The Suzuki Jimny is not a car that brings huge amounts of power to the table, nor does it need to, but that hasn’t stopped various outfits from trying anyway. In 2023, we saw British Land Rover tuner Twisted develop a turbo kit to lift its little 1.5-litre engine from 100 to 165bhp.
Now, there’s a very Aussie riposte to that, as Harrop Engineering, a tuner from down under, has developed a supercharger kit for the little 4×4.
Did the Jimny need a supercharger? Absolute not, and yet we can’t help but be a little bit glad that something this wantonly silly exists. Harrop explained that it’s aimed at those who are planning on proper off-road adventures in their Jimnys, and who might genuinely benefit from some extra, wide-ranging power and torque for scaling tricky terrain.
Supercharged Suzuki Jimny – engine bay
The addition of a big ol’ blower is complemented by a custom carbon-fibre airbox. On a Suzuki Jimny. That’s the same kind of engineering that gave the BMW M3 CSL its signature howling engine note, so to see one in the engine bay of a tiny box of an off-roader like the Jimny is sort of hilarious.
The upgrade isn’t without its merit, though. Harrop put the supercharged Jimny on a hub dyno, and found that it was making a healthy 134bhp. Torque, meanwhile, was up from a standard 96lb ft to 110.
Supercharged Suzuki Jimny – dyno running
But wait – there’s more. If you’re running a snorkel intake on your Jimny – and there’s a good chance you are if you’re off-roading it, lest you hydrolock your engine – it’s able to ingest more cold air. Colder air equals more power, which is why a snorkel-equipped supercharged Jimny ended up running an indicated 142bhp on the dyno. It also sounds surprisingly tasty.
Granted, it’s still not as much as Twisted’s turbo kit, but a supercharger will provide more constant, low-end power than a turbo.
There’s also the question of cost: in Australia (the only place the kit’s available for now, as far as we can tell), the conversion – named TVS900 – costs AU$10,900, equivalent to around £5,500. We can’t pin down how much a Twisted turbo kit would cost on its own, as it’s only listed as part of the tuner’s circa £50k overhaul for the Jimny.
We’re just glad that whoever’s out there demanding more power from a narrow-tracked, high-riding car like the Jimny is well-catered for. And we hope they’re okay.
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