The Blitz Electronic Supercharged Toyota Yaris!

The Blitz Electronic Supercharged Toyota Yaris!

by Mike Kojima

The Toyota Yaris is a vehicle that has been pretty much universally panned by the performance aftermarket. Can you really blame the aftermarket though?  The Yaris was not designed for any sort of fun nor would it win any beauty contests.

What the Yaris has been designed for is to be a bare bones B-Segment people mover, trundling meat sacks from point A to point B with the lowest possible operating costs. That being said, the B-Segment has been received with little excitement in the US market. When the segment first started to make its appearance, it was initially felt that these would be the cars that young people would flock to and there was a burst of enthusiasm with a magazine launched around the segment and even a racing class for the new sub, subcomapcts. 

Instead not too many cared. The magazine quickly died and the racing class has never gotten traction despite acceptance from just about all the racing sanctioning bodes. Yawn. Only a few young people embraced the cars with most either not getting into cars at all or coveting used older but more sporty models of the late great sport compact craze. There has not been much enthusiast love for slow, tall, narrow and stubby cars that when modified at best look like a chibi style cartoon of a modified car.

Still you've got to admit, when you see a tastefully done Yaris, lowered with a proper wheel/tire fitment it can look decent.  Sorta like how a homely girl can look good with the right clothes, hair and makeup. The main problem with the Yaris from an enthusiast standpoint has been the 106 horse power output of its miserly 1.5 liter engine that is designed to get 37 mpg and the lack of availability of any parts to get more power than that. Why bother you might wonder, well the one thing the Yaris has going for it is a sub 2300 lb curb weight!  In the world where there is something special for everyone, even homely girls need to find loving.

The one power added for the Yaris that does something substantial has been the Blitz supercharger kit.  The kit has been around for a few years and has been imported to the states in small numbers and sold by places like by Vivid Racing and EDO. We got to get a close look at the rare Blitz Supercharger kit on a Yaris sedan that came to the palatial MotoIQ Megashop to be dynoed.

The Blitz Yaris Supercharger is a small positive displacement roots blower.  It is not unique or trick in any other way than its tiny size.  It is a two lobe, straight rotor, external compression design, no twisted or spiral rotors with efficiency gaining internal compression, just a good old fashioned roots blower. The classic design and small size which has a lot of internal leakage to displacement probably limits the adiabatic efficiency to somewhere in the 50% range and low boost pressures. This is pretty low compared to a modern twisted rotor or screw roots blower which can rock over 80% efficiency.  Unfortunately, even the smallest 6th generation Eatons are too big for this application. 

What is cool about the Blitz Yaris supercharger is that it is controlled by an electronic clutch.  the supercharger has two different boost levels which are controlled by modulating the clutch.  The clutch looks like a heavier duty air conditioning compressor clutch and it possibly is taken from some other OEM heavy duty application.  The supercharger gives the anemic 1.5 liter INZ-FE engine some pep. The compression ratio is somewhat high at 10.5:1 but the bore is only 75mm which should make the engine pretty detonation resistant allowing the supercharger to be used with a stock bottom end.

The Blitz kit comes with a supercharger and intake manifold and is non intercooled. This makes for a very easy installation. Engine management is super simple; consisting of a tiny in tank pressure regulator that increases the fuel pressure.