How can a car manufacturer be considered a top auto brand without having any interesting models for car fans? Our favorite Japanese manufacturers drastically changed their orientation in the late 90s. From building innovative sports cars and developing engines for optimum performance, they decided they should go green by producing hybrid, slow and boring cars and no sport cars at all. They stopped being samurais and decided to become geishas overnight, in an oversimplification of what happened.
Honda stayed stuck in the vtec era, Toyota kept vvti/vvtli and went with hybrids (as if adding a ton of batteries ever made a car better to drive), Nissan became Renault and Mazda kept on believing there is a future in Wankel engines. Technology froze at MY2000. 20 years have passed since. Suddenly the Japanese woke up from their slumber to realise their mistake: Europeans producing much more fun, efficient, faster and more technologically advanced models. Not by little, but by a lot.
Toyota boss understood this very well. Through his personal dedication and commitment he founded Gazoo Racing to bring change. And that is exactly what happened. New models coming our of GR look fun, fast and clearly sporty. So we decided to work with them too. This GR Yaris came to us with an upgraded Miltek catback exhaust. With the stock mapping it made 231whp on dyno. After developing a #etuners stage2 98RON tune, power went up to 261whp.
A big thank you to the owner for trusting us with his car and mkperformance for assisting with the development process! And to Toyota for finally giving us a car worthy of playing with.
Upgrade specifications
- 98RON fuel
- Upgraded catback exhaust – Miltek
- #Etuners Stage2 ECU remap
Performance results
- Maximum power at the wheels: 261whp (measured stock with upgraded catback 231whp), gains 30whp
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Maximum torque at the wheels: 285lb*ft (measured stock with upgraded catback 250lb*ft), gains 35lb*ft
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