For the past few years I have competed in a race called the One Lap of America and used this SLS in the event this year. If you are not familiar with the event, the One Lap is an 8 day endurance event where each car entered is street legal on street legal tires and travels to race tracks around the country to compete in time trials on the track. This year’s event had events at big name tracks like Daytona (road course) and VIR mixed in with some lesser known tracks and covered about 3400 miles of driving between the tracks. You cannot trailer the car nor are any support vehicles are allowed. A handful of pro drivers compete each year and has been won by Leh Keen the past 4 years, the last 3 in a GT-R. Nissan GT-R’s have become the car to have (6 in this years event) and after placing 2nd overall last year with one, I decided it was time to mix it up. I had intended to use another project car we are in the midst of building, but we found out that we would not have some of the electrical components needed in time. So, the SLS project which was going to be started next was moved to the front of the line. From the day the car arrived to completion, all of the work was done in about 8 weeks. Pretty amazing feat considering all that was done – body kit, supercharger, suspension, exhaust, wheels, racing seats, harness bar. Obviously, I wanted the car to resemble the GT3 car and feel it came out beautifully. We had intended to test the car the week before the event, but unfortunately we ran out of time and were not able to test the car at all. The first time I ever drove the car was on the way down to the event. We were resolved to use the event as the test for the car – after each event we would make changes trying to dial in the suspension. I felt we were getting pretty close and were running well in 7th overall and moving up when on the second to last day I had an off at VIR that damaged the front fascia, an oil cooler and popped one of the front tires. We were done. Despite this letdown and with the whole year to dial it in, I am confident that this car can compete for the overall win next year.

Here are some of the details:
Body kit widens the rear by 2” on each side, 1” on each side in the front.
Forgeline GA1R 20x11 wheels in the front 20x12 in the rear with 305x30x20 tires front and 335x35x20 in the rear
Kleeman supercharger and exhaust, nearly 800hp
KW Club Sport 3 way adjustable shocks
Air ride suspension kit to lower the car almost 2” when we got to the track with the push of a button
Sparco racing seats

 

Wow what an amazing (first?) post! Thank you very much for your contribution, the One Lap of America series looks absolutely awesome. Love your SLS too, amazing wheels by forgeline! The rest of the mods are fantastic as well!

How are the ceramics holding up with all the track use? Is a Brembo GTR kit an option somewhere down the road? I guess the GT3 guys are running them so you could improve on your braking.

Keep it up!

Cheers,
Yannick

 

Hey Yannick,

Thanks for the positive comments. Not actually my first post, but it has been a couple of years since I posted about one of my motorcycles, "Fatty". More of a lurker unless I have something more significant to offer.

The ceramics held up well and stopped the car extremely well. We had the pads from the F1 pace car installed, so more of a race compound. I am not familiar with the kit you are referencing, but the GT3 cars are running 18's and we are on 20's, so we are able to use a much bigger caliper and rotor. In the One Lap we are only doing 3 hot laps per event and are generally only doing 2 events a day, so not a significant amount of use. If we were running more endurance type of event on track, I would consider alternatives.