Powertune Australia, a tuning company based in New South Wales, has managed to extract a staggering 741 horsepower from the Toyota GR Yaris. As a reminder, the hot hatch employs a turbocharged 1.6-liter three-cylinder engine which produces 268 hp as standard. This powerplant also does duty in the GR Corolla, albeit in a 300-hp state of tune.
The company shared the results of a dyno run on its social media channels. The official figure is 740.9 horses, which is more than Aston Martin's newly-unveiled DB12 - which has more than twice as much displacement and nearly three times as many cylinders.
Even with all-wheel drive and a six-speed manual transmission, this GR Yaris may be quite a handful to drive. So, how did Powertune Australia pull off such an incredible feat? CarBuzz reached out to the Australian company to find out more.
The GR Yaris was fitted with an upgraded head gasket, along with uprated head studs. Elsewhere, the intercooler was swapped out for an aftermarket version from Plazmaman, while the three-cylinder benefits from a Garrett G30-770 turbo. Powertune Australia has also fitted a turbo exhaust manifold, intercooler piping, and a dump pipe from Golebys Parts. A MoTec Yaris Plug-in ECU also forms part of the package.
2,200cc Secondary Injectors from Bosch replace the stock items. The Yaris also receives an Elixr Brushless fuel pump and a cat-back Akrapovic exhaust system. But that's not all. Even the gearbox has been replaced with a six-speed sequential transmission from X-Shift and mated to an ATS Triple Carbon clutch.
Interestingly, Powertune Australia has decided to retain the stock rods, crank, and pistons. "We have pulled numerous engines down, and after doing a lot of comparisons and measurements, we believed we could make our target power with the stock items," said a company spokesperson.
The vehicle belongs to Peter Freedman, one of Australia's richest individuals and the genius behind the RODE Microphones empire.
There are plans to put the GR Yaris to the test on the drag strip, where it will probably embarrass a few purpose-built sports cars. Toyota's little tyke needs only a few modifications to go head-to-head with rapid machines like the Nissan GT-R.
Because the GR Corolla uses the same G16E-GTS engine, it's safe to assume that Powertune Australia could provide the same upgrades for the larger hot hatch. US-based customers (who don't care much for their warranty) would pounce on this, regardless of cost.
The G16E-GTS has the highest specific output of any engine Toyota has ever fitted to a road car, with 186 hp per liter in the GR Corolla. The GR Yaris seen here produces a remarkable 458 hp per liter.
741 ponies is a lot for such a small motor to contend with, and we're guessing some of the internal components will have to deal with far more stress than they're used to. However, Powertune says the vehicle has done more than 30 dyno runs and plenty of testing, and claims "no failure signs [are] to be seen as yet."
Then again, Toyota knows how to build a strong engine, and the G16E-GTS was built to take more power for motorsport applications. The engine does have its limits, though.
Powertune has been developing upgrades for this engine for more than a year now, so we're guessing the company knows a thing or two about the G16E and its limitations.
Only time will tell whether these high-powered three-cylinder motors will last, but we've seen several tuned GR Yaris models and haven't heard any horror stories yet. Hopefully, we get to see this hardcore Yaris hit the drag strip soon.
