There is no doubt that even in standard form, this is an awesome little car. You might be this far into reading and thinking, what is a German specialist doing making a project out of a Toyota? Every so often a car comes along that can’t be ignored, no matter how strong your brand blinkers are. This is one of them. Tiny, light, 4wd, manual and 275bhp. It’s got fun written all over it!

First mods to hit the Yaris were the Eventuri Carbon Fibre Intake and Milltek GPF Back Exhaust. Probably everyone’s first port of call when modding is an intake or exhaust, but no car has needed it more. In stock form this car is extremely quiet and the stock exhaust tips are dwarfed by the cutouts in the diffuser. The car is quite literally begging for an exhaust upgrade. The Milltek provided both. Opting for the brushed titanium tips and non resonated system, we had the exhaust sorted albeit a little on the lairy side.

Eagle eyed readers will have spotted the car is now Blue! Don’t get attached.
The Eventuri was next up, with its huge carbon scoop and intake, paired with the Wagner intake elbow.
Why Eventuri? At the time it was one of few intakes with a proven power gain (12bhp – 18lbft) but the only one that looks this good. On top of the power gain and stunning looks, it gives some pretty meaty turbo wooshes, who doesn’t want that?!

That concluded the “first wave” of upgrades really while decisions were made about suspension upgrades and solutions for more power. But at least for the time being, sounded like the little B-road warrior it is! Something really needed to be done about the stance and ride height…..

Choosing wheels can be a nightmare for any car, but the Yaris has some seriously wide arches to fill. The standard wheels are great, don’t get us wrong. But once lowered they look comically narrow and tucked in, especially at the back. Sure we could throw some spacers at it to push them out a bit. But why do that when you can just fit some 9J HRE RC103’s?! And yes, you read that correctly. NINE J. Or nine inches wide for those unsure what J means.

Wide, Concave and Motorsport inspired design. Perfect. Fitting these coincided with fitting the Eibach Pro Kit, we wouldn’t bare the thought of fitting the HRE’s with masses of arch gap! The new HRE’s were wrapped in some Nankang NS-2R’s, providing some serious grip. Ideal for fast road and occasional track use.

The Eibach Pro Kit is a perfect drop for a road car in our opinion, no serious impact on comfort either.
30mm front, 25mm rear. Don’t worry, you haven’t gone colourblind. It’s gone grey! With that, the Yaris went to its first show at the Drivers Collection.

As perfect as the drop is from the springs, we needed more adjustability to accomodate the width of the HRE’s on the front and to give it more aggressive handling characteristics. So we went big.

KW has entered the chat. This was always the end game suspension wise but as with everything, timeframes and lead times can get in the way! 3 way adjustable Clubsports. Exactly what we needed to get the stance and handling characteristics we wanted.

Even lower, more camber and looking mean as hell. Needless to say it couldn’t stay this low, drivability always takes priority. But it didn’t stop us from doing a quick “scene stance test”. It’s important that we note here that Clubsports are not our recommended set up for normal road use. The V3’s are a better choice for a road car, but consider the clubsports if you see yourself doing a decent amount of track time.

From the start we were gearing up for more power, ordering and fitting the usual bolt on upgrades as they were released. The next piece of the puzzle arrived from our friends at Wagner. Their competition intercooler and charge pipe upgrade. This high-performance intercooler offers an 24 % larger frontal surface and 69 % more core volume compared to the stock intercooler. Plenty of cooling ability moving forward!

Next up was to make a change to the exhaust set up. With the addition of a new downpipe the combination with the existing Milltek system was too much, and a certain Slovenian exhaust manufacturer had just released the perfect replacement. Our beloved Milltek GPF back system was removed and replaced by a Milltek HJS downpipe and Akrapovic system with Evolution Link Pipe. The Akra weighs in at 7,8 kg, which is 37 % lighter than stock and yields power gains of 12.9 hp at 6,950 rpm and torque increases of 13.0 Nm at 6,950 rpm when tested on the Akrapovič dyno against a Toyota GR Yaris with a standard stock exhaust.

Ultimately the exhaust is still pretty loud but not quite as agressive. The weight reduction and proven power gains weren’t something that could be ignored. As the build has progressed it has turned into a showcase of the who’s who of premium performance upgrades, representing the very best of what is available in the aftermarket. Ideal really as this is what we strive for when we provide upgrades to customers.

Thats enough of the bolt on upgrades, it’s time to see what this little 3 cylinder turbo motor can do….

To save you squinting and zooming, thats 335bhp and 342lb-ft. Some serious power, enough to play with some more powerful cars for sure. Everything has come together perfectly, turning this little Yaris in to a formidable B-road basher and giving it plenty of potential to shine on track should the opportunity arise. What’s next for it? That remains to be seen. But for now, just one more appearance change!

Spec so far:
Eventuri Intake
Wagner Turbo Inlet
Wagner Intercooler
Wagner Chargepipes
Milltek HJS Downpipe
Akrapovic Evolution System
KW 3 Way Clubsports
CLP Stage 2 ECU Calibration
HRE RC103
Nankang NS-2R Tyres

Got a Yaris that needs some upgrades? drop us an email – sales@clpautomotive.co.uk We are always happy to talk performance!

A very capable little car, fitted with the same IS20 Equipped EA888.3 2.0T that you find in the MK7 GTI in a smaller 4wd package. With it being manual the limitations of the stock clutch were found pretty quickly and with plans for more power, an upgrade was required to prevent constant clutch slip/failure. The Sachs organic can take up to around 410lb-ft and whilst gives a heavier pedal, is quite easy to live with under normal driving circumstances.

A little breathing upgrade can go long way on these engines, with an enlarged turbo inlet yielding up to 10bhp more on tuned cars. So on went the Racingline Turbo elbow and CLP Intake Hose. The standard elbow on the S1 is the same as the Polo GTI (6C) and Ibiza Cupra 1.8TSI with the inlet for the breather hose round the other side and a slightly different breather hose, so to make the MQB based elbow work the “Golf R” breather hose was fitted too. The intake upgrades were finished off with a K&N high flow filter.

Suspension was a tough choice With the S1 having DDC/Adaptive dampers and being a bit of a unicorn when it comes to the stock set up, there isn’t a huge amount of choice on the market. The dream was KW V3’s, but these were out of reach budget wise. So springs it was! Again, not a huge choice but comes down to either H&R or Eibach. Each has slight pitfalls, H&R go lower and look great but are a bit harsh. Eibach are comfortable, even more so that the stock springs. But don’t give a huge drop. Given this was a daily driver, we went with Eibach for the comfort factor.

Wheels were an easy choice. A favourite, timeless wheel style – OZ Superturismo LM. 18×8 ET35 to fill out the arches without the need for spacers. A slightly larger than stock tyre profile was used to help negate the smaller drop from the Eibach Pro Kit. EBC Redstuff pads were chosen for their low dust perk in an effort to keep the OZ’s clean. They provided adequate performance on the road and lived up to their low dust feature (next to nothing at all!), but for spirited driving or light track use we would recommend something with more bite like Ferodo DS performance.

Final Spec –
APR Stage 1 ECU Tune – 326BHP 348lb-ft
Racingline Turbo Elbow
CLP Tuning Intake Hose
Golf R Breather Hose
K&N Panel Filter
Sachs Organic Clutch
Eibach Pro Kit lowering Springs
OZ Racing Superturismo LM – 18×8 ET35
225/40/18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4 Tyres
EBC Redstuff Brake Pads
Powerflex Front Arm Bushes
Powerflex Lower Torque Bush

Spec:
Eibach Pro Kit
ST 12.5m Spacer Kit

Spec:
Eibach Pro Kit 20mm Front 10-15mm Rear
ST Suspensions Spacer Package

Dropping the ride height by 15-20mm and filling those wide arches really gives the M4 a meaner, wider stance. Lowering the car also comes with handling advantages, the lower centre of gravity makes the car feel more stable when cornering and further reduces body roll. Ride comfort on the Eibach Pro Kit is very similar to stock so if you decide to fit the Pro Kit to your M4 you wont be sacrificing any comfort or quality.

Current Spec:
– Peron Stage 1+ ECU Upgrade
– ITG Intake
– Eibach Pro Kit lowering springs
– ST Suspensions Spacer Kit (12.5mm front 15mm rear)

Tuning

The PERON stage 1 + upgrade has proven its worth thousands of times over. Always making consistent, smooth power. We highly recommend this set up to anyone thinking of tuning their Fiesta. Add an ITG or PERON intake alongside the Stage 1 + upgrade and see a power increase of 35whp and 66lbft torque.

Suspension

We are big fans of the Eibach pro kit range. Always offering a great balance of comfort, performance and a decent drop over standard ride height. The Fiesta kit is no exception. As seen in the pictures it offers a substantial drop, but leaves plenty of room to ensure speed bumps can be tackled with ease. The new lower centre of gravity gives more stability while cornering at speed, enhancing the driving experience on both road and track.

So we set about stripping the car down and removing the engine. When we had the engine on the stand we set about removing the cam cover to find that the chain guides were all smashed and the chain was devoid of all tension which as most of us know is a common R56 N14 issue.

On further inspection there seemed to be no valve damage so we flipped the engine over and removed the sump to get access the main bearings. We removed a couple of the carriers and to our delight there was no damage to the bottom end. Clearly the noise from the engine was a noisy chain and guides knocking around, which was a pleasant surprise.

Having fully stripped the engine it was apparent that it was in good condition considering it had covered 100k miles! However, looking at the state of the inlet valves I’m sure it was considerably down on power. During dyno testing we regularly see a 20+ bhp gain by having the inlet valves walnut blasted.

The Engine was then industrially cleaned. The head was treated to Supertech valves, valve springs and titanium retainers. The blocked was bored to 77.5mm, 0.5mm oversize. We installed lower compression 10.5:1 forged pistons with matched forged rods.

The short engine was rebuilt using competition bearings throughout. A new oil pump was installed, obviously not worth risking the whole build on a 100k old pump! New OEM chains guides and modified tensioner were installed. The rest of the engine was reassembled, gearbox refitted with JCW dual mass flywheel and clutch plate, we were keen to keep the feel of the drive as OEM as possible. However, 300bhp is probably on the limit of the OEM clutch, time would tell!

Once the engine and gearbox were back in the car we installed all the OEM air box, exhaust and intercooler, we wanted to run the new motor in before we started any power increases.

After the Mini had run flawlessly for 1000 miles we had it back in to the workshop to start the fun.

We replaced the standard turbo with a JCW Borg Warner which we intend to hybridise later down the line.

Exhaust wise we went for a scorpion downpipe mated to the Akrapovic evolution system, which is in our opinion the best exhaust you can buy for your mini. The Scorpion and Akrapovic are both available in our online shop (Akrapovic) (Scorpion).

After much deliberation about an intake solution we went for the AEM kit. AEM claim 15-17bhp gains! We will see what it does on our car.. That said the kit is fantastic, it looks and fits amazing and the build quality is exceptional, worth the money in our eyes.

The Intercooler we fitted is the Manic Motorsport cooler that we have been developing with Peron and Manic. It really is a quality UK built item and surpasses the other intercoolers we have seen, Fitment is perfect and doesn’t require the usual trimming and destroying of the OEM from bumper. The Intercooler performs amazingly, completely eliminating heat soak. It really is a fantastic product. Again it’s available here.

Finally to make the hardware run optimally we remapped the car using the best software available, Manic. We flashed the STG3 map running mode C which is the most aggressive.

The result of all this is a fantastic quick drivable car with excellent torque. It really is a very quick car which out paces many of the big engined German coupes and saloons.

Dyno results to follow!

If you would like any further information about our Mini tuning packages then feel free to drop in or give us a ring on 01142 701025 or alternately email us at sales@clpautomotive.co.uk