Thoughts on Chevrolet’s ZR2 pick up.

I'm in the same boat ...years ago I bought a full size Silverado 2 wheel drive and the smaller S-10's were the same price.

Yep. Same here. Traded in a S-10 and bought a Silverado 11 years ago. Just can’t stomach the thought of a car payment or the price trucks are now. It’s insane.
 
Curious why a few of you think IFS has to detract from off-road capabilities.

Edit: maybe somebody forgot to tell all of the Ultra 4 racers that they need to dump the IFS and go solid. 🤪
 
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^^ Lol. I just like reading the “facts” people come up with to support largely ridiculous positions.
 
I'm no expert, but I'm guessing the Ultra4 racers go with IFS because it's better for high speed on uneven roads. They compensate for it's lack of nimbleness crawling with brute force and a lot of skinny peddle.

Solid axle - to me - would seem better for technical crawling because the drooped side helps lift the vehicle up and over obstacles with leverage.

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
I’ll play.
Factory Chevy ifs is dog shit. Tooth pick axels and Turkey wishbone a arms. lol

I’d say for the average Joe. Solid wins because of price, available parts, stronger shafts(maybe), ease of modifying.

But if you have the build budget, knowledge and capabilities of an ultra 4 race team . IFS all day. It’s not even close.
 
IFS arms on Ultra racers are what, 2.5-3’ long? IFS “arms” on a Chevy Colorado are maybe 12” long? High school geometry tells you they aren’t comparable.
 
I think the ZR2 is gonna be amazing! Can’t wait to see all of what AEV comes out with for the truck! My dealership just bought a Chevy franchise so I might look at leasing one for a daily lol
 
I have wheeled 4 different ifs rigs, and while they have advantages like a better ride at speed and on the highway. Well, I ran out of any others I can think of.
As I was saying, the disadvantages far outweigh that. Such as loss of clearance when hitting a bump while in ruts. The center section looses all of it's impressive clearance while sitting still, and it drags badly. This will bend all the mounting points for the lower A arms so the alignment will never be right again.

The angled tie rods will bind up and under power they will bend or break. Idler arms are a regular purchase, as are ball joints.

After a year of wheeling, redoing the front end 4 times got old. Tire life suffers because the alignment is off more often than not. Then we get to the fact that the differential is much smaller, and most do not hold up well to lockers, much less larger tires. Then we get to the CV joints and undersized shafts.

Another problem is that the mounts for the differential can bend under high torque loads trying to crawl. This will cause the mounting location for the CV shafts to move, and then the CV will pull apart when turning and drooping under power.

Then you still have limited wheel travel due to the short arms, and unless you rebuild the frame there is not much you can do about it. Even "long travel" kits don't get you what a 3" lift on a JK will.

As said above, if you have a budget near what an Ultra 4 has, you can build one to last, but if not, I would stick to a straight axle for wheeling.

Other than the ifs, the little Chevy looks like a nice little truck, just don't play rough with it.
 
I ran a couple H3s before I saw the light came back to a JK. They ran the similar IFS chassis as the ZR2. Blown CVs on the front were very common in our group and there were not any reasonable upgrades to resolve the problem. Thank goodness from GMs warranty.


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No auto maker is going to put anything close to an ultra4 ifs under a vehicle. I’m not sure how many off-roaders have a budget big enough for IFS. If you listen to the announcers at KOH, they talk about the benefits of IFS on open high speed areas, then they mention how solid axles have a bigger benefit in the rougher more technical areas. They also mention if KOH didn’t have all the open high speed areas, more solid axle cars would be in front of the pack


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