Seriously. How long will that thing last? I'm genuinely curious...

As is usually the case, I don't get a chance to post much on the forums. Sometimes I wish I had more time to do so, but keeping busy in the shop has been the priority lately. We've been working on a lot of new developments over the last few months, and pushing things along on the Nissan platform has been a key focus for us to be sure. We've had a lot of requests from current and prospective clients alike to come up with higher powered builds for the R35. There are quite a few competent shops out there pushing for big numbers on the cars, so it was important to me to lay out some legitimate goals for what we were going to try to accomplish and not get caught up in some dyno sheet contest.

I had set a goal from the outset to make a 1000 hp R35 that could be usable on the street. I didn’t want a race only car. I didn't want it to be too laggy for a larger turbo car, so that it would recover well on the gear changes. I wanted functioning climate control and to retain the heavy (but comfortable) factory seats. A car you could still enjoy the sound system in, and have a conversation while cruising down the highway with your passenger, without having to shout or text with your Blackberry because your teeth were vibrating loose from the constant drone.

I've built a lot of high powered race cars, but that's not what we wanted from this exercise. Originally I wanted this first high powered build to be an E85 car, but that just wasn't realistic given the car's home and availability of E85 fuel in that location. So, I decided on setting the car up for both pump fuel and high octane race gas (C16). I've set the car up so that the customer can throw a switch and it will automatically adjust boost, mixture and timing on each setting for the fuel being used. At this point, I can do a flex fuel version of the package, and will likely do so on the next one if the fuel is readily available for the client. All of the work for that is done.

I also wanted to develop this package making use of the components we've already supplied in the P800 kits. I had said in the beginning that I had made most of those components to handle 1000hp, specifically so that our customers would have the value added benefit of using of those components as they progressed from our P800 packages to 900 hp and beyond without having to reinvest.

I'm probably getting long-winded here, and there is certainly more to say about what we're doing with this project, but I wanted to let you guys know how we have been progressing.

Last Friday, before the 4th holiday weekend, we strapped the car on Buschur’s Mustang dyno and managed a 951awhp/804awtq run before we literally started driving through the stock clutches. I had manipulated the clutches into locking up early and aggressively. This was done so that I could make progress with the tuning on this new combination without taking the car out of action for transmission modifications while Shep and I evaluated some of the current gearboxes we have running before settling on the final specs for that part of this build.

To be honest, I didn't expect the factory transmission to hold at these power levels. I did manage to get a couple of good runs out of the car if I would cool the gearbox down enough. It was right on the edge of slipping the transmission, but it still managed to hold to 950+ awhp at 30-32 psi. This car will easily hit 1000 whp once we mod the gearbox, which is the next step of the project.

I am very happy with the drivability already, even though I haven't spent much time at all fine tuning it for transient responses and such. I have been driving the car back and forth to the Mustang Dyno (thanks Buschur Racing for the dyno rental time) with the A/C and stereo on and it's driving like a normal GTR should. It's nice to have a combination like this that has good manners and doesn't stall. Let me repeat that: during all our testing, this 1000 hp GTR car has stalled exactly ZERO times ... that, in itself, I take to be a triumph! The car is also running cooler than any GTR we have built to date, so some of our other work has paid off as well.

I'm still on the safe side of the tuning as you will see in the video of the pull when you see some extra fuel being pushed through the engine. The car is still conservatively rich and I've gone easy on the timing as I progress.

Currently, we have no knock and the engine hasn't pushed an ounce of oil or water. We haven't seen any signs of stress so far on the engine and its compression and leak down numbers are actually getting better as the new rings seat. This engine has NOT been sleeved, which (so far) substantiates my opinion that sleeves are not necessary at these power levels if tuned properly. We have been concerned about weakening the block by machining it for the liners and it was our collective professional opinion at the shop that we should find out exactly where the factory cylinders truly become a liability.

Obviously, there are still a few unknowns here, but we've tried to take an intelligent approach to our engine program and upgrade what was needed - not try to float our egos by replacing perfectly good components with lesser or equal components just for the sake of doing so.

I can’t wait to get a gearbox in the car that will actually hold, so we can turn up the boost and push further. Even at 100 less whp than our dyno session Friday, the car is utterly addicting at WOT on the street, breaking the tires loose all the way around when the boost hits in 2nd and even into 3rd at times on dry pavement… this car is a riot. I can only imagine how fantastic it will feel when we can put this latest addition of 100+ lbs/ft and hp to the wheels on the street.

More updates coming soon as we start to fine tune this project. My original goal was 1000hp at the crank in a street friendly R35 GTR that could be driven like a stock car when off boost and offer this extreme power level when requested. I’d say we’ve already achieved those goals at this point and any further progress will simply be a bonus. I’m delighted with the progress we’ve made in the last few months and happy to say that the project is going exactly where we wished to go with it. The car is truly a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde affair at this point with mild manners at idle and cruise moving to violently aggressive acceleration when on boost.

Just thought I would share.

All the best, and I hope everyone else' projects are progressing well... I know our endeavors have been satisfyingly challenging over the last few months.