Turbo I6-Powered Chevy Trailblazer Runs 10s in the Quarter-Mile

A modified straight-six SUV packing 1,000-plus horsepower? But of course, a 10-second quarter-mile is doable. Thanks for asking, though, says a Trailblazer tuner.

Calvin Nelson (@Nivlac57 on YouTube) put hours of work into turning his 2008 Chevrolet Trailblazer into what he calls the ultimate sleeper street car. Never mind that his car is actually a modified SUV known as “Project Johnny Cash.” 

Although the Trailblazer still carries a Vortec 4200 engine, its factory straight-six has been turbocharged to produce 1,004 horsepower to the wheels. Nelson offers a quick overview of the Trailblazer setup at 10:16. Not that the vehicle was a quick launch from the get-go—there was still some troubleshooting to be done, which required a fair share of trial and error with the boost adjustments. 

To start, Nelson used his “daily driver” setting as a baseline for the first pass, which he says is about 7 psi of boost. The shakedown was almost meant to provide a barometer of what the brakes and other bits could handle. During the warm-up pass, the Trailblazer reached a quarter-mile in 11.870 seconds at a speed of 101.9 mph.

After more tries with the boost adjustment (slight increase in first, more for remaining gears) as well as shifting the lower control arm positioning for less tire hop off the line, the Trailblazer clocked a much-improved quarter-mile time of 10.769 seconds at 128.43 mph. You can watch the record run at the 5:04 mark of the video. 

“Sure, there is a lot left on the table,” admitted Nelson. “But I’d say for a shakedown, a sort of first outing with this car, this thing performed fantastic.” 

Not looking to be any sort of dragster missile, getting into the 10s was really the goal of the day, and the Chevy accomplished that. However, that wasn’t the extent of its potential. In fact, Nelson describes tons of takeaways from that maiden drag strip day. At the top of the to-do list are changing up the rear suspension, adding an oil cooler, and revamping the transmission tuning. We’re looking forward to what Johnny Cash can do following those updates. Just don’t expect Nelson to modify a current-gen “What the heck is that?!” Trailblazer, like the one his mom bought.

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