For those of you who are able to read french you should have no problem taking in all the article has to offer, but for those who aren't able to read french, here's an abridged version as translated by me:
Racer and tuner Marcel Maurel, known to the Lada community for driving a Turbo'ed Lada in the 1981 Paris-Dakar, was hired by Jean-Jacques Poch to build a Niva that could be used to demonstrate the turbo's potential use to Russian manufacturer VAZ in the hopes of getting them to produce a factory turbo'ed Niva. The stock Niva's 78HP sucks. Using a Garett T3 from a Renault 5 or 18, boost is set to about 8psi and gets stuffed through an air-air intercooler (from a Reanult 18) before passing down the gullet of a Solex 24mm single barrel carb. A custom mold was made to cast a new intake manifold to accept the Solex. Fuel economy remains near stock when not boosting. The 4.3:1 diffs and 4 speed transmission are wayyyy to short to handle this kind of powerband and severely limit the top speed capabilities of the Niva. The production version would only boost about 6psi or less and produce about 110HP but this version, running at 8psi boost makes well over 160HP. No modifications other than the ones listed were made to the Niva but bigger brakes would certainly be in order on a production vehicle.
