Follow the story of Josh, as he embarks on a journey to TURBO his Jimny. This is the first in a series of articles giving you a detailed insight into taking on a project like this yourself.
Hope you enjoy it,
Paul – Geordie Jimny / Out There Equipped
How this came about
I stumbled across Geordie Jimny while doom-scrolling recently when I probably should have been doing something more productive. I flicked through his reels and posts and thought, “Yeah, this is what I’m about.” I gave him a follow and popped him a message about my little Jimny project. Something I’m hoping might interest a few of you!
Josh
Backstory
I’m Josh and my other half is Charlotte. We’ve got a 2019 Suzuki Jimny SZ4, bought in June 2024, replacing Charlottes neglected (!!!) BMW 118i. The plan? To turn it into an “all-purpose vehicle” a daily for her commute, something to shove the dog in, my shooting wagon, and a small 4×4 we can take away camping off the beaten track.
But this wouldn’t be very interesting if it was just me banging on about why we got a Jimny. I’ll get to the point…
THE JIMNY IS BLOODY SLOW.
If you’ve got one, or even just driven one, you’ll know exactly what I mean. The K15B engine is anaemic. Suzuki claims 101bhp, which translates to around 70bhp at the wheels and a mighty 130Nm of torque.
In real-world terms, it’s nippy around town, great on rough tracks but terrible for anything longer distance! Inclines, overtakes, motorways? Us Jimny owners dread them.
In January 2024, I was diagnosed with stage 3B bowel cancer. I had surgery in March and began chemotherapy in May. We got the Jimny in June, and even in my state it took me about a week to realise it needed more oomph. When Charlotte started to complain… I knew it definitely needed more!
So, what’s a petrolhead going to do while being pumped full of deadly, lifesaving poison? Scroll YouTube, watch car content and aimlessly wander the internet looking at this and that!
The biggest rabbit hole I went down was Jimnys on YouTube. Almost all the content was from Australia and South Africa, where the Jimny remains a hugely popular and affordable off-roader. You often see them embarrassing Land Cruiser 70 series owners on the tricky off-road stuff, but ultimately, they all have the same issue. They’re just not built for long distances!
Between hospital appointments, falling asleep on the sofa, and the relentless nausea, I dove into what owners around the world were doing to fix the glaring power issue. Most owners seemed to settle for things like exhausts, airboxes, throttle controllers, etc.
This led me to Street Track Life / JimnyStyle, who stock all sorts of bits! Unfortunately, the performance boosts didn’t go far enough for me.
As chemo wore on and cabin fever set in, I found myself checking STL’s website pretty much daily, alongside the usual TV and streaming distractions. I found the solution:
TURBO!
STL had a HKS turbo kit.
On the face of it, it seemed like a simple bolt-on kit. But the more I looked into it, it turned out that the ECU was an issue. The Jimny’s ECU is a nightmare to work with, there is no simple way to upload a map, via OBD or otherwise. You either bench flash it or wire in a piggyback ECU. Without an off the shelf map you’re looking at development time with an experienced tuner and countless hours on a rolling road. It’s just not affordable.
Sod that, too hard to do, turbo cancelled.
As my chemo continued my side effects worsened and the Jimny took a back seat. Ask anyone who has been through it, chemo takes over your life, some days you can barely function. I forgot the word for cupboard at one point… Bizarre!
My fantastic other half booked us a few days away in a proper off-grid shepherd’s hut in Northumberland, off the beaten track in a forestry block. A perfect little Jimny road trip.
From where we live, it’s a 2.5 to 3-hour drive, not in a Jimny. Ours made even flat roads feel like driving in the Alps, and at motorway speeds, it drank more than Ozzy Osbourne in his prime. But once it was on the winding roads of Northumberland it excelled. Roads like that are definitely what the Jimny does best! It tackled sandy dunes, forestry tracks, and farm tracks without batting an eyelid.
The drive home? Once again, a pure slog.
Back down the Jimny performance rabbit hole I went!
My mate Rob
Enter Rob, a mate of mine from secondary school. We’ve known each other for over 25 years, although neither of us want to admit that. Rob is an Agri machinery dealer and as much of a petrolhead as me. We differ in opinion on the Jimny’s issue. I think it’s power, he reckons it’s the lack of a 6th gear!
Rob deals with Twisted on occasion. I’m fairly sure if you’re reading this you might know who they are, but if you don’t, they are a company that produces bespoke/custom Land Rover Defenders. They are works of art!
To get me out of the house, Rob invited me to drop some parts to their HQ in Thirsk. Chemo or no chemo, I wasn’t going to turn that down! If you’re ever passing, the Twisted showroom is well worth a visit, they have their own little coffee shop. You can have a brew and look in awe at their creations.
Thanks to Rob, I got a tour of the workshop. Sitting there, mid build, was a Jimny, undergoing a turbo conversion!
Sadly, Twisted weren’t up for selling just the turbo kit and map. You either had to have a full conversion done (£££££) or buy a pre-built one (££££££££££). Way beyond our budget.
I blame Rob for this little project!
The week later it was time for the next round of chemo and another week of nausea and wandering about the house like a zombie. Cue more YouTube. That’s when I stumbled across JelyRol, built by Pirate Camp Company. These lads are nuts, they’ve pushed the K15B to 210bhp on factory internals with a turbo and a shed load of boost!
Off to the internet I went, finding a Queensland-based company: AVO TurboWorld.
After months of do I, don’t I? I finally emailed them. To my surprise, Lee, one of their directors replied pretty much immediately with a UK company who imported and fitted their products. Sadly, that company (which will remain nameless) could not have been less interested if they tried.
By May 2025, I was back to square one.
A few more months of YouTube and looking at the kit AVO produce, I decided rightly or wrongly (we’re yet to find out) I could fit the kit myself.
The order was placed
In July 2025, after bugging Lee with countless questions via email, the order was placed!
A pallet of parts is (fingers crossed) currently being boxed up in Queensland, ready to make the long trip to the UK. Hopefully over the coming weeks and months I’ll be able to share with you the process of turboing our Jimny.
My intention is to have a baseline dyno result, a write up and pictures of the fitting and then a final dyno result to show the gains and increased drivability.
Most of you might ask, what’s in it for Josh?
Nothing! I don’t do social media, I have a personal Instagram account and that’s it. I’ll leave the reels and cracking photos to people who know what they’re doing.
I don’t know the companies I’m using for parts and I’m paying for everything out of my own pocket
unfortunately!
After an Instagram exchange with Paul (aka Geordie Jimny), we thought it would be an interesting project to share and possibly inspire some of you to give that daunting project you’ve been researching and putting off a go!
That’s it for now,
J
Subscribe for future updates from Josh and his TURBO Jimny project. All props to him for taking this project on, I’m excited to see how things pan out.
If you have a story that can help others in the community please reach out to me I’d love to learn more about it and maybe we’ll get your story out there.
