Nissan just ruined Porsche’s summer vacation. Instead of having some quiet time to work on the 998 generation of the 911, Porsche is now going to have to try and recapture bragging rights at the Nurburgring from the 2010 GT-R.
There has been some bad blood between Porsche and Nissan lately over the legitimacy of the 2009 GT-R’s 7m 29s run around the Ring. Porsche claims the car was heavily modified, and Nissan claims Porsche is a sore loser over the slower GT2.
Just to prove its point, Nissan took a 2010 GT-R (which got a 5 hp bump and a few other minor tweaks) back to Germany. The result: a lap time of 7m 27.56s, which now even beats Porsche’s top ring time of 7m 28.71s in a Carrera GT.
Nissan says it’s not done making lap record attempts. The next stop is the Corvette ZR1’s 7m 26.4s time, but that’s still a far cry from the production car top spot of the Dodge Viper ACR’s 7m 22.1s.
The Japanese super tuners Tommy Kaira are well known for creating their own custom vehicles from high-performance machines. The aero specialists have announced that they will soon be setting their sights on Nissan’s next generation of sports and super cars the 370Z and GT-R. Expect nothing short of amazing to wear the company’s signature in the near future.
Nissan has just unveiled their GT1 spec R35 GT-R that is scheduled to compete in the full 2010 FIA GT1 season. Debuting at the FIA’s media days at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, the race spec GT-R was a joined effort between Nissan’s in house motor sport division Nismo and the Essex based GT1 racers Gigawave Motorsports.
GT-R tuners South Side Performance have just released two different replacement clutch packs for the VR38 powered beast from the east. The SSP SS Clutch pack is a direct replacement for the factory unit, while the SSP RS Clutch pack features a 25% larger surface area for those who wish to make up to 700 HP with their Nissan GT-R.
Eisenmann, the Stuttgart-based tuners traditionally manufacture exhaust systems for high-end European automakers like Mercedes and McLaren. However even they could not turn away the Nissan GT-R, at a Japanese customer’s request they constructed a one-off stainless steel exhaust that begins with a custom Y-pipe.
The American tuners Hennessey, who made a name for themselves turbo charging Dodge Vipers, are now the proud owners of the world’s fastest Nissan GT-R. This past March at the Texas Mile, Hennessey drove their 700 HP GT-R through the traps at 193.7 MPH. Owners of Nissan’s Super car can purchase the Godzilla 700 kit for $18,500, or $24,500 installed.
Back when the Japanese automaker was producing the R-34 Skyline, Kozo Watanabe, “Mr. GT-R” and head of Nissan development, was celebrating the vehicle’s racing success by releasing a hard core V-Spec model. The Skyline GT-R V-Spec was set up with a harsh suspension that gave the vehicle razor sharp handling. However, these machines were better suited for smooth racing surfaces and not the typical Tokyo city street where the vehicles would spend most of their time.
Back in 1999 when Carlos Ghosen became President and CEO of Nissan, he gave Watanabe the boot and brought in Kazutoshi Mizuno to head up the GT-R engineering team. Mizuno was the former Nissan Le Mans chief engineer and Group C racing team manager.
The GT-R V-Spec had become a track ready performance machine, but the former racing engineer had other ideas for a friendlier Mizuno-Spec GT-R.
Just because you can afford a high-performance machine, doesn’t mean you know how to drive it.
This point was hit home by the Nissan GT-R driver who couldn’t keep up with a Mitsubishi Evo IX MR during a race on a curvy road. Keep watching the video, this was a more than just a little cosmetic damage.
We were braced for this back in November. That’s when we first got word that Nissan would increase the price for the next model year by about a five percent. Now we have the exact number for the increase for the 2010 GT-R: $3950.
That moves the price of the standard car from $76,840 to $80,790 and from $79,090 to $83,040 for the GT-R Premium model. But the extra cash does buy five extra horsepower (that works out to $790 per horse). That moves the power from 480 to 485 hp. Of course, that’s an estimate because Nissan was quick to point out many times last year that each engine and transmission is hand built, and specifically built for each car, so some power deviation can be expected.
There are a few other small extras that come with the $4k increase (like enhanced colors). For those who are really interested, it’s in the press release after the jump.
When it comes to building high-performance JDM engines there is truly only one place to turn. The Japanese tuning shop JUN is tearing into the VR38DETT found in the Nissan GT-R with the goal of creating 1000 HP. The aftermarket company will develop a series of internals for the motor consisting of a crankshaft, connecting rods, pistons and camshafts all machined from billet steel. It won’t be long before we see a bright yellow colored R-35 terrorizing pavement everywhere.
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