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The GT-R/911 schoolyard scuffuffle continues, with Nissan looking at Porsche’s test and basically saying “yer doin it wrong” to the German automaker. Chief engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno has graciously offered remedial driving classes to the driver for Porsche’s lapping session where a GT-R was reportedly 25 seconds off Nissan’s torrid time of 7 minutes, 29 seconds. Porsche had concluded that special tires must have been quietly fitted in a quest for ‘Ring primacy. Porsche has yet to say anything other than “Ve don’t sink zee car can do it in schtock form.”

Not so, says Nissan. While a claim to the fastest production car on the Nürburgring might help prospective customers froth up some money, and owners are unlikely to try verifying the claim, Nissan is not interested in wasting time on one-offs, according to Mizuno. “For us, testing the car in standard production specification is far more relevant”, says the engineer. The very tires that carried driver Toshio Suzuki on the 7:29 run are in the hands of Sumitomo, and Nissan would encourage interested parties to STFU and go look at the rolling stock. It seems Nissan thinks Porsche needs a little help figuring out the GT-R, to which the company will be happy to help. “We are aware that several automakers have purchased the GT-R for their own testing and evaluation,” Nissan says in its most recent rebuttal, “we would welcome the opportunity to help any auto manufacturer with understanding the full capabilities of the GT-R.”

After previous incarnations of the Nissan GT-R ran away with successive JGTC titles, Japan’s GT Association decided to inflict “success ballast” on race winners in an attempt to level the playing field (i.e give Toyota and Honda a chance).

As the current GT-R race car is built to 2009 Super GT specifications, the GT-A handed it a weight penalty of 50kgs added right from the start of the season. After winning Round 1 in Suzuka car number 23 had to carry an additional 50kgs at Round 2 in Sugo, which it promptly won anyway. Then thanks to also setting numerous fastest laps and other speeding offenses it was deemed that Benoit Treluyer and Satoshi Motoyama’s ride would have to port an massive 200ks (440lbs) of ballast at this weekend’s race at Fuji Speedway.

That presents a couple of problems. Firstly, where the heck do you safely stow 200kgs of lead? And would the car meet GT-A regulations even if Nissan found a way to do it? The ruling body’s compromise was to give the car a 115kg penalty and fit a stifling restrictor to the GT-R’s air intake. That knocked 30kph off the GT-R’s maximum velocity at the end of Fuji’s 1.5km straight, and in the words of Benoit, “Gives us no chance at all.”

Follow through the jump to find out if he was right, and to find out how Lightning McQueen faired in GT300 after qualifying on pole yesterday.Three laps after the rolling start it was clear that Benoit’s prediction was spot on. While Honda NSXs and Lexus SC430s battled for the lead, car number 23 was already slipping back towards the GT300 field rather than chasing down the leaders. Takashi Kogure had squeezed his Takata NSX on to pole, and managed to keep the lead until he spun on lap 22, gifting the lead to the Zent Cerumo Lexus SC430, first driven by Yuji Tachikawa, then by Richard Lyons after the second pit stop, then by Yuji again all the way to the checkered flag. Meanwhile, tactics worthy of Ron Dennis and Ross Brawn leap frogged Juichi Wakisaka and Andre Lotterer’s SC430 from fifth to second over the 110 lap race.

1 38 ZENT CERUMO SC430 Y.Tachikawa/R.Lyons 110 3:02′28.036
2 36 ETRONAS TOM’S SC430 J.Wakisaka/A.Lotterer 110 0′13.882
3 18 TAKATA DOME NSX R.Michigami/T.Kogure 110 0′15.893

GT300

It takes a lot to drown out the sound of 30 Super GT cars wailing down a mile long straight at full chat, but several thousand Japanese school kids managed just that when rookie Lightning McQueen took the lead in the closing stages of the race after arch rival Chick Hicks the Cusco Subaru Impreza got called in to the pits, not once but twice for racing infractions. Recent returnee from Europe’s GP2 championship Kohei Hirate had put in a masterful flying lap on super soft tires to seal pole position for McQueen on Saturday, but the team then gambled that the comparatively frugal 3.5-liter MR-S could manage all 500 kms with just one fuel stop and on two sets of hard rubber. Despite starting heavy, McQueen never dropped out of the top five, but the two drivers, who aren’t much older than McQueen’s fan base, didn’t have it easy fighting first Porsches, then the Impreza and the Leopalace Z all the way to the flag.

1 95 Lightning McQueen apr MR-S K.Hirate/K.Kunimoto 101 3:02′34.661
2 46 MOLA LEOPALACE Z K.Hoshino/H.Yasuda 101 0′26.739
3 2 Privee KENZO Asset Shiden K.Takahashi/H.Katoh 101 0′44.019

Full Results

With all the news surrounding the Nissan GT-R V-Spec, the progress on the Godzilla tuning front has been largely overlooked. According to a recent article in Japan’s BestCar magazine, the Amuse team has broken the 600 hp mark (at the crank) with a combination of a high-flow exhaust and a tweaked ECU. There were no details on how the GT-R’s computer was hacked, but Amuse was able to up the boost to 18 psi, resulting in an increase in output to 602.73 hp and 576.95 lb.-ft. of torque.

However, tuners are beginning to question how the stock gearbox will hold up under the strain of additional output. MCR, which brought out its GT-R for filming of Hot Version 93, has been exacting its own brand of punishment on its tuned GT-R and is worried how long the transmission will last. It’s not clear if the tranny woes are due to the clutch plates or something else, but it’s been all but confirmed that dual-clutch gearboxes have an issue with additional torque since the friction surface is much smaller than on a stock (read: single plate) clutch. MCR’s best guesstimate is that the stock ‘box might only be able to hold up to the additional power for 12 months before problems begin arise. Now, we’re particularly interested in how Nissan is beefing up the tranny on the V-Spec to handle its rumored 600 hp.

[Sources: GTRBlog, NissanGTRProto]

 one of the engineers on hand mentioned that Godzilla’s suspension would be tweaked for the U.S. market. When asked why, the response wasn’t entirely clear, so we assumed that the changes would be made to adapt the GT-R to our less-than-perfect road surface. Apparently, that’s not the case.

The suspension revisions, which involved modifying the spring rate by 0.1kg/mm to make the GT-R’s coils a bit stiffer, will be accompanied by three harder engine mounts and a firmer transaxle mount that limits movement of the engine and gearbox under cornering forces. However, these changes aren’t just for vehicles bound for Stateside consumption. The tweaks have also been implemented on the latest batch of JDM vehicles and are going to be ported over to the UK models when they arrive next year. While the changes are minimal, it’s proof that Nissan’s engineers are dedicated to improving every facet of the GT-R to ensure that it remains on top. Or, to quote the GT-R’s chief vehicle engineer, Kazutoshi Mizuno, who spoke with Car, “The GT-R is my son… a son grows up and it’s my duty as father to keep improving it.”

[Source: Car]

The Nissan GT-R’s 7:29 lap record won’t stand for long if Chevrolet has anything to say about it. Speaking with InsideLine, Corvette Chief Engineer, Tadge Jeuchter, says that the ZR1, “will be able to take the production-car track record at any racetrack,” and that although Chevy doesn’t have a production version of the uber-Vette at the Nurburgring yet, they’re expecting a lap time of “seven minutes, twenty-something seconds.” That sounds like smack-talk to us. But while the ZR1 might have the potential to best the GT-R’s ‘Ring time, the 550-600 hp elephant in the room is the forthcoming GT-R V-Spec, which is already putting down (roughly-timed) laps around the North Loop in the 7:25 realm. Let the battle begin. We’re making popcorn now.

[Source: InsideLine]

Thankfully we can officially report that the humongously ugly rendering of a GT-R based SUV, which appeared in Best Car’s early February edition, has no basis in reality. Reliable sources, both at Nissan’s HQ in Tokyo and at the company’s development center in Zama, who typically answer questions with non-committal “can neither confirm nor deny” statements, were adamant that no such project exists.

With the GT-R snatching the Porsche 911’s crowns left, right and center, and the upcoming new hardcore Z rumoured to be a Cayman eater, Porsche can relax in the knowledge that the Cayenne, at least, is safe for now.
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If we were in charge of Tokyo’s inner city expressway we probably wouldn’t use the Shutoko racer’s favorite weapon of choice to promote safe driving. Scratch that, we probably would, but we’re amazed that the owners of the Wangan got themselves a new GT-R to publicize their current Tokyo Smart Driver Campaign.

If the fact that this R35 will spend its life pootling along the highway at 80km/h doesn’t make you sick to the bottom of your stomach, the Tokyo Smart Driver website certainly will. Truly vomit worthy.

Thanks to PLR of Le Blog Auto for the tip!
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Nearly 700 Brits plunked down pre-order deposits of £3,500 (about $7,000) within the first 48 hours of Nissan’s hot GT-R going on sale, proving demand for the latest Japanese supercar doesn’t seem to be diminishing. Customers in the UK don’t seem to be deterred by the GT-R’s base sales price of £52,900 (about $105,000), or the fact they won’t see delivery until March 2009. After our “First Drive” in the GT-R, you won’t see us ridiculing frenzied buyers…Source: Nissan UK