new skyline

[Evan]

if this car beat a z06 at the ring, it most definately did NOT do it as the car comes from the factory.

[ScottyB]

if this car beat a z06 at the ring, it most definately did NOT do it as the car comes from the factory.

"GM and Corvette Racing driver Jan Magnussen brought the new Z06 to the N├╝rburgring in Germany. Magnussen drove the Z06 to a time of 7:42.99."
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"The record lap would be set by Nissan's top shoe, Suzuki-san, who ultimately turned in a lap in 7 minutes, 38 seconds on a partially wet circuit."
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Evan, you may very well be right as they are not wording it specifically to say that the test mule is a stripped out tester or if it's near-production ready. but then again, they mention that one of Nissan's goals was "lap the N├╝rburgring's Nordschleife faster than a 997-based Porsche 911 Turbo. The 2009 Nissan GT-R had circled the famed circuit in 7 minutes and 55 seconds during endurance testing earlier in the year, trailing the 911 Turbo by 15 seconds. "

if this is their goal, then will they not stop testing until a production skyline can accomplish this in 7:40 or better?

[Evan]

yeah, I read the articles, I guess I just dont believe it.
a much heavier, lower powered platform based car with terrible aero going faster?
Didnt happen without some judicious turning of the happy boost knob and some very sticky race tires.
(not to mention Jan is one of the best sportscar drivers on the planet)
But thats just my opinion. Its JDM so maybe its magic?

[ScottyB]

Its JDM so maybe its magic?

what's this "maybe" stuff? :lol:

i'm skeptical as well, all things considered. but numbers are numbers, and we'll know for sure here in a few more months when things become more concrete.

[Evan]

yeah, I hope the magazines will throw the car in the ring with the viper and z06.

[Goodspeed]

From every review I've ever read, the Z06 is not an easy car to drive on track by any means. Most find the brawnier Viper to be the "better" track car. So I wouldn't be surprised if the GTR laps the 'ring faster due to the nature of the Z06.

[Roxtar]

a 7 liter kicking out 505 horses for 71k or a 3.8 kicking out 473...

the skyline's dual clutch, paddle-shifted 6-speed is more race friendly than the z06's traditional six-speed (though less fun in my opinion... nothing quite like a short throw, close ratio 6-speed).

the ls7 has a lot more potential for power/torque (there is no replacement for displacement) than the 6 cyl the skyline is getting... but then again there is such a thing as too much power for a road course. this is where the awd setup of the skyline makes up for the power deficit in my opinion. the skyline can pull itself through corners that the z06 would have to drift through, bleeding off speed.

in reality, stock vs stock there is only a 32 hp difference according to preliminary numbers. a gap easily overcome with minor modifications. this duel will come down to weight, balance, and responsiveness, not engine power.

[WRXtranceformed]

a 7 liter kicking out 505 horses for 71k or a 3.8 kicking out 473...

the skyline's dual clutch, paddle-shifted 6-speed is more race friendly than the z06's traditional six-speed (though less fun in my opinion... nothing quite like a short throw, close ratio 6-speed).

the ls7 has a lot more potential for power/torque (there is no replacement for displacement) than the 6 cyl the skyline is getting... but then again there is such a thing as too much power for a road course. this is where the awd setup of the skyline makes up for the power deficit in my opinion. the skyline can pull itself through corners that the z06 would have to drift through, bleeding off speed.

in reality, stock vs stock there is only a 32 hp difference according to preliminary numbers. a gap easily overcome with minor modifications. this duel will come down to weight, balance, and responsiveness, not engine power.

True, but now you're comparing forced induction to NA. My old 2.8L STi had more whp than a stock 7 liter Z06 on only the pump gas map, but that's just a paper comparison. The Z06 would probably romp on that car on a road course. The Z06 is an unbelievable track car for so many reasons, one mainly being the weight of the car. Magnesium roof?!? Get outta here! That's insane. Some of the fastest track cars in the world (ie Indy / F1 cars) are RWD, so I don't put much merit in the AWD argument. AWD is more of a crutch for poor drivers on a road course imo (ha ha ha, that's ironic that I say that, on so many levels). AWD drivetrains also add a lot of weight.

The new ZR1 Vette will be a claimed 650hp and even less weight than the current Z06, and I guarantee that power is going to be extremely underrated. That car will run with the fastest cars in the world, without a doubt. That definitely proves your point that there's no replacement for displacement :wink:

[Roxtar]

the awd/rwd benefits also depend a lot on the course/car setup. in a course with a lot of tight hairpins, the ability of an awd system to put torque to the asphalt with all 4 wheels in first gear is a considerable advantage if the other car has to go partial throttle to avoid wheelspin. you mention weight... this is a good point, especially with rwd indy/f1 cars. you give a 1500 pound car massive contact patches and put the center of gravity below the axles and traction isn't as much of an issue as with a much taller car that weighs 1000 pounds more and rides on thinner rubber.

basically, i'd like to see the stig throw out a power lap in each car back to back. i think it will be a fairly close match.

[Evan]

yikes, somebody has been reading way too many jdm magazines

awd has little performance advantage on dry pavement. the weight penalty for an awd system at least cancels out its benefits.

spend a weekend in a c6 z06 sometime. there is no sliding. even on the stock tires. my (female) student with 5 track days experience drove the shit out of that thing, they are most definately not hard to drive.

like i said, there really is no comparison. skyline is a platform car with the compromises it entails. it weighs a ton more, makes less power, and has terrible aero by comparison which means after 60mph it falls even further behind. i could go on... suspension, cg, etc but i think you get the point.

[.RJ]

i could go on... suspension, cg, etc but i think you get the point.

Hmm... the turbo count?

Skyline: 2
Corvtette: 0

Seriously what else do you need to know? :lol:

[.RJ]

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A Day in Germany With the GT-R Engineers
By Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor Email | Blog

Date posted: 10-17-2007
Cinching down the chin strap of his helmet, Toshio Suezaki's appearance transforms just before his thumb deploys the tidy flush-mounted door catch of the 2009 Nissan GT-R. The factory test driver is innocuous and soft-spoken, but in this moment his eyes harden. It is behind the wheel of this car, still camouflaged to frustrate spy shooters, that Suezaki-san will wield violence incongruous with his bookish manner just minutes later.

One of the primary performance objectives set forth by the Nissan GT-R's development team is to lap the N├╝rburgring's Nordschleife faster than a 997-based Porsche 911 Turbo. The 2009 Nissan GT-R had circled the famed circuit in 7 minutes and 55 seconds during endurance testing earlier in the year, trailing the 911 Turbo by 15 seconds.

We're here at the N├╝rburgring with Nissan on an exclusive invitation. Today it'll attempt to beat the 911 Turbo's lap time. It's morning in late September, and patches of roiling gray clouds that ebb and flow threaten to undermine the company's highly coordinated assault on the Green Hell.
A Legacy To Live Up to

More than a performance car, the 2009 Nissan GT-R is an icon, and a Nissan wearing this badge must build upon decades of heritage. This is the first GT-R to be sold in markets outside Japan, a car that has been tasked by CEO Carlos Ghosn to elevate the brand, inspire engineers, yet still be profitable. "The GT-R is forbidden to lose money," Ghosn states emphatically during our dinner in Cologne, Germany.
Racing dawn the following morning, we blast our Nissan Patrol up the autobahn to N├╝rburg. We step into Nissan's sparkling garage situated just outside the circuit and clap eyes on the GT-R, one of the most anticipated cars in years. A half-dozen technicians mill busily about three prototypes, all of which are silver and still wear black vinyl diapers over the nose and tail.
The car has a brutal, chunky presence that does not come through in photographs. It is certainly not a beautiful car, yet its surface development is complex enough to grab your gaze like a grappling hook. Nissan wouldn't have it any other way. "We didn't want a nice elegant shape. We wanted an original shape," says GT-R Design Director Shiro Nakamura.

Earlier GT-Rs, sold in Japan from 1969 to 2002, were hotted-up versions of workaday Skyline sedans or coupes and were called Skyline GT-R, but the 2008 GT-R represents the first to be built entirely on its own platform. Called Premium Midship in Nissan's vernacular, the GT-R's bare body-in-white is said to weigh less than the 350Z's.

At 183.1 inches in length, the GT-R is a large car. It stretches 7.5 inches longer than a 911, Corvette Z06 or Dodge Viper and its 109.4-inch wheelbase similarly eclipses the others. This large shadow helps to package rear seats that are more sizable than a 911's ÔÇö but still not really intended for adults to inhabit during long trips ÔÇö and an 8.3-cubic-foot trunk that can swallow two golf bags.
Anywhere, Anytime, by Anyone.

The stated goal is to create a practical performance car whose capabilities can be exploited "anywhere, anytime, by anyone." To this end, the GT-R's greenhouse is as upright as a Marine. And its front seats are said to have more adjustment range than those in any other supercar in an unconfirmed attempt to attract the professional athlete and other full-size customers. Dampers, stability control and gearchange speed all have multiple settings to adjust their level of aggression.
Performance promises to be scintillating. Nissan's internal testing pegs the 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) sprint at 3.5 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 11.7 seconds despite the Japanese-specification model's 3,836-pound curb weight.

Top speed is 310 km/h (193 mph), an accomplishment to which Chief Engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno adds, "Building a 310 km/h car is not a particularly difficult challenge. The challenge is to build a car that is stable and quiet at that speed; a car that is comfortable and easy to drive at that speed."
This overarching do-all philosophy dictated the GT-R's all-wheel-drive system and run-flat tires mounted on 20-inch wheels. Customers will have a choice between Bridgestone Potenza RE070R summer tires and Dunlop all-season rubber.
More Than a Lap Time
Exploring the garage, it's obvious from the numerous spares on hand that setting a fast lap isn't Nissan's only priority among its N├╝rburgring activities. There are rows of six-piston calipers and 15-inch steel brake rotors lining the workbenches. Tires stacked to the ceiling bear numerous cryptic markings.
This is the development team's seventh visit to the circuit over the GT-R's development cycle, the first three of which were with early prototypes wearing G35 coupe bodies.

"It was pretty damn quick right out of the box," recalls Senior Project Engineer Bruce Robinson. "We would improve by a few seconds on each visit, but [each trip's purpose] was mostly refinement. Quite a bit of the tuning was to nail down the feel of the steering, the feel of the car."

Many testing sessions were spent with an engineer from Bilstein, who accompanied Nissan on trips to Laguna Seca and Infineon Raceway in Northern California, the streets of Los Angeles and Japan's Sendai Highlands Raceway. "It's gotta perform at the 'Ring," Robinson continues, alluding to the headline-grabbing nature of 'Ring lap times, "but it doesn't mean you forget about everything else."
And everywhere Nissan brought the GT-R, the 911 Turbo went, too.
Building the Most Expensive Nissan.

As the company's flagship, Nissan is intent on ensuring that the GT-R makes a strong impression on its buyers. A portion of Nissan's Yokohama assembly plant was set aside as an engine assembly "clean room," where 12 assemblers are dedicated to building each GT-R's twin-turbo 3.8-liter V6. This clean room follows the practices of race engine shops, where a single technician is responsible for an entire engine's assembly. Both the engine and six-speed sequential manual gearbox are hand-built.
Deviating from the inline-6 layout of previous GT-Rs, the all-aluminum DOHC V6 is known as VR38 and shares its 60-degree vee angle and bore spacing with Nissan's acclaimed VQ-Series, which is used in everything from the 350Z to several Infiniti SUVs. Few parts are shared between the two engine series.
Each body shell is placed on a vibration rig to verify that its natural frequency, a direct indicator of stiffness, is within specified bounds. Once fully assembled, all GT-Rs are exercised by a factory driver on Nissan's 18-mile Tochigi test track prior to delivery.

A three-year service program is included with the purchase of each GT-R. This program consists of wheel alignments and engine and transmission checkups every year. Only those dealerships willing to invest in this equipment and training required by the factory have a shot at having GT-Rs grace their showrooms. In Japan, 10 percent of Nissan's sales outlets will offer GT-Rs and we expect a similar ratio Stateside.
Running the 'Ring.

It turns out our seat time with Suezaki-san piloting the GT-R is scheduled right after lunch. As in minutes after lunch ends. The idea of the GT-R's 473 horsepower and 434 lb-ft of torque tag-teaming the 12.9-mile Nordschleife is enough to turn many would-be passengers green with nausea. I'm regretting my lunch choice of seafood pasta.

As casually as possible, I attempt to communicate this potentially messy situation while twisting the GT-R's ingenious all-in-one seat adjustment knob. In his best English comes Suezaki-san's reply, "Medium-fast, or fast-fast?"
How do you say, "Let's start out fast-fast and if my gastrointestinal tract doesn't cooperate, you'll have to dial it back right quick" across a language barrier?

Suezaki-san tears onto the track and wastes no time bringing the GT-R right to the limit of the tires' adhesion. 'Ring veterans say that it takes 50 laps of the circuit just to memorize the sequence of all 73 turns. Suezaki-san has lapped the circuit several hundred times.
It's manufacturer pool day at the N├╝rburgring, meaning that the track is currently closed to the public. Traffic is light, but not light enough to make a completely clean lap, and the only other cars we encounter are bandaged-up development mules. I ponder the irony of two top-secret prototypes belonging to competing manufacturers colliding into one another.

We pass all of them, and Suezaki-san gives a friendly wave as he flashes by.
As we reach the end of the main straight leading from D├Âttinger H├Âhe, I glance down at the LCD readout temporarily mounted to the passenger side of the dashboard to gain some kind of perspective on the rate at which the scenery is smearing by: 269 km/h, or just over 167 mph. A brush of the brakes and we enter the fast Antoniusbuche left-hander at more than 150 mph as my driver's suit strains against the grippy Alcantara lining the seat surface.

It's over before I expect, and in the end we clocked in at 8 minutes, 13 seconds. Our lap was not intended to be a record attempt, yet nonetheless represents an enviable pace.

The Fastest Lap
The record lap would be set by Nissan's top shoe, Suzuki-san, who ultimately turned in a lap in 7 minutes, 38 seconds on a partially wet circuit. Those ominous clouds looming in the sky earlier in the day left their mark on two areas of the track, Kesselchen and Wehrsiefen, and required Suzuki-san to rein his speed in a bit.

Beating a 911 Turbo around the Nordschleife is an accomplishment at any price, but pipping it by 2 seconds, on a partly damp circuit, at an estimated price point of $80,000 is something else entirely.
Sunset Over N├╝rburg

The Nissan GT-R will be unveiled on October 25 at the Tokyo auto show, but is already creating waves among the sports car establishment.

Just hours after the record run, one of Nissan's engineers receives a phone call while we pack up our gear. He then clicks his cell phone closed and laughs. The guy on the other end of the line works closely with another manufacturer. He wanted to confirm a rumor he'd just heard: Did it really run a 7:38?

[HAULN-SS]

man...soooo..fucking....ugly

[ViPER1313]

I'd rock one.....if it wasn't 80g. I personally like the way it looks.

[BLINGMW]

I think it looks good too. So do a lot of cars I have no intention of ever buying.

[Maengelito]

From every review I've ever read, the Z06 is not an easy car to drive on track by any means. Most find the brawnier Viper to be the "better" track car. So I wouldn't be surprised if the GTR laps the 'ring faster due to the nature of the Z06.

i hear quite the opposite. i hear the Z06 is very easy to drive while the older vipers were easy to drive if you didnt mind your legs being roasted by the sidepipes. i dont have any experience in either car, but i doubt i'd see so many vettes at the track and so much support for them and so much success within their class if they were difficult to drive.

but then again there is such a thing as too much power for a road course. this is where the awd setup of the skyline makes up for the power deficit in my opinion. the skyline can pull itself through corners that the z06 would have to drift through, bleeding off speed.

this statement is completely false. horsepower is never a bad thing with a capable driver. its not like the accelerator pedal is an on/off switch. however, power delivery is much more linear with a NA motor (LS7) than a b00sted one (skyline) which means that it probably makes feathering the throttle more difficult when trying to wait for the snails to spool up. and i dont think awd makes a lick of difference for dry pavement. tires would be more important. now if it was raining, then yeah, awd would be ideal (see maeng circa July 2005 at VIR-N instructor clinic, man, the rain is fun with awd.)

okay, thats pretty sexy right there

[Roxtar]

yikes, somebody has been reading way too many jdm magazines

awd has little performance advantage on dry pavement. the weight penalty for an awd system at least cancels out its benefits.

spend a weekend in a c6 z06 sometime. there is no sliding. even on the stock tires. my (female) student with 5 track days experience drove the shit out of that thing, they are most definately not hard to drive.

like i said, there really is no comparison. skyline is a platform car with the compromises it entails. it weighs a ton more, makes less power, and has terrible aero by comparison which means after 60mph it falls even further behind. i could go on... suspension, cg, etc but i think you get the point.

forget the jdm f&f dorifutu crap, i'm just looking at the numbers.
the gtr is 2 tenths quicker to 60mph and has an identical quarter mile time despite weighing a few hundred pounds more and having less power. where does that extra grunt off the line come from?

as for the ease of driving with the z06, i HAVE driven one. and the traction control keeps you from putting down more torque than the tires can handle... crippling the car in first gear (going at partial throttle to avoid wheelspin). which brings me back to the quicker 0-60 being due to the gtr being able to put power to a bigger overall contact area due to the awd system. to say that the system has no benefit of dry pavement goes against the data.

my assertion was that the gtr would have the advantage on a tight course... and the numbers back me up. on an open course, the lighter weight, better coefficient off drag and higher power numbers give the z06 the edge.

in regards to the "horsepower is never a bad thing" statement:
ok. a highly capable driver can make use of all the power available to him. the more power you have though, the more difficult it is to keep that power under control.

[Ginger]

my assertion was that the gtr would have the advantage on a tight course... and the numbers back me up. on an open course, the lighter weight, better coefficient off drag and higher power numbers give the z06 the edge.

Actually, the data doesn't really back that up.

In a straight acceleration test, stress laid on straight [without other directions fighting for grip pie], from a standing start the new skyline would win. That's what the data supports. Traction control, ability to spool and set launch, etc. play into the outcome. But what about when you can't spool the snails?

On a "tight" course, whatever that is, what's the skyline going to do to keep it's boost on boil? Run around in first gear? Are we talking about an autocross? This also doesn't mention tractability of the power... I've personally experienced flat torque being faster pretty much everywhere than good peak numbers. We already know that the Corvette's power looks a lot like a coffee table so it'll pull really nice and easy out of just about any turn when other forces are fighting for traction pie. If you manage to keep the Skyline's power on tap it'll probably be more than you wanted or you'll have had to make other sacrifices to get it (bad gear, poor entry, diverted attention, etc).

The SCC style assumptions aren't going to work here. The car's too great of an unknown.

Oh, and right, I've driven a Z06, too.

[Maengelito]

mmm, traction pie.

[G.Irish]

Eh, its hard to say if the GTR would have an advantage on a tighter course. When you talk about the 0-60 and quarter mile you're talking about a launch from 0 mph. When you're on a road course you're not going that slow. I think getting off a corner the GTR will be easier to hook up but a delicate throttle foot can achieve the same with a Z06.

On a tight course out of slow corners the GTR might have an advantage but at the same time it will probably be at a disadvantage when you start getting into linked corners and transitional handling. I think if the GTR weighed more like 3400 lbs then it'd be within shouting distance but with a 15% weight advantage AWD is probably not going to help it enough to beat the Z06. Especially when it has less hp and torque to work with.

Right now I'd be willing to bet that the Z06 would be the car you'd want to have in an autocross.

In the quarter what you'll probably see is the GTR having equal or maybe even slightly better ET's but it will lose on the trap speeds.

In the dry AWD obviously helps on the launch and in traction coming off a corner but on most road course surfaces with sufficient grip the AWD is not a huge advantage. Certainly not enough to overcome a lot of extra weight.