In general, when you modify a car to make tons of horsepower, you want to beef up the drivetrain. You know, so you don’t leave shredded gears and oil all over the road after a launch. But Nissan technician Matthew Parris from Massachusetts is going to risk it by shoving 500 ponies through a standard Juke SL’s CVT transmission. Pray for him.
You read that right; this thing isn’t a Juke R with a Nissan GT-R dual clutch trans, it’s just a standard run-of-the-mill 1.6-liter Juke mated to a continuously variable transmission.
The build, called Project Insane Juke, is being documented on FastReligion’s YouTube page, and goes back more than a year when Mike, the owner of a Juke, told Matthew he wanted something a little different and a bit “funky.”
So, Matthew started modding Mike’s Juke in three phases. The first phase included just a bigger Precision turbocharger, which yielded about 260 horses at the wheels. Then, phase two, which Matt did in Mike’s garage in Houston, added a custom exhaust manifold, a new intercooler, an external wastegate, and more boost. Matthew thinks phase two took the power numbers up to 300 horsepower at the front wheels.
Now Matthew is in Massachusetts, and Mike drove all the way up from Texas to have him work on phase three, which includes the big stuff. The Juke is getting a new custom manifold (see above) with a Garrett GTX-series turbo, a new downpipe, a CAT-less straightpipe, a widebody kit, wider 295-section tires, a deeper CVT pan, a CVT cooler (which he plans to mount under the car with a fan), forged engine internals, a rear seat delete, racing seats and Nitrous Oxide.
Here’s a snapshot of that last system, which he plans to package in the spare tire void (here’s the associated video):
This build is more than just a guy bolting on some accessories, it shows some legitimate fabricating—and even some engineering— skill. Check out the awesome liquid-cooled charge air cooler system:
Matthew says he thinks he can get that beefed-up 1.6-liter to make 500 horsepower. Those ponies will be sent through the essentially-stock CVT and an open front differential.
Who knows what will happen. Maybe that CVT’s belt will slip during launches, or maybe it will just explode. Heck, maybe it’ll be just fine, and the car will just have a heavy case of the One Wheel Squeals. What I do know is that the whole thing really doesn’t make much sense, and for that reason, I dig it.