The Start of the Skyline Legend

The Nissan Skyline has a rich heritage of representing Japan in the arena of world class motorsports. The legend began in the Japan Grand Prix of 1964. A 2.0 liter Prince (a small company later absorbed into Nissan) Skyline sedan piloted by Japanese drivers led the race for one lap ahead of the Porsche Carrera 904 GTS which eventually went on to win. That’s when Japanese motorsports was sparked into action because they knew that their drivers and the cars that they built could take on the best that the rest of the world had to offer. Almost 50 years later, Nissan is still making a distinctly Japanese style world class sports car in the GT-R.


Source: Nissan Newsroom on YouTube

HKS GT800R Turbo Kit for the R35 GT-R


What you’re looking at is the HKS GT800R 800 hp turbo kit for the Nissan GT-R. HKS has 575 and 600 horsepower kits for the GT-R that maximize the stock turbines. This 800 horsepower kit upgrades the turbos, engine internals and fuel system. If you look closely you can see that the turbos on either side of the engine block are mirror images of each other. HKS had to design a new turbo with a reverse flow direction just for the GT-R because the engine bay was so tight. There wasn’t space for a larger turbo whose output pointed straight into the engine block on the right cylinder bank. Seems like something simple, but nobody had ever done it before. The result is the perfectly neat and symmetrical twin turbo V6 package you see above.

Check out these video interviews with the lead engineer, project engineer and engine engineer from HKS Japan. HKS Europe had the video translated, so be sure to hit the “CC” button on the bottom right next to the video quality control to turn on the English subtitles. The guys set out to increase the output of the GT-R to compete with European supercars of the likes of Porsche and Ferrari. If you’re actually in the market for an HKS turbo kit for your R35 GT-R, head over to the HKS Website for details on all of their offerings.


Source: HKS Motorsport on YouTube

The Creator of Gran Turismo Learns How To Drift

GT Channel brings us this exclusive footage from this year’s SEMA show. The CEO of Polyphony Digital and creator of the Gran Turismo series of racing games for the Sony Playstation, Kazunori Yamauchi, gets drifting lessons from the 2011 Formula D Champion, Diajiro Yoshihara in his LSx powered S13 Nissan 240SX. Yamauchi-san visits the SEMA show to pick give out awards to his favorite cars which are then featured in the Gran Turismo games. What makes this interesting is that Yamauchi-san clearly has an excellent understanding behind the physics and mechanics of car control, but has never tried drifting before. Check out how he does:


Source: GT Channel on YouTube

Jay Leno’s Mazda Cosmo

This week’s episode of Jay Leno’s garage introduces us to the Mazda Cosmo 110S. The Cosmo represents a classic Japanese halo car from the 60’s. It was also Mazda’s first attempt at a rotary engine powered sports car. We never got any Cosmos here in the US, but this particular car was imported by a U2 spy plane pilot when he returned from his service in Japan. When Jay bought it, the body was in good shape but the engine had seized. Leno’s mechanic replaced the engine with a 1.2 liter 12A rotary engine from the first generation RX-7 with a couple of power upgrades including a Weber sidedraft carburetor and manifold. The car now has over 200 horsepower and a 9,000 rpm redline.


Source: Jay Leno’s Garage

Tokyo Auto Salon 2012

I’m a little slow getting this posted, but here’s coverage from the Tokyo Auto Salon (TAS) that took place at the beginning of this year. TAS is Japan’s equivalent of our SEMA show. It’s a national showcase of the latest and greatest from automotive aftermarket tuning companies ranging from wheels to power adders and aero kits. The Toyota GT-86 / Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ was still pretty scarce when TAS took place, so the main focus was on the R35 Nissan GT-R. The Ben Sopra wide body kit for the GT-R made it’s debut on several of the demo cars for the top tuning companies including their own rear wheel drive converted drift car that they purchased from Blitz. There was also a drifting exhibition from the professional drivers of the D1 Grand Prix.


eGarage.com // Tokyo Auto Salon
from Maiham-Media.com on Vimeo.

The best in show award was given to the 1200 horsepower Trust/Greddy R35RX GT-R:


Source: Greddy USA