Buying a $169 turbo charger on Ebay and attaching it to a car might sound like a crazy idea right off the bat, but two popular Australian YouTubers went one step further by sticking it on possibly the most unfitting vehicle you could imagine.
Mighty Car Mods is an incredibly popular car modding YouTube channel, ran by both Blair Joscelyne and Martin Mulholland, who often present their audiences with different vehicle modification challenges – with some wonderful, and others pretty wacky.
This time it was certainly on the wackier side of things as the pair shocked viewers by trying to attach a budget turbocharger, which they suspected was a direct copy of another manufacturer sold online for cheap, to a mighty Toyota Yaris. Or as they called it, their very own ‘Yaris Hilton.’
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Explaining the project they were undertaking, they posted the following in the video description: “After buying the cheapest Yaris we could find, we realized that it had a 1.3L engine instead of the more powerful 1.5. So we did the only logical thing and engine swapped a 1.8 from a Corolla. But now we’re looking at launching into the stratosphere with even more power.”
They did, however, run into some difficulties while working on the car. With the engine sitting in the way of where the turbocharger was going to need to be placed, some things needed moving around slightly.
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So, coming up with a creative solution as always, Martin loosened some bolts and twisted the turbocharger into position to make some space. While he was working on the car, Martin made an interesting comparison to one of Volkswagen’s vehicles.
He said: “This [after the mods] is basically a Golf R because the turbo is going to be in the same place as a Golf R, and it’s a four cylinder, it’s going to be powerful, reliable, stylish, and mildly boring but awesome at the same time.”
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Timestamp in the video below at 7:33.
After making a few more steps to get that turbo locked in tight and ready to go, the modders took some time to discuss just how much this customization cost them for the making of the video, compared to what it would be for the general public when buying a kit.
“We’re looking at, including the manifold, around 910 US dollars for all of the hardware to turbo the car. Now, that doesn’t include management, as you’ve put more air in the car so now you need more fuel,” Martin said, before breaking down the conversion rates for different countries.
That means that to turbo a very much not non-turbo vehicle like the Toyota Yaris, the boys spent $1,322 (AUD) or £700, for those interested in giving something like this a try themselves. The price, they estimate, to get this type of hardware job done using a kit – including labor – would be around $3,195 (USD).
With some things to tidy up after the video came to a close, expect to see the finished article roaring across the road in a future Mighty Car Mods video on their YouTube channel.
