The Toyota GR Corolla is the car we definitely wanted here in the USA. Europe is always getting the cool hot hatches. With the Toyota GR Yaris over there, the bosses at Toyota thought, “hey lets bring those Muricans a bigger version to rival the STI, Golf R, and ElantraN.” So they did that and in 2022 got us the Toyota GR Corolla with it’s 1.6L 3 cylinder turbocharged engine making 300 horsepower stock. There are a couple crazy things about this car. First the fact that it is only a 3 cylinder. That’s typically HALF of what most cars have making 300 horsepower. Second is it makes 300 horsepower from only a 1.6L engine! Depending on how old you are, you either remember your moms 2002 Honda Accord V6 or you owned a Honda Accord V6 and that turd cracked maybe 250 horsepower… I mean the first 2002 Subaru WRX that came to the USA had a 2.0L turbo engine that made 220 horsepower. So the GR Corolla is pretty impressive with its performance mated to a 6 speed manual transmission and all wheel drive platform.
But you are not here for a car review. You are here because you are an enthusiast and what we like to do as car humans is modify cars. So that’s what we are going to do here at Vivid Racing. This 2024 GR Corolla was brought to us by a local customer looking for some mods. So rather than just say here is part A and B, we said, “lets get you these parts and dyno them to show how awesome these mods are”. So we are doing that and making a video for our Vivid Racing YouTube channel to show you the viewers and readers the process. This will be a 3 part blog/video series where we:
- Baseline Test the GR Corolla to show you what this vehicle makes stock on 91 octane and our Mustang AWD Dyno
- Open the box and install the new AWE Catback Exhaust followed by a dyno test to see gains
- Finally install our plug and play VR Tuned Tuning Box Kit and dyno it to see how this further improves performance.
So Part 1 of our video below shows us doing a baseline dyno on the GR. As we said the GR Corolla is rated at 300 horsepower to the crank. Typically the Mustang Dyno has a drivetrain loss of about 20%. That puts us at around 240 all wheel horsepower that we should see. For these tests we calibrated the car in 4th gear at 4000 rpm. We did a series of 3 tests to make sure we did not have any anomalies which gives us a good baseline average. This car is stock, however the owner did remove the axle back resonator which might have given it an extra 5 horsepower. In the end, our baseline test revealed about 255awhp and 245lb/ft of torque. With our baseline checked in, we can now start the modification process.
Stay Subscribed to our YouTube Channel and our next article on the installation and post dyno results of the AWE Catback Exhaust.
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