I Autocrossed my PPV!

[Lightning 95]

I finally got a chance to autocross my 13 PPV yesterday. I've autocrossed many different vehicles, but not a truck. I wasn't even sure if they would let me compete with it, but I convinced tech it would be fine, and I promised not to roll it. I've been wanting to see what this thing could do pushed to the limits, and didn't want to do it on the streets. It did pretty good for a stock PPV with 78kmi suspension, and new Goodyear cop tires. Made 8 runs without even hitting one pylon, and every run were all within one second. I tried everything to go faster, running in 1st gear, 2nd gear, traction on, and off. Can't disable stability control on this truck, which seems to eliminate wheel spin to in the corners too. Anyway it did great, and I beat quite a few cars with it. It is pretty easy to drive at the limit, and you can't spin it around. Just drive the crap out of it until the front tires start complaining, and slow it down a little. Full tread depth tires didn't help, and I hated grinding a bunch of rubber off the new Goodyear'$, but they work very well. I don't plan on racing this thing again, so I won't try to optimize it for autocrossing, like needing -2 degrees camber, but now I have a much better feel for what it can, and can't do. I'm pretty sure I need new shocks though, since the originals don't have much rebound control, but I don't know what new ones feel like?

 

[badandyturbo]

How did you do compared to the other large vehicles?

 

[Lightning 95]

How did you do compared to the other large vehicles?

I was the largest vehicle by far, other than a Chrysler 300 which as it turns out was the only thing I beat after seeing the final results. I was 8 seconds behind the fastest open wheel car which was probably 1/4 of my curb weight.

 

[swathdiver]

That's awesome man, thanks for sharing! So we going to see you on the road course soon Andy?

 

[Da90]

Did you try pressing and holding the traction control button to turn off stabilitrak?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[73shark]

What kind of tire pressures were you running?

 

[Garandman]

That's awesome man, thanks for sharing! So we going to see you on the road course soon Andy?

If he can talk another Tech Team into that, he has a new career opportunity.....

 

[xDan]

That's crazy they let you run that

 

[sanco]

thats awesome, i remember the first time i took the ppv tahoe on our PD course, its a hell of a lot of fun to push when you dont have to worry about hitting anything. As you mentioned, you would be surprised at how far you can push these things!!

I actually like how tahoes handle over the new explorers on dry surface, although the explorer out accelerates it and is more nimble (not to mention the awd is a lifesaver in snow) tahoe is more fun.

 

[Lightning 95]

What kind of tire pressures were you running?

Normally when I autocross I like to run the spec pressure that I normally drive with which in this case was 37 psi cold. I added 5 more to the front after a couple runs, but it didn't really help. Needs much more camber, but I wouldn't want to drive it everyday like that.

 

[73shark]

I think you probably meant more negative camber. I was just curious as I used to run in the low 40s psi in the Corvette depending on temperature and conditions.
If you decide to do it again sometime, you might chalk the side walls to see just how much rollover you're getting and if you could increase the pressure a little.

 

[CrashTestDummy]

The Tahoe does pretty well autocrossing. They're big, but fun! We've run ours a couple of times:

It attracted more attention than the brand new C7 Z06 and Ferrari that were at that particular event!

 

[Lightning 95]

Before I went, I did spend about 5 minutes pulling the heavy aux battery off the left front, and tying a leather glove around the live positive cable. I did notice, with only one battery the starter turned much slower.

 

[CrashTestDummy]

While equipped with the second tray, our Tahoe only has one battery, so we've saved weight there. I did replace the second battery in our Caprice with a small Odyssey battery, and moved the AGM full-size on the passenger side to replace the liquid-acid one on the left. If we had a second battery in the Tahoe, I'd probably do that to it, too.

I'll note here that a stock Tahoe PPV will pass scca height-width ratio requirements for solo competition, so there's no worry there. We've run our truck in stock form, and with the 2/3 drop.

The place we have our regular events is the Houston Police Academy, so that place sees a LOT of Tahoe PPV activity.

 

[BotsFD]

While equipped with the second tray, our Tahoe only has one battery, so we've saved weight there. I did replace the second battery in our Caprice with a small Odyssey battery, and moved the AGM full-size on the passenger side to replace the liquid-acid one on the left. If we had a second battery in the Tahoe, I'd probably do that to it, too.

I'll note here that a stock Tahoe PPV will pass scca height-width ratio requirements for solo competition, so there's no worry there. We've run our truck in stock form, and with the 2/3 drop.

The place we have our regular events is the Houston Police Academy, so that place sees a LOT of Tahoe PPV activity.

 

[BotsFD]

Might try SCCA RallyX. Autocross on dirt. I ran a ZR2 with several podium finishes against national competition which was mostly Evos and Sti. Probably look interesting going around course with “courtesy” lights going. I gave up SCCA racing. Keep reminding myself.