Wicked LS9-Powered Chevy Colorado ZR1 Churns Out 1,000 HP
With a handful of mods, this LS9-powered Chevy Colorado is a real street ripper that’s also tame enough to take on road trips.
The Chevy Colorado has been around for a pretty long time to this point – nearly 20 years, in fact, which is somewhat difficult to believe, at least for some of us. Over that time span, the mid-size replacement for the beloved, compact S-10 has been equipped with a variety of powerplants, ranging from turbocharged four cylinders to V6s, with trim levels that cover the span from basic work truck to the competent off-road-focused ZR2. However, those that want a street-pounding, drag racing, face-peeling straight-line performer are left to build their own – and that’s precisely what this Chevy Colorado ZR1 built by Izzy from Izzy Performance and featured in a recent video from AutotopiaLA was designed to do.
When Izzy first purchased this 2006 Chevy Colorado, it was already under construction and equipped with the current, supercharged 6.2-liter LS9 V8 powerplant. However, it appears that the person who sold it to him wasn’t quite as mechanically inclined as they thought, and a lot of things on the truck simply weren’t working properly, which is why they decided to give up and move on, ultimately creating an opportunity that Izzy simply couldn’t refuse.
In stock form, the LS9 is a capable powerplant as-is, churning out a cool 638 horsepower and 604 pound-feet of torque, which would certainly be enough to make something like a Chevy Colorado wicked quick. Of course, Izzy wasn’t satisfied with stock, so he proceeded to give it an array of go-fast goodies including a Kong 2650 blower, a Holley Dominator setup, and a shot of nitrous – among other things, such as a flex fuel system capable of running E85 – which results in an output of 890 horsepower at the wheels, or a bit over 1,000 with the nitrous added in.
That power flows to the rear end via a 4L80 automatic gearbox that’s been built to handle upwards of 1,300 horsepower, as well as the quite common and beefy Ford 9-inch rear end with 3.73 gears. To help manage that extreme amount of power, Izzy added Wilwood brakes to the mix, along with AFCO shocks. All of that works together to make this Chevy Colorado an incredibly quick and capable street machine, and it looks pretty awesome sitting low on a set of Forgeline wheels and fat Mickey Thompson tires, too.
The real beauty of this build – which Izzy has applied the iconic ZR1 name tag to, given its infusion of performance – is how tame it is. With a modern powerplant underhood and relatively mild mods, the truck drives quite normally when Izzy isn’t interested in going for a rip, and he’s even taken it on a couple of road trips. But when the time comes to have some fun or show the guy in the other lane what he’s working with, it’s always just a push of the pedal away.
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