VIDEO: We Take Our 2020 Jeep® Grand Cherokee Trackhawk To The Dyno:

Last August, we ended up trading in our long-term 2018 Jeep® Grand Cherokee Trackhawk on a brand-new 2020 model. While we loved the 2018 model and put 21,000 trouble-free kilometers (13,050 miles) on it in just under a year, rising prices on the used market along with the fact that it wasn’t equipped exactly as I wanted prompted the change.

We had a ton of fun with the old Trackhawk and I eventually ended up doing a 2.85 upper pulley, and 1200cc fuel injectors coupled with a tune by Dusterhoff Tuning. That really woke our Trackhawk up and turned it into an absolute beast. Unfortunately, the whole COVID situation completely shut down our local track last summer and we didn’t get the chance to run it and get any results.

That said, when I traded the old Trackhawk in, I returned it to stock and kept all the parts for future installation in the new Trackhawk. So far All I have installed is the JLT cold air intake, JLT Catch Can, and Magnaflow cat-back exhaust.

Once again it was time to get some baseline dyno numbers so back in late November I got together with some friends and a dyno day was set up. We Ended up putting our Trackhawk plus 2 others, an Explorer ST, and a Challenger Hellcat on the dyno that day. The dyno we were using is a Mustang dyno and they generally read a lot lower than a DynoJet so keep that in mind.

Our Trackhawk with the JLT CAI and Magnaflow cat-back put down 571 AWHP and 509 lb. ft of torque to the wheels on the first run, I was also logging the Jeep with HPTuners and on our Canadian West Coast lousy 91 Octane fuel and found that it pulled a peak of 7 degrees of knock retard even on the stock tune during that run.

After that run, I threw in 20 liters of E85 with a full tank of gas giving us a roughly 15% Ethanol mixture to make up for our lousy gas. On that next pull, our Trackhawk put down 603 AWHP and 548 lb. ft of torque, a gain of 32 hp and 39 lb. ft of torque. The datalog also showed no knock retard throughout this dyno pull.

The next step with this Trackhawk will be the 2.85 pulley, 1200CC fuel injectors, 180-degree thermostat, and a Flex Fuel tune by Curt Dusterhoff so we can run full E85 and take full advantage of our upcoming modifications. 

We also ran another Trackhawk with JLT Cold Air Intake, GTHaus Exhaust, and Ripatuned Incognito pulley on the dyno. On the stock tune with roughly a 15% ethanol blend as I was running, he put down 629 AWHP and 547 lb.ft of torque. 

Make sure to check out the video above to see how we all fared on the dyno, we even had a surprise guest in the form of a modified Ford Explorer ST.