6 Things You Need To Know About Supercharging A Toyota GT86

Many would argue that the fact the GT86 isn’t that powerful is just besides the point. It’s never been a car about raw numbers, and I do get that. But I should imagine anyone with that point of view stands a good chance of having their mind changed rather dramatically after trying a supercharged Toyobaru, because as soon as you put your foot down in the Cosworth ’86, it just feels right.

With the power at around 280bhp, this particular GT86 finally has that pin you to the back of your seat feel when you put your foot down. The mid range is much stronger too, but what’s pleasing to see is that you still have to rev it out and wring its neck to access all of that power. That means you still get plenty of opportunity to experience the GT86’s utterly slick gear shift action, and plenty of opportunity to experience some sweet boxer-four noise. The Cosworth car sounds especially good thanks to a cat-back exhaust, albeit at the expense of your sanity during motorway driving, when the pipework is irritatingly droney.

It picks up quickly, too. Cosworth rightly points out that it wouldn’t be quite so keen with a turbocharger or centrifugal ‘charger, rather than the screw-type unit it has at its core. It’s also worth noting that with the new power output, it still doesn’t feel excessive for the road. It’s a car you can give plenty of stick without worrying about ‘accidentally’ hitting silly speeds.

Want some stats to put all this in perspective? There aren’t any official numbers, but 0-62mph is doable in under five seconds. Not bad.

The Cosworth also has the benefit of switchable maps, accessed by pulling on the cruise control lever. You get a choice of four maps, each differing in aggressiveness (map one is for 95ron fuel, the rest for 98), with map four giving you access to fun things like rev matching, launch control and no-lift shifts.

The rev matching feature is entertaining, but I’m not sure I’m a fan of the no-lift shifts – what that feature does is impose a temporary rev-limit of around 5000rpm during changes, but that results in a sort of ‘warrrrr BABABA! warrr…’ thing going on, which to onlookers might just sound like you don’t know how to shift gears properly.

Our experience in the Cosworth GT86 was skewed somewhat thanks to slightly rough running caused by a trial map the company has been trying out, but even with that to contend with, it’s clear that ‘normal’ driving is actually where you’ll feel most of the supercharger benefit.

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