A $2,000 Mini Truck Build: Pushing Limits and Expectations

The project began with an ambitious goal to create a car that would pull like a train once HBoost came on. The engine was modified to produce over 100 more horsepower than a similar dyno test suggested. However, the real challenge lay in understanding when to shift gears to maximize performance. "I think we got to delete the jannel now," the driver said, jokingly about jumping the gun and being late with their shifts.

The car's acceleration was indeed impressive, but it was clear that having a strong turbo engine was not enough to make it truly fast. A drag race was only one aspect of the project; to fully understand its capabilities, a hot lap around the streets of Willow would be necessary. Jeremiah Burton, a resident race car driver, took on the challenge, piloting both cars with his extensive knowledge of the track.

The first lap was not without incident, as the High Car's electrical system failed, causing a smoke-filled cabin and prompting concerns about engine damage. However, after a few laps, the team assessed the situation and continued. Meanwhile, Jeremiah took to the track in the WRX, utilizing its new modifications, including coilovers and tires, to achieve impressive results.

The outcome was a significant improvement over the stock High Car. A hot lap revealed that the WRX was not only faster but also more agile, with less tire noise and a more responsive handling. The comparison was stark, with the WRX posting a time of 12.97 seconds, just a few seconds slower than its predecessor.

The question on everyone's mind was whether it had been worth spending all that time modifying High Car. While the project was certainly bland on the outside, the new WRX remained an iconic rally car on the inside. Its performance and handling were undeniable, making it a worthy successor to the original. For those who have followed our channel, we are excited to announce a giveaway for four lucky winners.

We are giving away the original wheels from the High Car, signed by the entire Donut crew. To enter, simply click the link in the description below or head over to Donut media.com and click on the banner. The giveaway ends on November 10th, so don't sleep – go do it now!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is a brand new Subaru WRX and it costs about $30,000 and this is a 2006 Subaru WRX that we've spent over $30,000 modifying today we're going to put both cars to the test and see if spending thousands of dollars in countless manh hours on a 20-year-old car is actually worth it yeah we're going to see how they handle some different terrains and then we're going to put them head-to-head in a track battle welcome to Donut now I know what you're thinking how on Earth could a 20-year-old car cost over $30,000 well that's because we spent a lot of time and money modifying this thing to turn it into a full-fledged time attack car we've upgraded everything wheels and tires suspension brakes the engine the turbo the interior we didn't spare a single penny on this car top of the line Parts which has all added up to about what it would cost you to get a WRX from the dealership brand new it's pretty stupid to be honest but high low is all about modifying a daily driver that you can also take to the track So today we're going to be testing this car up against its brand new baby brother we're going to be leaving from IPL headquarters here in Englewood and going all the way up to Willow Springs racetrack first test is going to be on the city streets let's see how they do whether you're working on a project car or gearing up for a hectic holiday season your time is valuable and that's why today's sponsor Factor offers you fresh Frozen high quality meals that are ready in Just 2 minutes forget about the shopping The Chopping the prepping and cleaning Factor simplifies nutrition with regularly updated menus boasting over 27 ready to eat meals and 33 add-on options there's something for everybody I'm talking keto calorie smart Chef's piic or my box for the week vegan and vegetarian today I'm having the roasted artichoke and red pepper cream lasagnette save time this November and enjoy delicious meals with Factor click the link below or visit factor75.com and use code donut 50 to get 50% off your first Factor box that's factor75.com with promo code donut 50 back in the saddle we got a big old orange horse we're riding her again every time you hop in this thing to drive it's like a bit of an event for the power and like the modifications we made to this thing it's an easy car to drive the clutch isn't crazy it's easy to get off the line it doesn't drive like a race car it drives like a car that also happens to handle really well and make good power the least comfortable thing about it it's got to be the seats but that's always going to be the case when you do bucket race seats I mean yeah these are serious seats once you in these seats you're in them I mean even you know being in a parking lot like at a gas station or something if you have to switch pumps like looking over your shoulders and stuff is a little hard but you forget about all that real quickly when you start driving speaking of convenience uh we do need to get some fuel hold on E85 is this one one of the most effective mods that we made to this car is converting it to E85 or Flex fuel we want E85 for the track to really bumps up our horsepower we do get worse gas mileage with E85 but at this gas station at least it's about half as much as regular gas E85 is kind of hard to come by in this part of Los Angeles yeah strangely it is not as easy as just pulling into the next gas station you see oo 659 for regular 329 for E85 I mean you'd be dumb not to drive a 20-year-old subar you can smell it mhm smell that corn this car kind of smells like a locker room a little bit I mean listen here's here's the hard facts this car has 197,000 M on it it's a little bit beat up around the edges yeah this car can legally vote old cars tend to break more often than brand new ones yeah especially when you modify them a lot it took a few tries to get it started this morning that is true sweet beyond the work that we put into this thing to modify it the amount of man hours that have gone into it to just maintain it and keep it running I wouldn't say are astronomical but they are quantifiable yeah but depending on the type of person you are that's something you're totally okay with 100% okay now we are in the 2023 Subaru WRX woo brand new car initial thoughts right off the bat yeah it's okay it's fine what it's fine I'm not as engaged you know it doesn't sound as cool it doesn't feel quite as cool but it's not like it's doing badly steering feels okay it's a little bit light but it's not bad it's pretty predictable it's agile it goes where you want it the CL is really light the shift action is pretty good I like the shift knob it feels good it's got some weight to it it's got a little click when you drop it in you know it's doing the job that I think a lot of people need a car to do and really nothing more mhm this feels like a babysitter own it yeah I don't know I mean maybe that's smart business maybe they'll sell a bunch of units but I I don't know I'm feeling like I could take a nap right now please don't please don't I really hate the carbon fiber trim I hate the fake Carbon Trim fake Carbon Trim fake aluminum trim and it's only half blue the other half is black plastic yeah now to be fair this is only the base model WRX if you want to spend another $10,000 you can get the GT model which has a few cool upgrades like electronic dampers and ricaro seats but it only comes with a CVT I.E no manual transmission and that seems like it won't be changed for next year's 2024 WRX unless you buy the new TR trim which is set to cost almost $50,000 but that doesn't mean that the base model is without its fault either uh I'm a little annoyed that you have to use the key yeah it's 2023 right buying a new car is like a Monumental yeah it's like the second biggest purchase of your life for sure and especially a lower trim car like this this is often someone's first brand new car purchase so give them them some cool stuff I mean you got the screens but give them the push button start dude what is the world coming to yeah that's fun she got a belly full of corn and she's farting now this is where this car belongs yeah this is why we built this thing going fast in this car is a huge pain and the noises that it makes when you shift while going fast are really really fun and exciting yeah listen to this I mean it's crazy how much more personality you add to a car when you put parts on it like I always personify cars quite a bit I feel like this car is proud of itself and it's trying to succeed yeah it's like grateful that we gave it the opportunity to be really good yeah it's it's got a whole second l you know it is itself there's not a single car on the planet that is exactly like this one right okay so we knew this car was going to be comfortable on the street on the highway but how does it do in the canyon here it becomes apparent how much less support we have in the seats M I'm definitely moving a whole lot more even doing the speed M through these uh twists right here I'm kind of falling out of the top of the seat yeah I'm definitely using my legs more to stabilize myself which is the reason that you get Aftermarket seats so you can not hold yourself up and focus on driving this thing is just silent oh yeah super quiet you know what some people might like that you could talk in a whisper I'd say most people yeah I think might be something wrong with us oh for sure but gripes aside there's one thing that is really nice about owning a new car it's got 1500 miles on the clock there's a sense of peace that comes with that yeah I would drive this car anywhere confidently absolutely like if this thing breaks then something that wasn't supposed to happen happen if High car breaks it's like expected in fact if you took that car on a long road trip and it didn't break everybody would be blown away pleasantly surprised I don't know I mean at the core of all this I'm just not not a new car guy it doesn't have any personality it's not like doing anything if you bought a High car and you brought it to work everybody would be like checking it out and like oh dude this thing's so cool oh what what's that exhaust BL blah blah and if you pulled up in this people would be like oh cool do you like it yeah how is it and then they would just go right back to doing what they were doing for sure no one would stand up and come outside exactly and that's the attention I need the the amount of trouble and money I will go through to get a little bit of attention from another boy is insane yeah it almost doesn't even make sense yeah this is a fine car it's a fine car it's just a little boring but the canyons are one thing the track is another so we're going to put these two wrx's head-to-head first in a drag race and then in a Time Attack Battle if High car doesn't win we'll delete the channel promise I'm saying a High car takes this by uh uh six car lengths okay yeah the only way the blue one beats the orange one is if the orange one blows up exactly which is like 50/50 yeah 2 1 a win but it wasn't like a super Landslide it was maybe a couple car lengths but yeah this thing pulls like a train once H boost comes on the Rev range in this thing is so short got him off the line but then he just ate me once he got into boost so I guess I'll pay attention to when I should shift better this time off wa it's close no way no way I think we got to delete the jannel now I jumped the gun a little bit yeah and I think I was a little late you had like two car LS I was catching up but one more all right 3 2 1 the thing is fast I mean again no surprises there it has a lot more horsepower than this thing depending on which dyn we use more than 100 more horsepower once the turbo pulls up on my car and it hits boost just bye-bye but it takes more than just a drag race to be truly fast let's see what both of these cars can do in a hot lap so we've got one of our resident race car drivers Jeremiah Burton piloting both cars around streets of Willow now he knows this track really well so he should be able to put down a pretty quick time for both cars all right here we go and here he comes in High car sounds good dude it does sound good and it looks great went in fast dude looking good this is a the fun Corner what happened I don't know that's slow is he just playing a room did he break it lost everything yeah smok did you break it I don't know just a bunch of smoke just started billowing into the cabin like out of the vents yeah it smells a little electrically in here yeah it does okay so we are running into one of the major drawbacks of having an extremely modified car something broke first lap out the blue car might be faster the only way the blue one beats the orange one is if the orange one blows up smells like something yeah it smells like not an engine thing not good okay but an electrical fire like probably won't spread that uh well hey let's see what happens this time uh I predict I'm going to do a I'll probably do A45 right here I know the intricacies of a race car hey don't touch it like that here we go looking good much nicer oh call me you he's right he's right that's a 1246 he call a 1245 pretty good bumper falls off right on Q now let's see what the new WRX can do I'm guessing 1137 all right so I'm going to hold myself so flop over your seat yeah you're going to have to hold yourself a little bit I think I've got a nice o crap handle over here yep oh my God a lot more tire noise and there's no other noises to mask the tire noise I mean it doesn't look bad I hope it's at least a few seconds longer holy how's it feel not as bad as I thought it's certainly faster than High car was stock yeah definitely so Subaru has made some improvement yeah you know if it was a head-to-head race between High car when it was stock and that it got smoked starting to smell the brakes a little little bit coming in quick that's about all she had okay we got a 12 9.71 he was only a few seconds slower in the new WRX versus high WRX that's pretty good with the war warranty so you give it some coilovers and some tires and you're probably right there pretty impressive surprisingly good yeah so was it worth spending all that time modifying High car I think so but while it's a little Bland on the outside the new WRX is still the same old rally icon on the inside thanks for watching you've seen our $2,000 mini truck here on the channel now it's time for you to a piece of this bad boy that's right for four lucky winners we're giving away the original wheels from the Chang Le signed by the whole donut crew and a gift card to Donut media.com all you have to do is click the link in the description below or head over to Donut media.com and click the banner make sure you go do it now because this giveaway ends on November 10th go click so don't sleep go do it right nowthis is a brand new Subaru WRX and it costs about $30,000 and this is a 2006 Subaru WRX that we've spent over $30,000 modifying today we're going to put both cars to the test and see if spending thousands of dollars in countless manh hours on a 20-year-old car is actually worth it yeah we're going to see how they handle some different terrains and then we're going to put them head-to-head in a track battle welcome to Donut now I know what you're thinking how on Earth could a 20-year-old car cost over $30,000 well that's because we spent a lot of time and money modifying this thing to turn it into a full-fledged time attack car we've upgraded everything wheels and tires suspension brakes the engine the turbo the interior we didn't spare a single penny on this car top of the line Parts which has all added up to about what it would cost you to get a WRX from the dealership brand new it's pretty stupid to be honest but high low is all about modifying a daily driver that you can also take to the track So today we're going to be testing this car up against its brand new baby brother we're going to be leaving from IPL headquarters here in Englewood and going all the way up to Willow Springs racetrack first test is going to be on the city streets let's see how they do whether you're working on a project car or gearing up for a hectic holiday season your time is valuable and that's why today's sponsor Factor offers you fresh Frozen high quality meals that are ready in Just 2 minutes forget about the shopping The Chopping the prepping and cleaning Factor simplifies nutrition with regularly updated menus boasting over 27 ready to eat meals and 33 add-on options there's something for everybody I'm talking keto calorie smart Chef's piic or my box for the week vegan and vegetarian today I'm having the roasted artichoke and red pepper cream lasagnette save time this November and enjoy delicious meals with Factor click the link below or visit factor75.com and use code donut 50 to get 50% off your first Factor box that's factor75.com with promo code donut 50 back in the saddle we got a big old orange horse we're riding her again every time you hop in this thing to drive it's like a bit of an event for the power and like the modifications we made to this thing it's an easy car to drive the clutch isn't crazy it's easy to get off the line it doesn't drive like a race car it drives like a car that also happens to handle really well and make good power the least comfortable thing about it it's got to be the seats but that's always going to be the case when you do bucket race seats I mean yeah these are serious seats once you in these seats you're in them I mean even you know being in a parking lot like at a gas station or something if you have to switch pumps like looking over your shoulders and stuff is a little hard but you forget about all that real quickly when you start driving speaking of convenience uh we do need to get some fuel hold on E85 is this one one of the most effective mods that we made to this car is converting it to E85 or Flex fuel we want E85 for the track to really bumps up our horsepower we do get worse gas mileage with E85 but at this gas station at least it's about half as much as regular gas E85 is kind of hard to come by in this part of Los Angeles yeah strangely it is not as easy as just pulling into the next gas station you see oo 659 for regular 329 for E85 I mean you'd be dumb not to drive a 20-year-old subar you can smell it mhm smell that corn this car kind of smells like a locker room a little bit I mean listen here's here's the hard facts this car has 197,000 M on it it's a little bit beat up around the edges yeah this car can legally vote old cars tend to break more often than brand new ones yeah especially when you modify them a lot it took a few tries to get it started this morning that is true sweet beyond the work that we put into this thing to modify it the amount of man hours that have gone into it to just maintain it and keep it running I wouldn't say are astronomical but they are quantifiable yeah but depending on the type of person you are that's something you're totally okay with 100% okay now we are in the 2023 Subaru WRX woo brand new car initial thoughts right off the bat yeah it's okay it's fine what it's fine I'm not as engaged you know it doesn't sound as cool it doesn't feel quite as cool but it's not like it's doing badly steering feels okay it's a little bit light but it's not bad it's pretty predictable it's agile it goes where you want it the CL is really light the shift action is pretty good I like the shift knob it feels good it's got some weight to it it's got a little click when you drop it in you know it's doing the job that I think a lot of people need a car to do and really nothing more mhm this feels like a babysitter own it yeah I don't know I mean maybe that's smart business maybe they'll sell a bunch of units but I I don't know I'm feeling like I could take a nap right now please don't please don't I really hate the carbon fiber trim I hate the fake Carbon Trim fake Carbon Trim fake aluminum trim and it's only half blue the other half is black plastic yeah now to be fair this is only the base model WRX if you want to spend another $10,000 you can get the GT model which has a few cool upgrades like electronic dampers and ricaro seats but it only comes with a CVT I.E no manual transmission and that seems like it won't be changed for next year's 2024 WRX unless you buy the new TR trim which is set to cost almost $50,000 but that doesn't mean that the base model is without its fault either uh I'm a little annoyed that you have to use the key yeah it's 2023 right buying a new car is like a Monumental yeah it's like the second biggest purchase of your life for sure and especially a lower trim car like this this is often someone's first brand new car purchase so give them them some cool stuff I mean you got the screens but give them the push button start dude what is the world coming to yeah that's fun she got a belly full of corn and she's farting now this is where this car belongs yeah this is why we built this thing going fast in this car is a huge pain and the noises that it makes when you shift while going fast are really really fun and exciting yeah listen to this I mean it's crazy how much more personality you add to a car when you put parts on it like I always personify cars quite a bit I feel like this car is proud of itself and it's trying to succeed yeah it's like grateful that we gave it the opportunity to be really good yeah it's it's got a whole second l you know it is itself there's not a single car on the planet that is exactly like this one right okay so we knew this car was going to be comfortable on the street on the highway but how does it do in the canyon here it becomes apparent how much less support we have in the seats M I'm definitely moving a whole lot more even doing the speed M through these uh twists right here I'm kind of falling out of the top of the seat yeah I'm definitely using my legs more to stabilize myself which is the reason that you get Aftermarket seats so you can not hold yourself up and focus on driving this thing is just silent oh yeah super quiet you know what some people might like that you could talk in a whisper I'd say most people yeah I think might be something wrong with us oh for sure but gripes aside there's one thing that is really nice about owning a new car it's got 1500 miles on the clock there's a sense of peace that comes with that yeah I would drive this car anywhere confidently absolutely like if this thing breaks then something that wasn't supposed to happen happen if High car breaks it's like expected in fact if you took that car on a long road trip and it didn't break everybody would be blown away pleasantly surprised I don't know I mean at the core of all this I'm just not not a new car guy it doesn't have any personality it's not like doing anything if you bought a High car and you brought it to work everybody would be like checking it out and like oh dude this thing's so cool oh what what's that exhaust BL blah blah and if you pulled up in this people would be like oh cool do you like it yeah how is it and then they would just go right back to doing what they were doing for sure no one would stand up and come outside exactly and that's the attention I need the the amount of trouble and money I will go through to get a little bit of attention from another boy is insane yeah it almost doesn't even make sense yeah this is a fine car it's a fine car it's just a little boring but the canyons are one thing the track is another so we're going to put these two wrx's head-to-head first in a drag race and then in a Time Attack Battle if High car doesn't win we'll delete the channel promise I'm saying a High car takes this by uh uh six car lengths okay yeah the only way the blue one beats the orange one is if the orange one blows up exactly which is like 50/50 yeah 2 1 a win but it wasn't like a super Landslide it was maybe a couple car lengths but yeah this thing pulls like a train once H boost comes on the Rev range in this thing is so short got him off the line but then he just ate me once he got into boost so I guess I'll pay attention to when I should shift better this time off wa it's close no way no way I think we got to delete the jannel now I jumped the gun a little bit yeah and I think I was a little late you had like two car LS I was catching up but one more all right 3 2 1 the thing is fast I mean again no surprises there it has a lot more horsepower than this thing depending on which dyn we use more than 100 more horsepower once the turbo pulls up on my car and it hits boost just bye-bye but it takes more than just a drag race to be truly fast let's see what both of these cars can do in a hot lap so we've got one of our resident race car drivers Jeremiah Burton piloting both cars around streets of Willow now he knows this track really well so he should be able to put down a pretty quick time for both cars all right here we go and here he comes in High car sounds good dude it does sound good and it looks great went in fast dude looking good this is a the fun Corner what happened I don't know that's slow is he just playing a room did he break it lost everything yeah smok did you break it I don't know just a bunch of smoke just started billowing into the cabin like out of the vents yeah it smells a little electrically in here yeah it does okay so we are running into one of the major drawbacks of having an extremely modified car something broke first lap out the blue car might be faster the only way the blue one beats the orange one is if the orange one blows up smells like something yeah it smells like not an engine thing not good okay but an electrical fire like probably won't spread that uh well hey let's see what happens this time uh I predict I'm going to do a I'll probably do A45 right here I know the intricacies of a race car hey don't touch it like that here we go looking good much nicer oh call me you he's right he's right that's a 1246 he call a 1245 pretty good bumper falls off right on Q now let's see what the new WRX can do I'm guessing 1137 all right so I'm going to hold myself so flop over your seat yeah you're going to have to hold yourself a little bit I think I've got a nice o crap handle over here yep oh my God a lot more tire noise and there's no other noises to mask the tire noise I mean it doesn't look bad I hope it's at least a few seconds longer holy how's it feel not as bad as I thought it's certainly faster than High car was stock yeah definitely so Subaru has made some improvement yeah you know if it was a head-to-head race between High car when it was stock and that it got smoked starting to smell the brakes a little little bit coming in quick that's about all she had okay we got a 12 9.71 he was only a few seconds slower in the new WRX versus high WRX that's pretty good with the war warranty so you give it some coilovers and some tires and you're probably right there pretty impressive surprisingly good yeah so was it worth spending all that time modifying High car I think so but while it's a little Bland on the outside the new WRX is still the same old rally icon on the inside thanks for watching you've seen our $2,000 mini truck here on the channel now it's time for you to a piece of this bad boy that's right for four lucky winners we're giving away the original wheels from the Chang Le signed by the whole donut crew and a gift card to Donut media.com all you have to do is click the link in the description below or head over to Donut media.com and click the banner make sure you go do it now because this giveaway ends on November 10th go click so don't sleep go do it right now