I have something in mind for the team,
and hopefully, Tory and Faye love what I have.
Oh, this is a nice one.
I got a smashing deal on this 2011 Honda CR-Z Hybrid
with 1.5 liters of petrol fury.
Now, I picked this up because I want to explore
this myth I found online.
What is the point of putting a turbo on a hybrid?
We're going to need to do something major to this.
It's good, right?
Yep. I love it.
It's just going to be the ultimate hot rod hybrid.
That's what I want.
How does it compare to the pounds of fuel
that we consume last time we're here?
I'm going to open this up, modify it accordingly
with simple resistors to give you a nice boost
of electrical power.
3, 2, 1, go!
Meet the team.
We'll be at work in no time.
This might be the miracle coolant that everybody's
been searching for.
With the mechanical expertise--
My main concern is structural integrity.
I think this is going to work.
- -to test all things automotive.
That was beautiful.
The more we push through,
the more fuel is siphoned out.
And boom!
Wow. This--
Whoo!
--is "Motor Mythbusters."
This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen.
Where science meets the streets.
Did you buy another car?
Of course. It's a disease--
- What is this? - --but I love it.
What is this for?
I brought this beautiful hybrid
in to put a turbo system on it.
Oh, my God.
What is the point of putting a turbo on a hybrid?
I've been searching the web.
And I've found out that some people have claimed
that putting a turbocharger on a hybrid
can improve fuel economy.
That's the myth?
Yes.
More fuel-efficient?
Yes.
Interesting. Yeah.
OK.
You know, I love putting turbochargers on things
cause it makes me go fast.
But the fact that we may be able to improve efficiency,
I'm really curious.
Manufacturers do it all the time.
So I said, you know what?
Let's try it here, see what happens.
OK.
And then maybe we could do a couple of different tests.
We'll run the car as it is, just stock hybrid.
We'll measure the fuel, how much fuel was consumed.
And then you can put your turbo in.
And then we'll measure it again and see which
one's more fuel-efficient.
Strong baseline for this beast.
Yeah.
I like that.
And we can build some kind of a fuel cell that we can pull
out and measure so we can see exactly which
one is more fuel-efficient.
I like it.
I like this, too.
How do you like the look of this car?
Uh, it's pretty crappy.
It's like they tried-- It is not cute.
--to make this better.
I want to hot rod this thing and maybe have
the turbo come out the hood.
It's just going to be the ultimate hot rod hybrid.
That's what I want.
Do you think anything to do with hot rods
when you look at this thing?
It's a different hybrid from most manufacturers,
what they would do.
This is a 2011 hybrid.
So this technology has been around for quite a while.
It has an electric motor sandwiched between the engine
and transmission.
The system automatically switches back and forth
from gas and electric.
It can turn on at any moment when
it's charged but will usually activate if there
are undulations in the road.
It has a DC battery pack in the rear,
which adds power during acceleration or climbing hills.
But during easy cruising, the engine powers the car.
When the vehicle is decelerating or braking,
the electric motor becomes a generator
and converts the kinetic energy into electricity
and uses it to recharge the battery pack.
So it acts as an absorption unit, as a generator,
as a starter.
Yeah.
It sounds--
listen to this.
Check this out.
Listening?
Oh.
- Crazy, huh? - Yeah.
So it's once again using technology--
That is a screaming hot rod, Bisi.
I don't know. Yeah.
That's like, whoo. - It doesn't--
Just got my blood pumping.
Whoo!
God.
We're gonna need to do something major to this.
Yeah.
Yes.
So I want to see what we can do to spruce it up a little bit
and also make it more efficient.
The team is going to test the myth
that adding a turbo to a hybrid engine
will make it more fuel-efficient.
Will this modification give it better mileage?
Or will the extra boost turn it into a gas guzzler?
It's just a fuel system.
It's not a big deal, right? - Right.
No, not a big deal at all.
We'll figure this out.
All right.
I'm just going to start pulling out this plastic
and seeing what we're working with.
So the key component of this myth
is to be able to determine the ideal fuel
economy that this vehicle would see
before and after turbocharging.
Faye and I are removing some components so we can access
the car's stock fuel tank.
There it is.
Nice!
OK.
Nice. Oops.
Get that gasket. Thank you.
There we go. All right.
We've got the stock fuel pump removed.
So now we're going to fit it into an aftermarket fuel cell.
So we're going to cut a hole in this that's similar to this.
Yes.
This is going to be pretty easy.
The reason why we're going with an external fuel cell
is so that we can easily take it in and out of the car
because we're going to be measuring
our fuel consumption by weighing the gas
before and after our tests.
We need to modify the fuel cell to fit the stock
fuel pump so we can still talk to the car's computer
and not give us any issues when we put it back in the car.
- OK. - That looks beautiful.
Is that a good circle?
Oh, that is a perfect circle.
We are gluing this down with some high-strength epoxy
so that fuel and fuel vapors do not escape.
I love it.
- It looks just like factory. - It does!
And now we can use the same fittings--
Uh huh.
- -for the feed and for our evaporator function.
So to allow us to have accuracy with our own experiment,
what we're going to do is use the weight of fuel--
The weight.
- -as our means of measurement.
So we need to weigh the modified fuel cell without any gasoline.
Wow.
10.5.
10 and a half, yeah.
This fuel cell will hold 8 gallons.
And the weight of the gas we're using is 6 pounds per gallon.
So if we filled it up, it would weigh 48 pounds.
But we don't need that much gas for our tests.
How many pounds would you like to use for our experiment?
Probably like a nice, round number.
I like that.
Like, it's easy to remember every single time,
and we're not like, you know, 18.67523.
Oh, .
Sounds great.
But I mean, we could use any number, like, 20, 25, 30,
something like that. 30 pounds.
- So 30 pounds it is. - OK.
Well--
Nice round number, including the weight of our cell.
Yeah.
30.
We're ready to throw this thing in our hybrid,
connect everything, and get this thing started.
Faye, it looks good.
It actually does look really good.
It really does.
It looks pretty good.
I'm excited because I've never done this before.
This is weird.
I mean, why put a fuel cell in like, a hybrid.
This is cool!
I mean, no, it is cool.
It's cool.
It's a fuel cell.
It's cool.
I agree, it's cool.
All right.
So we're going to be taking a measurement of the weight
of this vehicle with our full fuel tank,
just so we can get a good baseline.
What does it weigh?
2,518 pounds.
Not bad.
Time to get on the dyno.
Yeah.
Before we take the hybrid out on the road,
this is our control test.
To see how much fuel it's going to burn,
we want to get a baseline of its miles per gallon on the dyno.
Now, the battery pack of the hybrid
will not be engaged when on the dyno
because there's no surface resistance, braking, or uphill
and downhill climbs.
So this will only give us the data on the combustion
engine of the hybrid.
Lowering Little Red.
We decided to set the cruise control at 45 miles
per hour and travel 14 miles because at that speed
and distance, it will allow for enough fuel
to be consumed to see any obvious changes in the fuel
economy.
All right.
We are off on our trip to nowhere.
Is this the most exciting dyno test you've ever done?
OK, guys.
14 miles.
All right.
Let's check the fuel consumption.
So initially, we started with a 30-pound tank.
So I'm curious to how much weight we have now.
.
Oh.
27.40.
Oh.
We consumed 0.43 gallons.
And since we traveled 14 miles, that is 32.3 miles per gallon.
Oh.
But that is a terrible amount of mileage for a hybrid.
Is it because we're on the dyno that it's not
kicking into the hybrid mode?
You're absolutely correct.
I did not initiate the electric motor whatsoever.
This is purely on petrol.
And for a petrol setup, that's not bad at all.
For 1.5 liters of fury, yeah.
But guess what?
So we can have fury, we need to take this on the road.
Maybe we should do two different kinds of roads.
We'll do a flat straightway--
Yes.
- -and then maybe take it into, like, hills.
Oh! Something mountaneous.
Maybe we go up to the mountains!
That'd be great!
Now that we have a baseline of the fuel
consumption using only the combustion engine,
it's time to test it in a real life scenario
and give the car a chance to utilize the electric motor.
We're going to go 14 miles at 45 miles per hour
and drive on two types of roads--
a flat road and then one with hills.
We're going to do the flat road first.
Since Bisi is going to be doing all the driving,
I chose a place with a nice view.
What do you think?
Do you love this spot?
It's beautiful. Good choice.
Yep.
24.4.
And we're just going
to take it up to 30 pounds.
That is correct.
Wow, you're good. Yeah!
- That's good. - Look at that.
We're going to put it back in the car, drive for 14 miles,
come back, measure it again, see how much fuel we burned.
OK.
All right.
You ready for a little road trip?
I am. But you know what's sad?
What's sad?
I have to look at the speed and the road,
and you get to enjoy the ocean.
Ah.
I promise I won't enjoy it.
This is actually a really perfect road
because it's just kind of straight away, pretty much flat
the whole way.
You're not putting a lot of effort.
No.
You're not putting a lot of stress
on the engine, which is good.
All right.
So this is our halfway point.
Yes.
So we're gonna turn around.
Flip it around.
So we're at 45 miles an hour.
Well, that was a lovely drive.
That was fun.
What do you think, Tory?
I don't know.
It feels a little bit lighter.
Ha ha!
Oh!
28.1!
Oh my God.
I'm going to do some calculations.
I'm going to say we did 45 miles per gallon.
OK.
So 1.88 is what we set in pounds.
And we know we have 6 pounds per gallon.
So that being said, divided by 6.
0.313--
Yep.
- -gallons is what we consumed.
So-- and we covered--
14.
- -14 miles.
14 divided by 0.31333 recurring.
That's not bad.
I almost called it.
44.7 miles per gallon.
But on dyno I think we did 32.3.
Yeah, it was pretty low.
- Yeah. - But it makes sense.
Think about it.
On the dyno we didn't have the electric motor come in at all.
Yeah.
Here, we had many opportunities
for the electric motor to help us
assist with the petrol engine.
Yeah.
And we had momentum.
So this is really good.
Yeah.
OK.
I'll put it back together. - All right.
Let's--
And then we'll head to the mountains
and do the same thing all over again.
Sounds good.
This is perfect, Bisi.
Yes, it is.
We got hills.
We got winding roads.
This is a perfect location.
We're going up, we're going down.
Yep.
We're using fuel.
We're creating some loads.
We're using the hybrid more efficiently.
All right.
Let's get this fuel cell up to 30 pounds.
Yes.
And then we'll run the test.
29.62.
30 pounds of fuel.
All right.
So we're going 7 miles down the hill, turn around--
Yes.
- -7 miles back up to that spot.
What's interesting now is, as we're going downhill slightly,
we're charging up our hybrid batteries.
So the electric motor is acting as an absorption unit
right now of energy instead of a generator.
Interesting.
It's gonna be interesting.
This is going to be a tough one. OK.
We're now exactly at our seven-mile mark.
So I'm gonna bust a U-ie.
All right.
Heading back up the hill.
7 miles down, 7 to go.
Here we go.
45 miles an hour.
Hit it.
Oh, my God.
This hybrid does not like this combination
of elevation and hills.
This drive is going to give us
a very realistic way to compare how a normal person would
be driving.
Because the myth is, can we improve
fuel efficiency by adding a turbocharger to a hybrid?
Right.
We are back.
Oh.
I can already tell.
Oh, you can just tell from lifting it up?
I'm guessing 27.
Yep.
27 pounds.
27.1 pounds right here.
How much fuel did we burn?
Wow.
27.5.
That's 2.5 pounds we consumed.
Here it is.
The moment of truth.
How many miles per gallon?
33.59.
So now we have a baseline for a level road.
We have a baseline for a hilly area.
Yeah.
I think we can go back to shop, slap a turbo system
on this thing, and do it again. - Yeah!
Let's slap a turbo on it. - I can't wait.
All right.
Now it's time to turbocharge.
You see, I just popped the hood already.
It's for a reason. - All right.
So what are we going to do here?
Everything is factory here.
So first course of action is to get rid
of all this stuff, all the induction,
get rid of the exhaust system, the bumper
because we're gonna have to put an intercooler in the front.
And I'm thinking about since this
is going to be a hot rod hybrid, place in the turbo right here.
OK.
I found the perfect size that can
allow us to have nice boost, even probably
double the power on this.
I can just see the excitement in your eyes right now.
I'm happy!
Like, putting a turbo--
Yes!
- -on a hybrid.
Like, is this like, the best day of your life?
I would put a turbo on a bicycle, if I could.
Before we install the turbocharging system,
we have to pull the engine apart just a little bit
and figure out where we want to position and mount the turbo,
waste gate, intercooler, and piping.
It's good, isn't it?
So what do you think, Tory?
Like, right here.
It's good, right?
Yep, I love it.
Tory and I took apart the whole front end on this hybrid.
And now comes the hard work.
I would love for this to come a little bit high here,
just-- just a little bit. - OK.
I need the help of our leader builder, Rose,
to fabricate some tubing from the exhaust to the turbo
and from the turbo to the intercooler.
So to take full advantage of this,
we can use a very small pipe and go straight
to the manifold of the turbine.
And I have a flange for you here.
Yeah.
This is the turbocharger's dream.
It is.
Like a very compact log manifold.
It's perfect.
So here's our issue.
Oval and a circle.
It's not quite round peg, square hole.
So this has to be put in the vise and the press
and forced into an oval shape.
You can see that we get pretty close,
within just a little bit of modification
here in the vise for one side.
Here it is.
Now we've squished it into this shape.
No worse for wear.
And there's the flange all the way around.
Four cylinders into one 3-inch tube.
It's beautiful.
All right.
Let's snake it back in.
Oh my God!
It's gorgeous.
Smashing job.
Thank you.
The turbo is in position.
But now we need to come up with a creative way to snake
the tubing to the intercooler.
Oh, that went in so nicely.
It's going to maybe take two pies in this area to get there.
I guess let's just start with a slice here.
So right now Rose Is
doing something very special.
She's creating pie cuts into the aluminum tubing to give it
a tight radius to go from the turbocharger
into the intercooler.
Oh, look at that. It's perfect.
Look at that.
.
The exhaust rods fabricated between the turbine
and intercooler fits perfectly.
Just a few more adjustments.
And then we are this close to the very first startup.
OK.
Hey!
Hey, it sounds cooler.
Yeah.
Should we see smoke coming
out of the engine like that? - Yes.
Well, only because we put some wrap around the manifold.
Oh, so it's starting to burn off.
Starting to burn off.
That's awesome.
I am so excited.
Everything is looking really good.
Initial start-up, car starts up very nicely, sounds good.
Idling beautifully.
The great thing now is, I get to put
everything back on the vehicle, tidy everything up.
I'm so excited. This is good.
This is really, really, really good.
I'll tell you what.
Just adding the turbo alone has made this hybrid
a million times cooler looking.
Well, thank you.
Not only does it look cool, it sounds really good, too.
All right.
Well, I guess the question is, is
it going to be fuel-efficient?
Yes.
But before we do that, maybe we should weight it and see what
it weighs compared to before.
OK.
All right.
The car's on the scale.
Yes.
So before, it was 25.18.
What!
It's literally the same exact weight as before.
But that makes sense.
I mean, we pulled parts off.
And then you added parts.
I mean, it's just amazing that we hit the exact same weight.
It really is.
Now it's time for the dyno.
I want to tune the engine as well as find out
how much performance we gained with the turbo
compared to the stock engine.
Looking at the dyno numbers, the stock engine torque was
89.10 lb-foot to the wheels.
And with the turbo jumped up to 127.43.
So the torque increased by 38.33 to the wheels.
The stock wheel horsepower was 84.87.
But with the turbo, it jumped up to a 133.58.
So we got 48.71 more horsepower to the ground.
That's over 50%.
Now that Bisi has tuned the engine,
we're going to do another quick test on the dyno
and see what data we get with the turbo install.
Once again, because it's on the dyno,
the electric motor will not automatically engage.
So this will only be testing the combustion engine.
My guess is, we're probably going
to be burning a lot more fuel.
All right. 14 miles.
Here we go.
Oh.
You can hear that turbo.
Here we go!
All right.
We made it.
Did the turbo make it more fuel-efficient or less?
That actually burned less fuel.
I honestly thought adding the turbo,
we were going to burn a ton more fuel.
The fact that we've consumed a little bit less is impressive.
Yes, it is.
OK.
6 pounds per gallon.
Yeah.
And we consumed 2.3.
So we got 36.5 miles per gallon.
And the last time we got--
32.3.
So we improved our gas mileage.
By 4 miles.
Mm-hmm.
I'm actually really surprised.
I thought adding the turbo, we were
going to burn a lot more fuel.
But we actually consumed 0.3 pounds less.
That is correct.
But in a lab setting or in our cathedral,
it could be one thing.
The real world would dictate what can actually happen.
So I'm going to pull this off the dyno.
- All right. - Let's head on the field.
We'll take a test. - Road trip.
I love it. - We'll see what happens.
Road trip!
When it was naturally aspirated pre-turbo,
we were here last time.
And we did a drive 7 miles down, U-turn, 7 miles back.
And we consumed 1.88 pounds of fuel.
And we got about 44.7 miles per gallon.
I say we get it back up to 30 pounds, do the run, come back,
see what happens.
right there.
30 pounds.
Let's see if we can save some fuel.
Oh, boy.
I don't know about this one.
So you're just like, in cruise control.
So far, so good.
We haven't overheated. - Yeah.
That's good. Oh.
So now the car is turbo. oh.
Feel that turbo working.
- Smooth. - You hear that?
Oh, boy.
But it's only spooling, which
does not burn additional fuel.
At 45 miles per hour, we shouldn't
go into boost on the flat road unless I floor
it, which I'm not going to do.
All right.
So this is our halfway point.
I'm really curious about how bad
the mountain drive is gonna be.
That's going to be--
That's going to be when we run out of gas
by the time we get to the--
It'll be fun, though.
All right, Bisi.
Wow.
I'm nervous because I heard a turbo spool.
Yeah. A couple of times.
Yeah.
It just sounded like gas was just, ah, depleting.
OK.
So last time, we burned through 1.88 pounds of fuel.
Yeah.
Oh, that's so close!
Oh!
1.8 pounds.
1.83.
So we got 44.7 miles per gallon on the run
without our turbo.
Yes.
And now we're at 45.9.
Almost 46 miles per gallon.
But wait.
Bisi, we did figure that here on a flat ground--
Yeah.
- -it was probably going to be close.
Yes.
That's correct.
Because we're not really using the turbo.
It's so close.
We consumed 1.88 before, pre-turbo.
Yeah.
With a turbo we improved 1.83.
I am impressed.
Well, we still have to go up the hill.
So we'll see what happens. - Yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the test of all tests.
This is going to be the hard one because driving
on a flat road, that was easy.
Now we're going to be going up and down hills.
We're going to be making turns.
This is going to be the real test.
You're right.
Every time we go uphill, we're going to be consuming fuel
because the turbo is going to kick in and push
more air into the engine.
And we may have a bit of an advantage
being that the electric system may kick in and assist us.
But I don't know.
It could go either way. - Yeah.
Let's find out.
So driving on a flat road is one thing.
Driving in the hills, that's a whole other beast.
So we're back here in the mountains.
We're going to drive down the hill 7 miles,
turn around and drive back up and see if adding that turbo
makes this hybrid more fuel-efficient.
It's going to be an uphill battle.
Get it?
I get it.
All right.
This is mountain roads test hybrid with a turbo.
Yep.
7 down, 7 back up.
Here we go.
I feel like this test is going to give us
the answer we're looking for.
See, we got a little uphill climb here.
Yeah.
Oh, boy.
I hear that turbo working.
Oh, not good.
See, it's interesting.
I feel like the turbo really didn't
have a chance to work that hard when
we were driving near the beach.
You're correct.
Now we're giving him a little bit of a challenge.
Plus that little hill we did right now,
all of my assist is gone from the electric motor.
My battery is completely depleted.
Oh.
So I need to get some down downhill to charge it back up.
But we're all petrol engine right now.
So on this downhill
you could start charging.
So I am charging.
So I got one bar to my battery right now.
Good.
So any of the energy I'm then using for engine braking
and throwing away, or energy I'm using for braking
goes back regeneratively into the battery pack.
Yeah.
That's the beauty of the hybrid.
Yes, it is.
But now we've added a turbo.
And that may have negated the effectiveness of the hybrid.
We'll see.
All right.
We are at our turning point.
Heading back up the hill.
Now the hard part.
Oh, boy. Oh my.
OK.
I don't think anything's going to prevent us from consuming
fuel on these hills.
We've literally been going
in turbo mode this whole way.
I hear it.
Yeah.
Hey, if anything, it looks cooler, and it sounds cooler.
Yes, it does.
This is one of those things like, I
never even thought about.
And now I can't wait to find out whether putting
a turbo on a hybrid makes it more fuel-efficient.
Will the turbo--
Oh, my goodness.
--make a difference--
On the hybrid?
We are about to find out.
I'm afraid.
Tory, that was really nerve-wracking.
You know what, though?
One thing I did notice, our fuel gauge went way down.
Yes.
That makes sense. - Yeah, it does make sense.
Because we were going up and down.
But how does it compare to the pounds of fuel
that we consumed last time we were here pre-turbo?
OK.
27.2.
So what do we get miles per gallon?
29.9 miles per gallon.
Pretty much 30 miles per gallon.
Yeah.
So we lost a few miles.
All right.
Why do I feel that you're so excited about these results?
Well, I had a feeling that adding the turbo,
we would consume more fuel.
And this actually confirms what I was saying.
But this is hard because it's like, on a perfect driving
situation on a flat road, it was confirmed.
Putting the turbo into the hybrid
actually made it more fuel-efficient.
But out here in the mountains closer to even normal
driving with undulations going up and down,
we actually consumed more fuel, which
doesn't really surprise me.
Overall, the aftermarket turbo kit
removed restrictions in the intake
and exhaust that allow for better breathability, which
translates to more efficiency.
On the dyno, the stock engine did 32.3 miles per gallon.
With the turbo, it improved by 4 more miles per gallon.
When the turbo was in the real world,
it only spooled on the flat road.
And the electric assist did not kick in.
So we saved 1.3 miles per gallon.
Here in the hills, the turbo was very active.
And the electric motor also engaged multiple times.
But compared to the stock engine,
it lost 3.5 miles per gallon.
Yeah.
So I'm guessing maybe we meet in the middle,
and we call this one plausible.
I agree with you.
But you know what, though, Bisi?
Hmm.
This is called the hybrid hot ride.
And this hybrid is far from a hot rod right now.
Yes, I agree.
And adding a turbo is hot rod.
And it gave us a gain of 85 more horsepower.
I think we should take it back to the shop
and do a little bit of work on it.
I have an idea, too.
Just something else I want to play with on this vehicle
as well. - Oh, yeah?
What's that?
You know, I haven't touched the hybrid side,
as in the electric side.
So I need to play around with that a little bit.
All right.
See if I can eke out a little bit more power
and make this even more enjoyable.
Now that we have the results of our myth,
it's time for our biggest challenge--
turning this horrifying hybrid into a hot rod.
But don't worry.
We know just the person for the job.
Didn't you train under somebody that's
the master of all hot rodders and like, car design?
Yeah, I did.
I trained under the King of Customs.
Gene Winfield.
He's like an automotive design god.
That's what we need.
We need like, his vision.
Can you call him?
See if he'd be up for this?
I'll see.
We'll see if you can go to the desert hideout and pick him up.
Oh, my God!
I'll drive there now.
You should drive this there and pick him up.
That's actually not a bad idea.
He may love it.
"Blade Runner" and "Robocop" are two of my most
favorite movies of all time.
Yeah.
That's great.
What was your inspiration as a kid?
Like, how did you get into building cars?
First of all, when I was in high school I was drawing cars.
And instead of doing the history books, you know, I was--
I was drawing cars.
And--
You weren't paying attention in class?
Not at-- not at all.
Gene is an automotive legend.
And we're so excited to have him in the shop.
Nice to meet you.
I can't wait to see what he comes up with.
I'm like, my hands are sweating.
So Gene, what do you envision for this automobile?
Do you think of something that's retro
or something really futuristic?
It's a piece of crap.
But-- but we can save it.
Oh, good. - No.
It's-- it's all right.
It's typical of-- of today's car.
There's so many of them that look the same.
Yeah.
I've got some ideas already.
Gene sketched some designs and then went to work.
He started at the front of the vehicle
but focused mostly on the rear bumper.
You know how fortunate we are to see this firsthand?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
This is ridiculous.
By cutting this back, the bars will follow through.
And then do you see, like, the inside,
once we cut this out, we're going to have this empty space.
Well, it's going to be like this.
Yeah. OK.
It was an honor to have him work with us.
And now that we have some design inspiration,
it's finally time to turn this hybrid into a hot rod.
OK.
So I'm going to start working on the design
that Gene Winfield helped us come up with.
We taped up the original bumper.
But now that we have these fiberglass pieces,
we need to tape these up and actually cut and fabricate
on top of this piece.
So now that we've got the design set,
we have everything taped up, it's time to start cutting
our flat bar stock of steel.
Once we have those pieces cut, then we can weld
them together, polish it up.
The hood is a little bit wacky with this giant hole
and the turbo sticking out of the top.
So we're going to build in a hood scoop.
So this is kind of an Ed Big Daddy Roth thing.
Big Daddy would use plaster.
And he'd have a chassis with the engine and the transmission.
And he would just kind of throw like, a drop
cloth or something over it.
And then he would just start loading plaster
and sculpt the top of it.
So for us, we're just going to throw this tape all over it
and cover the critical components.
Rose and Tory are making
great progress on the bodywork.
So I'm going to turn my attention to unlocking more
power in the electric motor.
Now, I want to use a try and true tuner secret, which
is using resistors to trick the factory
ECU into doing things we want.
In this case, I'm going to put together
what is known as a fooler system so that the high voltage
system can think that the current it's receiving
is less than it actually is.
And by doing that, we'll get a nice boost in electric power.
I'm dealing with the high voltage systems right now.
And I'm taking a couple of precautions that
are critical to getting access to these high panels
and not injuring yourself.
One, I'm using a Class 0 glove, which
protects me up to 1,000 volts.
But there's one other parameter I'm taking very seriously.
Keeping my left hand behind my back.
That way, I do not complete a circuit between myself
and any grounding on the chassis because, you know,
really bad things can happen.
If you do not have a working knowledge of electricity,
high voltage systems and electrical engineering,
please do not do this.
This is seriously, extremely dangerous.
Nonetheless, it's time to take this off.
Whoo. That's it.
OK.
That's the computer.
I'm going to get that out and have some fun.
The scoop is taking shape.
I'm going to take a little body filler and put it on top
and give it a kind of a shell so it gains some height,
a little bit of clearance.
We covered the turbo.
We went from the center to the back of the hood
to make this transition.
And that's kind of what it's saying to me.
It's saying, make it small at the front
and open it up at the back.
Wow.
That's it.
So now I have the ECU out.
I'm going to open this up, modify it accordingly
with simple resistors to give it a nice boost
of electrical power.
The design's coming together perfectly.
We just need to add a few more bars across
just to complete the grill.
Gene would be proud.
Yeah.
I knew it'd be a challenge to turn
this hybrid into a hot rod.
But we did the best we could with what we had.
But hey, that's what the essence of hot rodding is all about.
With our modifications complete, we
gave it a "Motor Mythbusters" paint job
and took it to the track for another test.
Look at this.
Just take a step back.
I mean, look at how beautiful that is.
It's very like, "Fast and the Furious"-esque.
Right?
But it's a little bit like "Mad Max" too.
- Yeah. - Yes.
Hand-crafted.
Look at this beautiful duct tape wrap.
Oh, that--
that's probably my favorite part of the entire aesthetic element
of the modification.
It was very, very time-consuming.
But it was worth it.
Yes!
A labor of love.
Well, above and beyond the aesthetic appeal, in the rear,
I have what is known as a proper fooler
to enhance the electrical side of the hybrid system.
Oh. How does that work?
Well, what it does,
it intercepts the signal to the motor control module--
OK.
- -and tricks it using five relays that
allow for interruption of signals and reducing
signals to the MCM.
And the controller thinks, wait a minute.
I'm not getting as much power as I want out of the motor.
So it sends more power to it, hence getting fooled
and creating more energy for us.
Gosh.
So this thing must actually do pretty good.
It's like electric nitrous.
Oh!
Do you think this is a hot rod?
I don't know if I can even imagine
anything hybrid being in the same category as a hot rod.
For me, when I think hot rodding,
I really think the spirit of taking something that
is a certain way and infusing your own DNA into it
and making it really hot and cool to your own tastes.
So whether it's a hybrid, an EV, an old school Restomod.
I think it all can embrace the spirit of hot rodding
if it appeals to your soul a certain way.
You know what?
I think we've talked about this enough.
I think it's time we race for pink slips.
I like that.
Yeah.
The future versus-- The past.
- --the dinosaurs. - No!
The classic. Ah ha ha!
- All right. - Sounds good.
All right.
And it's tradition.
The time has come to christen the hot rod hybrid.
Now, this clearly isn't a very even drag race.
3, 2, 1!
Go!
This Ford Roadster dominates.
Nice work. - Yeah.
But Bisi was so excited
about the modifications, we wanted to give
them a chance to show them off.
So to make sure that everything is set up,
in this car we have the gasoline side and electric side
in perfect unison.
But I want to optimize everything.
So on the gasoline side, I'm going to put
everything in sport mode.
And for the electric motor, I have
this fooler set up that acts like an electronic boost setup.
So with a press of a button, it's going to send
more energy to electric motors.
And I'll have a nice amount of boost of power.
Are you ready, BC?
3, 2, 1!
You got to wait till we say go.
Time top hit the electronic boost.
Here we go.
You cannot mess with technology!
Oh, my goodness.
It's perfect.
This is perfect.
That was probably the most fun I've ever had with the hybrid.
Yeah.
I mean, it was fun.
I could really tell from the look on your face.
Ha, ha! He's so happy!
- Bet it all! - It's not hard to see.
We should really be proud of ourselves.
We took this vehicle that was a factory ho hum hybrid
and made it into a masterpiece involving
technology and aesthetics.
It's amazing.
And it's so much fun to drive.
It really is.
Building our own hybrid hot rod.
This was just-- I mean, it was so ridiculous.
But so much fun. All right.
Should we head home? - Yeah.
Sounds good to me. - All right.
Race you.
Uh, sure.
We're going to take the scenic route.
Absolutely.
We're going to take it slow.
Enjoy the beauty.