Looking at the engine, it reminds me of a mild street tuned motor. The Nissan factory GT-R’s has about 550 hp as I recall but HKS claimed 600 at the time. I think most of this was perhaps how far each team was willing to turn up the boost. You can see the interesting shock tower brace backed by the cage extending through the firewall to triangulate to the shock towers.
Group A turbos were a larger variant of Garrett’s T2 family. The OEM turbos had lightweight and fast spooling but fragile ceramic turbines but the Group A turbos had a bigger compressor and turbine wheels and the turbines were metal, not ceramic. The turbo specs were impressive for the time and very much like what I used on my Z32 back in the day. TO4B compressor housing, 62 trim T3 compressor wheel, 79 trim turbine wheel, and a .64 AR turbine housing. For my car, I just used a .86 exhaust housing. It was cool to have friends at Garrett who could get me these parts. Like OEM the turbos use internal wastegates. A lot of the power increase was due to the turbos. The exhaust manifolds were stock and you can see the nice HKS charge pipes with the anti-slip couplers.
The RB26DETT engine uses a slightly larger plenum Group A intake manifold the feeds the standard ITB intake. The engine has a pretty humungous fuel rail feeding the injectors. You can’t see it but like a lot of JDM race cars, the GT-R as a butt load of fuel pumps, about 4 at least.
The engine is still a wet sump and uses this really cool AOS system to vent the crank and return blowby oil to the sump. You can also see the high-mounted cooling system surge tank with vent lines to the radiator and head.
15 comments
Man… as per so many Japanese race cars, there’s a combination of “oh my goodness that’s so cool” and headshaking. I also find it … grimly funny that 2850lbs was a “heavy” race car back then.
Still pretty heavy for a race car.
I mean, I fundamentally agree, but then I look at FIA GT3 where seemingly everything is about that heavy… oh well, “progress”
Bodies in white have gotten 3x heavier due to ever-increasing collision standards. I could easily pick up one end of an S13 shell and move it around but not any new car!
I too really loved production car racing and am a little sad its not still a thing. I bet if it was still a thing, the cars being made nowadays would be a lot more exciting.
*Holinger with one ‘L’
Mike, I echo your sentiment about homologation specials. I just wish we had more cars like the GR Yaris.
As for the BNR32, I’ve always thought the Nismo Group A cars were the top dogs… Until I read about how the Ozzies at Gibson Motorsport tinkered with the GT-R. Apparently the Gibson team explored the possibility of racing against works machinery in Japan, but Nismo effectively banned them from doing so, fearing they might lose face if they lost to foreign competition. Given that Nismo enjoyed a complete monopoly in Japan and supplied all the customer Group A teams with cars, parts and expertise, that does seem like a plausible explanation for why the Japanese and Australian-built cars never met on track.
I remember reading about how the Gibson guys ordered custom-designed ECUs from Electramotive to control both the engine and the drivetrain with a single unit, in much the same fashion as we do today. I then see a photo of a modern-day Japanese time attack car and sure enough, there’s that familiar collection of boost controllers, turbo timers, ATTESA switches, VVT adjusters and the like, all hooked up with a spaghetti wiring loom that’s attached to the bulkhead with cable ties and sticks out from underneath the remnants of an OEM dashboard… It’s almost as if it’s a prerequisite and a tradition passed down from generation to generation, beginning with the BNR32 and its contemporaries.
Not even in the same league as the Australian Gibson motorsport Group A gtr’s.
http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/02/godzilla-attacks-the-gibson-group-a-gt-r/
Thanks for sharing Mike, seeing these and the Aussie GT-Rs tearing up the competition had a very formative influence on young me and no doubt played a big factor in my being a Nissan tragic ever since.
Regarding the bodywork, I believe all production GT-Rs had aluminium fenders and an aluminium hood. This is certainly the case for my “base model” BNR32 but who knows if those parts had been swapped out over the years. They do match the condition of the rest of the car though, so I’m fairly confident the car left the factory with them.
They do but the Nismo versions supposedly had lighter versions.
It’s a bit unfair to compare the AU vs JP Group A cars. The Japanese cars had no competition and all of the cars in their class were identical so they didn’t need to go to the lengths that Gibson did. There were some cool bits NISMO homologated for the JGTC cars like Carbon Brakes and water cooled calipers which weren’t really seen elsewhere for another 3-4 years or so (besides F1).
Your comment about fuel pumps made me chuckle. Working in the marine industry it was quite a thing when we learned that Yamaha came out with their 425hp V8 outboard with 5(!) fuel pumps a few years ago. Granted it is direct injected. For comparison Mercury’s new 600HP V12 outboard uses a single lift pump paired with a single high pressure pump, but it only has lowly port injection.
Very cool write up on a very cool car, I remember seeing adds with this car in my favorite mags (what are those?) when I was just getting into modifying cars in my teens!!
You can see the HKS ETC which is their electronic torque controller where the rear seat would be. Normally you would see a control on the dash. Not sure if its up there somewhere. The engine is a Reinik Group A by the fuel rail and the water pump pulley. Its interesting HKS did some of their own things, but not their own fuel rail, and some other parts. Sort of an interesting mix.
Great article about an awesome car….but Mike it’s time to return to Group A school for a refresher course……
All the body kit additions were originally homologated for Group A on the 1990 Nismo version. It’s internet myth that has seen them labeled N1.
That’s an HKS ETC torque split controller in the back not a VPC. The silver tank also looks like a dual chamber Lifeline extinguisher rather than an air jack accumulator.
Intake manifold is stock as per Group A regs, as is the intercooler.
I didn’t think it was a fire bottle because the plumbing didn’t look like what is typical, too large, and there was no typical pressure gauge, valve, actuation cable, or solenoid and I didn’t remember seeing discharge nozzles.