Text: Danie Botha
Photography: Jannie Herbst
“We want it to sound the way it looks. And we need more low-down torque. Please.”
That was our request to Mynhardt Truter of SAC Diesel’s Centurion branch when we dropped the Navara off. He said he would have a look-see.
When Mynhardt phoned the next morning, he simply said: “Listen to this?”
The tinny noise on the phone-line was a beautiful cacophony of hissing, barking and turbo chirping. We duly rushed off to SAC Diesel in Centurion to experience this symphony first hand.
At the shop a broadly smiling Mynhardt handed over the keys and jumped into the passenger seat.
“Let’s take her for a drive,” he said.
Before we continue, just a bit of history. We had driven this particular 2,5-litre turbodiesel Navara for more than a year, covering about 23 000km, before this project came round. So we know it pretty well. With those 38-inch wheels we noted that the Nissan engine’s inherent turbo lag (under 2000 r/min) had became more pronounced, requiring some delicate clutch-throttle modulation to get her smoothly off the line. Once on the move, she was just dandy.
But now, with the UniQchip and the free-flow exhaust system? this Navara was a different beast altogether! There is now virtually no turbo lag. There is about 80 Nm more torque and 15 kW of power extra to play with.
