and then they tart it up and make it a little bit more premium for things like the ZR2 Now quickly let's cover what this truck is because we've already done a canyon video this generation of Colorado is on a variation of the prior generation frame they've massaged it and modified it it is a longer wheelbase than they used to by basically three inches they've pushed the front axles forward to give you better approach and departure angle and there's one cab and one Bend length it's a five foot bed with a crew cab the reason they did that is that's what people bought and it allows them to send these off the assembly line faster they don't have all the variations to deal with you get two different bodies a wide body for the trail boss and this ZR2 the reason the wide body exists is to fit these massive wheels and tires then you get the narrow body for the work truck the LT and the Z71 when it comes to suspension the work truck LT and Z71 all have the same Twin Tube dampers they're all the same ride height obviously the content changes the Z71 gets some off-road goodies like a rear diff and blocking transfer case and all other fun stuff the trail boss has the same Twin Tube dampers but it gets a two inch lift that also gets the wide body and then of course you have this ZR2 this is their most capable off-road variant currently sold till they get the Bison that Mark loves them I just want to call her this is a bison the big thing for this other than being the most premium variant of it that gets of course the worst fuel economy is the three inch lift and these dssv spool valve damers yes they're very good at rock crawling but the main thing that they do is they don't cavitate when you're Baja running or as you like to call it Baja running you can carry a lot of speed there's a small packaging into the rear dampers they've moved them up and more inboard so when you're going off-road you don't bottom them out or hit them and it's still leaf spring in the rear and of course the zr2's tow a little bit less I think it's time for us to go take this for a quick drive on our McHenry roads this cross Jack we spent a lot of time talking about the engine and that's really the point of this right going forward we're not talking about the cruise turbo that we're passing after he uh here he or she decided to cut us off after he has a coolant leak and a turbo failure this is a new way forward for Chevy yeah and for the brand and basically every turbo four-cylinder in trucks is going to be what we're dealing with right now some variation of it so let's talk about what it actually feels like to drive this with this engine as I alluded to in the beginning of the video the midsize truck the class that the way I view it you the frontier the Tacoma the range of the Colorado and I mean that's really it right and at this point you can't leave out the ridge line in the Santa Cruz I'm being honest the Ridgeline in the Santa Cruz they don't tow anything and they're not real trucks they're like Utes these are body on frame off-road capable tow 7 000 pound trucks these are what people are just gonna trigger somebody you're getting people lack the GM microchip that I have your microchip just kicked in okay so this is the best mid-sized truck because it's the one that is the most modern and feels like they put three degree three percent of effort in this thing compared to the zero percent effort that everybody else put in theirs well this has this is a lot more than three percent yes it's legitimately a good truck from an interior perspective physical controls Android automotive the software reacts very quickly yes they have some OTA teething pains with their updates but all the software when it's up and running is great the interior space is mostly quiet for a truck it comes in one configuration as I talked about in the shop the back seats aren't that big but no mid-size truck is at least the seats fold up good storage in the door pockets and as you talked about off camera joking aside they look like they gave the Interior Space some design and some effort the camo on the dash the HVAC vents off of a Camaro like it it feels like a place that is a little bit special I think they they found a really so this is not just this truck this is their generational interior design Motif that they're going for here this is a really good example of how you make it a little bit more forward in terms of tech you have dual screens like everybody else and their grandmother does but they didn't leave they left enough space on the table to do physical controls for all the core stuff all the physical controls make up for the fact that you are inundated with a lot of attack in here and some of it is overbearing like that you know like it it was just currently freaking out because of our cameras on the car well yeah it's gonna freak out for other stuff too but the the tech is okay but the real usability of the the Interior Space here is really a highlight and it doesn't feel unlike Chevy we've said this a long time a long long time for decades Chevy Interiors were always a low light of the brand they always felt like they spent twenty dollars on the entire interior space and it no longer feels like that and it's a way better experience for it because trucks are now more luxurious they're more comfortable they're more quiet and now you have a four cylinder that is replacing all of the V8s though the 5-3 specifically the 3-6 this is their new corporate four popper we've had a very long extensive like conversation with the assistant chief engineer on this product I'm going to say this I don't think the 5.3 was a great engine it was fuel it was not particularly fuel efficient it was very dated and the three six had a lot of problems at least teething pains throughout this this this engine this four popper is great there's no fake engine noise it's Ultra smooth returns good fuel economy there's no hesitation in tuning it makes a lot of power I mean honestly it's really good yeah it's to me you know when I watched your interview uh with the engineer you know I thought somebody's softly's like oh well it's it's got to be like a diesel that's what people want they want diesel levels of power and I'm sitting here thinking I really hope this isn't just you know 4 000 RPM of torque and then nothing's heavy that's not the way it is it does make all the power down low but when it does wind out it just doesn't fall flat on its face so it does give you that low end torque of a uh a diesel yes a six cylinder eight cylinder in some cases it doesn't sound like it is still four cylindry but they've tried to they try to engineer out every single negative of a four-cylinder here and it really does work it's super impressive what they did I just I hope that they put it off engineering resources and so they don't have a bunch of chicken problems like they did with the reliability with some of the old stuff because they don't have a lot of chances to get this right at this point before everything goes EV or hybrid honestly you know if this thing is going to be reliable and it's going to be adopted in Mass I think they have a potentially very good drivetrain on their hands right a lot of the character in this class is gone right the Tacoma is dropping its V6 it's going to a four popper with you know potentially questionable reliability the ranger is the ranger you know it's not out yet but I'm hoping at least I hope anything's better than what they did but the last one was a total piece of this one hopefully is at least halfway decent and the frontier is a million years old this makes the power of a V8 really I mean 300 horsepower almost over 400 foot pounds of torque it's Ultra refined returns some level of fuel economy when it's not in the ZR2 like this is and the trans tuning and this is really good there's no weird hesitation no bucket it's it's a great drivetrain I guess back to the truck quickly I drove this thing off-road at the original launch was like six million years ago it took forever to get one of these as a press car to finish this video but in the Trail Boss variant and the Z71 it's good enough to do any Trail you could possibly imagine sure it's not as capable as like a Wrangler rock crawling but it more than capable enough for what you need to do this CR2 these multimatic dampers it still feels like a leaf spring truck in the rear yes that is very annoying I apologize but the God damn can you turn that crap I can't or maybe I have no idea it's freaking out because the cameraman I just want you to keep making it beep the whole time it's actually it's still less annoying than the Toyota safety system it's perfect all the time um I mean um the zrt rides well I mean yes you feel like it's a leaf spring but the dampers are amazing and when I've talked to some of the other journalists who wanted to do the launch of this where they drove a like Baja speeds for words you like to call it Baja speeds for five hours I mean they do a great job well I think we're you know there's going to be a 20 20 different variations of the Colorado as all the other mid-site mid-sized trucks come out so we're going to re cover this truck again at some point but I really think the main point is to take away this engine is the future of four cylinders for Chevy and GM for trucks as it is brand new driving it it's really well thought out he does everything that it needs to do um I think you can see how much effort they put into it and this is what I say all the time with these Brands when you put effort into it it goes a long way and this feels like a very very high effort product and I hope that it stays reliable and working well and they can do well in this segment all right we'll bet Mark let's head into the final font sir all right John oh final thoughts on the Chevy Colorado first off huge thanks to Kevin the engineer who spent all the time with us and gave us an appropriate Deep dive into this new Force owner so what about the truck well this is a class of dinosaurs at this point the frontier the current Tacoma the current Ranger are all old and honestly aren't all that great to actually drive while they are effective tools they suffer in the drivability and livability Department this Colorado regardless of trim level really remedies that you can tell they put more priority into refinement and livability and trying to minimize the cons of a truck doesn't buck and it doesn't feel basically like this tool as much and as of now till the ranger gets updated and the new Tacoma comes out this is to me the de facto King in this class drivetrain's great interior space is good doesn't matter what trim level you're in they're all very capable off-road and I actually think it looks great so with that thanks for watching hope to see you soon foreign mm-hmmthe all-new Chevy Colorado this truck is all new for the 2023 model year and we're going to be covering it in this video but the first thing and the most important thing we're going to do is talk to one of the senior engineers in charge of their recently revised 2.7 liter four-cylinder this engine is going to be the future for GM and many of their products it's replacing things like the 5.3 V8 and the 36 and this is going to be a unique opportunity to speak to one of the gentlemen directly responsible for this power plant thank you I'm in San Diego at the Colorado launch and I'm with the gentleman that is all things 2.7 liter would you introduce yourself yeah Kevin luchanski assistant chief engineer 2.7 liter so this is a very important engine for GM this Middle East and it's in various applications from the Silverado to the ct4v non-blackwing and now this Colorado is essentially taken a full-size power full-size truck powertrain and put it in a mid-sized truck walk me through what this engine is for those who aren't familiar let's start with block design head design cranks all that other fun stuff can you walk me through the individual components yeah so the block is an aluminum block a high pressure Die Cast made at our Bedford facility so many many components you'll hear if you want to know where they're made they're all made mostly at GM so aluminum diecast block cast in liners pretty cool liners they're they're super hard not to learn spun nodule iron it's a it's an open deck design we can look at part later it's got a five layer MLS head gasket 12 millimeter bolts that hold the head down so this engine was built for for a lot of boost because this I mean thinking about the output first off it's a very large four four cylinder to begin with it's 2.7 liters can you walk me through the boring stroke yep so 92.25 bore and uh two or 102 millimeter Strokes so pretty big you know four four inch sort of stroke big big block stroke and the the size of this was it sort of to make sure you got the torque out of the the engine application or why did you go with such a large four-cylinder um yeah so we actually looked at inline six which would have been you know small obviously smaller cylinders um we really wanted a 2.7 liter it was it was to to replace at the time we were trying to replace the V6 to start with the 4.3 liter and we were scaling it to to make enough horsepower that the truck was basically a seven second truck so that's that's what dictated the you know 310 horsepower ish to get the speed of the truck and then from there you kind of back back calculated into the displacement so we wanted to make around 115 horse per liter to keep it super durable um and that's so if you just do the math two points 2.7 liter and in some cases as well if you're coming from a legacy product if you're coming from an older say Silverado this is essentially replacing something like a 5.3 in many regards it is and actually the power and torque are very similar to the older 5.3 liter like the you know the ones from say 2009 sort of time so you're getting V8 power out of a much smaller displacement engine that's more efficient and lighter correct um before we talk about some of the technology involved I know there are different outputs for this engine so you have a work truck variant you have we need to find it in an LT and then you have a high output variant which you can tune to get the dealer or it comes standard on the ZR2 model so can you walk me through some of the mechanical differences between the different setups yeah mechanical so we start off with the work truck engine uh it's 237 horsepower one of the things that we did was really focus on value and Emissions so we took out some of the components that just aren't needed for that power output but it's the same turbo it's the same Block it's the same head um it's you know got all the real robust Parts in it the other thing that's changed is is really behind the engine there's a smaller transmission so lower inertia on the transmission it shifts faster it doesn't need the torque carrying capacity of the more power it is a smaller yeah it's basically almost half the torque capacity of the of the bigger bigger engine mission that that is the next step what physical Hardware changes is it the same turbo same turbo yep same turbo same same cam same it's all we've taken out is uh piston squirters so piston squirters end up squirting on the bores and you know you end up with a little bit higher oil consumption a little bit worse emissions so again we were focused on value oil consumption is important it's really more of a fleet buyer that's going to probably buy that engine so they really focus on value understood so when you go to the higher power applications you go to a more robust gearbox it's similar internals from the prior generation basically the same gear set same case but all of the control mechanisms involved with gear logic gear change logic have been a valve body it's got a it's got a pretty neat aux pump so when you key on it's got an electric aux pump so it's building basically line pressure throughout all the circuits to pre-fill as you're opening the door of the truck it's it's really good and and uh yeah and then a number of the the clutch applies and clutch packs and things all have more compliance in them and whatnot so going back to the 2.7 so the output difference in the non-fleet trucks it's purely software correct it is so yeah it was pretty neat um we we talked internally on again how do you provide some bandwidth in in the Colorado and then how do you really give choice to our customers so um that the the next engine up is 310 horsepower and 391 pound-feet of torque works out to be we talk more on newton meters so it's 530 newton meters um how much boost are you running to reach so that one's 20. uh the the one that we talked about previously is 10. okay um and then the h0 Cal which uh will be the base engine and the ZR2 um that runs 27 pounds of boost so not a boost so thus you need an engine that was designed from the onset for that level of boost um and to be a turbo engine and you want that torque to come in early essentially we do yeah yeah so it's what this what this engine was all about it's why it's four cylinders it's why it's big it's why it's got this cool dual Loop turbo on it speaking of truck customers durability is a big factor for really any truck at this point the two technologies that are worth talking about because there's controversy around them is di yep not so much in your applications but a lot of European applications carbon buildup is a real problem in pure di engines and I want to walk through AF more active fuel management and how your system has evolved from prior generation systems so let's talk about di first okay so di on this engine is a side injector a side injector we run 20 20 MPA so fairly High pressures um the pump is driven off the exhaust cam so uh and the and obviously the DI injectors come in from the side we can show the head in a bit and I think what you know what you're concerned about is uh carbon buildup on the intake valves and um I think it's more than the DI system it's the engine architecture as a whole and how to deal with that so how we deal with that is first and foremost again this was a turbo engine for truck application designed from the onset so many engines don't have this luxury but this was a clean sheet engine we were able to architect in a very large PCB system dual dual chamber PCB system so many folks talk about adding in catch jars and things like that because they're CV systems weren't necessarily architected for the types of loads that this turbo engine sees you know 27 pounds of boost you get you get some blow by so open deck as you mentioned open deck bores open deck block nice nice cylinder nice cylindrical bores so awesome sets of rings the Pistons everything about it try to keep the blow-by down try to keep bore Distortion down so we could we could look at that and some of the details that go there so keep keep the load up blow by down keep the PCB system functioning at high efficiency to keep the oil off the valves and then the way we've got our intake ports designed it's effectively creating a tornado that's going over the valves so you're it's like a like a there's enough air there's enough air pressure that's just blowing the oil off the valve so we've never had time to build up essentially never has time to fold up yeah so AFM we talked about it a little bit off camera but this is an evolution of design of how AFM Works walk me through how this system is different or how it works in general yeah so it's a really neat system we can show the parts later it has a pin that drops into an axial cam so an axial cam has been used you know back in paper mills back at the you know turn of the century and all it's doing is chunking um the camshaft over which has multiple valve lifts on it so the center ones are easy to talk about on the exhaust it's it's only two step we call it so when it's in normal mode the valve is Lifting and then when we drop the pin in the cam as it turns it's all mechanically timed the cam moves over on base Circle and it goes to zero left so we do that on the two Center cylinders so that's how the exhausts get deact and then on the intake we have three valve lifts so as an engine designer you're always struggling do I want a efficient cam or a power cam right um and in this engine we were able to do both so we have low lift which is an efficient cam we have high lift which is how you make high power and then we have zero lift on again on the center cylinders so the center cylinders drop out it's an electromechanical device there's no oil in it that's most of the other systems that we've had in production to date have had used oil oil as an actuator so this is versus a more hydraulic basis and this is electromechanical system electromechanical not hydraulic so is the ECU reading conditions like you're in Top Gear you're cruising the highway now it's time to turn off two cylinders Yeah we actually plot where the best fuel consumption is and ultimately it's based on engine speed and load and then we know which state to be in which whichever is the best fuel economy we go just think of like one two three do you want to be in one do you want to be in two do you want to be in three there's many things that would make maybe block it out but effectively it's it's just trying to chase the the best fuel economy at for the given conditions how do you manage the thermal differences of shutting down two cylinders versus having all four running all four generating heat um you don't run it when when you're in AFM there's limitations to how long it will run so it doesn't run indefinitely so not really too big of a an issue we also don't run it in boost so it's mainly running fairly low load in in our applications about 80 newton meters only so um so it's not the thermal issues really aren't that big of an issue but we also we and we can show the parts so we only run the outer cylinders so they've got longer longer exhaust paths with more cooling keeps it keeps the turbine and really that cat who under those conditions so is there from a durability perspective because this is a unique opportunity for potential buyers of this vehicle to hear from you directly and again if you're buying a vehicle like this ideally keeping it for a long time from a durability perspective obviously ground up design you put a lot of time in making sure this thing won't break what do they need to know from serviceability and durability like potential issues of the turbo or how easy is it to service what are sort of the things you want to tell the end consumer I think there's no issues with the turbo I would say the turbo lifetime part essentially it's a lifetime part yeah we the turbo folks and the engine part folks argue on Whose part's going to last longer honestly but I think the keys to making the turbo really live I think Turbo's got a bad rap in the 80s when we applied turbos the industry applied turbos to engines that weren't designed as a turbo engine and many of those turbos didn't have proper Cooling and they might have had they weren't positioned correctly on the engine so the oiling system wasn't designed around the turbo and the Turbo placement you've got to get cool clean oil as fast as possible so as soon as the engine starts you want to get the oil to the bearings you want to keep it nice and clean so on this engine the oil is literally it's the first thing off the oil filter it's heading straight to the turbo so even before the main bearings were feeding Fair Point okay feeding feeding to the turbo and then the other thing is just keeping the turbo cool so this turbo is positioned right in the middle of the engine so we get this natural thermal siphoning we also have an electric water pump that if the turbo was hot on shutdown we could bump the pump on with the engine off and keep the turbo cool so you know back in the day people would idle their engines or turbo engines and it was because they were mostly just oil cooled at that time and you want to keep the oil going while the engine's sitting there idle you just don't need to do that with these so the turbo is it's a really good turbo and we we talked a little off camera you said how big is the water pump for this particular application so it's a 600 watt water pump so 12 12 volts it's a 60 amp you know roughly big units it's big it's got some fairly large wires you don't only has three it only has three wires that are going to it so it's actually very easy to change but honestly they they run and run and run and run so just like most of the components that are on you know on engine mounted these days that are electronic like ignition coils you don't hear about those going bad anymore right in the 70s they used to go bad all the time so you just don't hear of that and it's because of the component testing that the automotive industry has developed where we thermal shock things we vibrate things right so three axis vibration the validation Cycles our validation Cycles at a component level and then at a system level and then at a vehicle level are so well known in the industry um you know the industry's been doing this stuff for a while so we know how to make these parts um work and even the manufacturing processes that go into them as well very well known so we have the opportunity to speak with a lot of the people behind these products and the more that we do this the more important it is to me to try to understand the big picture we also understand the pain points of trying to design a car and some of the things that have happened in the past while they don't openly admit and they won't on camera that they are trying to fix problems they know they're there and I think this engine family that's going in all these trucks is that admission that they needed to do better and they needed to do it not just because they wanted better reliability but because it becomes a big problem for every company right if you have a product that gives you bad reputation or has problems and you're if you're an engineer you don't want to hear that so I think the interesting part about this is it's not just that it's another four-cylinder it's that they had an insane amount of money to throw into it to make sure that all these issues were addressed and completely rewriting the script of how they did things in the past off camera and on camera they will admit this is one of the most important Drive trains I've ever developed for GM because this is replacing so many different engines at once and it has to cover so many different price points you can get the cheap variant of this which I'm sure you'll see in other vehicles in the future where they strip some of the content out for the work truck work truck and then they tart it up and make it a little bit more premium for things like the ZR2 Now quickly let's cover what this truck is because we've already done a canyon video this generation of Colorado is on a variation of the prior generation frame they've massaged it and modified it it is a longer wheelbase than they used to by basically three inches they've pushed the front axles forward to give you better approach and departure angle and there's one cab and one Bend length it's a five foot bed with a crew cab the reason they did that is that's what people bought and it allows them to send these off the assembly line faster they don't have all the variations to deal with you get two different bodies a wide body for the trail boss and this ZR2 the reason the wide body exists is to fit these massive wheels and tires then you get the narrow body for the work truck the LT and the Z71 when it comes to suspension the work truck LT and Z71 all have the same Twin Tube dampers they're all the same ride height obviously the content changes the Z71 gets some off-road goodies like a rear diff and blocking transfer case and all other fun stuff the trail boss has the same Twin Tube dampers but it gets a two inch lift that also gets the wide body and then of course you have this ZR2 this is their most capable off-road variant currently sold till they get the Bison that Mark loves them I just want to call her this is a bison the big thing for this other than being the most premium variant of it that gets of course the worst fuel economy is the three inch lift and these dssv spool valve damers yes they're very good at rock crawling but the main thing that they do is they don't cavitate when you're Baja running or as you like to call it Baja running you can carry a lot of speed there's a small packaging into the rear dampers they've moved them up and more inboard so when you're going off-road you don't bottom them out or hit them and it's still leaf spring in the rear and of course the zr2's tow a little bit less I think it's time for us to go take this for a quick drive on our McHenry roads this cross Jack we spent a lot of time talking about the engine and that's really the point of this right going forward we're not talking about the cruise turbo that we're passing after he uh here he or she decided to cut us off after he has a coolant leak and a turbo failure this is a new way forward for Chevy yeah and for the brand and basically every turbo four-cylinder in trucks is going to be what we're dealing with right now some variation of it so let's talk about what it actually feels like to drive this with this engine as I alluded to in the beginning of the video the midsize truck the class that the way I view it you the frontier the Tacoma the range of the Colorado and I mean that's really it right and at this point you can't leave out the ridge line in the Santa Cruz I'm being honest the Ridgeline in the Santa Cruz they don't tow anything and they're not real trucks they're like Utes these are body on frame off-road capable tow 7 000 pound trucks these are what people are just gonna trigger somebody you're getting people lack the GM microchip that I have your microchip just kicked in okay so this is the best mid-sized truck because it's the one that is the most modern and feels like they put three degree three percent of effort in this thing compared to the zero percent effort that everybody else put in theirs well this has this is a lot more than three percent yes it's legitimately a good truck from an interior perspective physical controls Android automotive the software reacts very quickly yes they have some OTA teething pains with their updates but all the software when it's up and running is great the interior space is mostly quiet for a truck it comes in one configuration as I talked about in the shop the back seats aren't that big but no mid-size truck is at least the seats fold up good storage in the door pockets and as you talked about off camera joking aside they look like they gave the Interior Space some design and some effort the camo on the dash the HVAC vents off of a Camaro like it it feels like a place that is a little bit special I think they they found a really so this is not just this truck this is their generational interior design Motif that they're going for here this is a really good example of how you make it a little bit more forward in terms of tech you have dual screens like everybody else and their grandmother does but they didn't leave they left enough space on the table to do physical controls for all the core stuff all the physical controls make up for the fact that you are inundated with a lot of attack in here and some of it is overbearing like that you know like it it was just currently freaking out because of our cameras on the car well yeah it's gonna freak out for other stuff too but the the tech is okay but the real usability of the the Interior Space here is really a highlight and it doesn't feel unlike Chevy we've said this a long time a long long time for decades Chevy Interiors were always a low light of the brand they always felt like they spent twenty dollars on the entire interior space and it no longer feels like that and it's a way better experience for it because trucks are now more luxurious they're more comfortable they're more quiet and now you have a four cylinder that is replacing all of the V8s though the 5-3 specifically the 3-6 this is their new corporate four popper we've had a very long extensive like conversation with the assistant chief engineer on this product I'm going to say this I don't think the 5.3 was a great engine it was fuel it was not particularly fuel efficient it was very dated and the three six had a lot of problems at least teething pains throughout this this this engine this four popper is great there's no fake engine noise it's Ultra smooth returns good fuel economy there's no hesitation in tuning it makes a lot of power I mean honestly it's really good yeah it's to me you know when I watched your interview uh with the engineer you know I thought somebody's softly's like oh well it's it's got to be like a diesel that's what people want they want diesel levels of power and I'm sitting here thinking I really hope this isn't just you know 4 000 RPM of torque and then nothing's heavy that's not the way it is it does make all the power down low but when it does wind out it just doesn't fall flat on its face so it does give you that low end torque of a uh a diesel yes a six cylinder eight cylinder in some cases it doesn't sound like it is still four cylindry but they've tried to they try to engineer out every single negative of a four-cylinder here and it really does work it's super impressive what they did I just I hope that they put it off engineering resources and so they don't have a bunch of chicken problems like they did with the reliability with some of the old stuff because they don't have a lot of chances to get this right at this point before everything goes EV or hybrid honestly you know if this thing is going to be reliable and it's going to be adopted in Mass I think they have a potentially very good drivetrain on their hands right a lot of the character in this class is gone right the Tacoma is dropping its V6 it's going to a four popper with you know potentially questionable reliability the ranger is the ranger you know it's not out yet but I'm hoping at least I hope anything's better than what they did but the last one was a total piece of this one hopefully is at least halfway decent and the frontier is a million years old this makes the power of a V8 really I mean 300 horsepower almost over 400 foot pounds of torque it's Ultra refined returns some level of fuel economy when it's not in the ZR2 like this is and the trans tuning and this is really good there's no weird hesitation no bucket it's it's a great drivetrain I guess back to the truck quickly I drove this thing off-road at the original launch was like six million years ago it took forever to get one of these as a press car to finish this video but in the Trail Boss variant and the Z71 it's good enough to do any Trail you could possibly imagine sure it's not as capable as like a Wrangler rock crawling but it more than capable enough for what you need to do this CR2 these multimatic dampers it still feels like a leaf spring truck in the rear yes that is very annoying I apologize but the God damn can you turn that crap I can't or maybe I have no idea it's freaking out because the cameraman I just want you to keep making it beep the whole time it's actually it's still less annoying than the Toyota safety system it's perfect all the time um I mean um the zrt rides well I mean yes you feel like it's a leaf spring but the dampers are amazing and when I've talked to some of the other journalists who wanted to do the launch of this where they drove a like Baja speeds for words you like to call it Baja speeds for five hours I mean they do a great job well I think we're you know there's going to be a 20 20 different variations of the Colorado as all the other mid-site mid-sized trucks come out so we're going to re cover this truck again at some point but I really think the main point is to take away this engine is the future of four cylinders for Chevy and GM for trucks as it is brand new driving it it's really well thought out he does everything that it needs to do um I think you can see how much effort they put into it and this is what I say all the time with these Brands when you put effort into it it goes a long way and this feels like a very very high effort product and I hope that it stays reliable and working well and they can do well in this segment all right we'll bet Mark let's head into the final font sir all right John oh final thoughts on the Chevy Colorado first off huge thanks to Kevin the engineer who spent all the time with us and gave us an appropriate Deep dive into this new Force owner so what about the truck well this is a class of dinosaurs at this point the frontier the current Tacoma the current Ranger are all old and honestly aren't all that great to actually drive while they are effective tools they suffer in the drivability and livability Department this Colorado regardless of trim level really remedies that you can tell they put more priority into refinement and livability and trying to minimize the cons of a truck doesn't buck and it doesn't feel basically like this tool as much and as of now till the ranger gets updated and the new Tacoma comes out this is to me the de facto King in this class drivetrain's great interior space is good doesn't matter what trim level you're in they're all very capable off-road and I actually think it looks great so with that thanks for watching hope to see you soon foreign mm-hmm\n"