gete3

http://www.gtrblog.com/index.php/200...stock-t?blog=4

GT-R Runs 11.1 @ 124mph in Stock Trim with Haltech ECU

dagor6

Sure, almost all 600cc motorcycle motors are pumping out around 220-250 hp/litre. And most of the stock 1000cc bikes are pushing 180-200 hp/litre.

Obviously the engines are different in a few ways, but in general they are a great example of what happens when there's some competition. There's no reason that Porsche's next GT3 couldn't easily push 180 hp/litre and run reliably for 200K miles. If it doesn't then it because they're choosing not to.


I'm not dumping on the GT3 engine, I'm just saying that there's a lot of room for improvement and it looks like we're entering a new era of engine development. So I'm very excited, but there's no reason to not hold Porsche's feet to the fire.

eclou

running a standalone is not "stock trim", and seems like a band aid patch to squeezing more power out

UDPride

but does significant HP/Litre really mean anything. That and .50c will get you a cup of coffee but not much else. The Honda S2000 can put up those benchmarks. Doesnt mean its a marvel of engineering or a better performing sports car. Dodge sticks big heavy V10s in their Vipers and takes the displacement route.

I dont think theres any right way to make power, and no way more holy than the next. In the end, if performance is truly what you're after, all that matters is what the stopwatch indicates. Nobody else ultimately cares how you came about it.

roberga

Saw this on the window of an American racer: " Tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of rice, I will not worry for torque is with me"

Yargk

You're kidding, right?

Then why do RSRs make 123 hp/liter and have to have rebuilds every certain amount of hours? Bigger motors are harder run at higher rpm reliably.

A 2008 CBR600RR has a bore and stroke of 67X42.5 mm and a 2008 GT3 RSR Evo has a bore and stroke of 102.5X76.4 mm. You make good specific outputs through good breathing at high rpm. The piston head speed would be much higher on the RSR at engine speeds that the CBR600RR runs. Another option to scale up bike performance besides bigger displacement per cylinder is more cylinders. But then you get into issues with long cranks. It's highly non-trivial to get big motors to run fast reliably.

dagor6

It's highly non-trivial to build small motors to run fast reliably, and yet they do. I agree that it's not easy to build fast moving larger engines but there are certainly ways to do it and manage the crank.

A 1000cc NA motorcycle engine can make more than 200 hp/litre with 4 cylinders and a bore and stroke of 86 x 42. That's reliably on a production bike with a full warranty. You don't think you could turn that into a V12 making 600 hp? And that's why? Because of crank considerations that just couldn't be engineered out??? We're busy playing with crankshaft rotation direction *between* races and you think it's a stretch?

They said the same thing about the 1098R. The 1098 is two cylinder engine with a bore and stroke of 104 x 65 mm. Can't pick up an extra 100cc's reliably right? What are you going to do, make the piston heavier or faster? And they did both! And it's still stock and guess what, 200 hp/litre.

My point is this, who cares about the motorcycles, GT3 is the best car I'd want to drive. All I'm saying is that they can easily do more whenver they want to and it's OK to expect them to do so or get their asses kicked by jap crap.

Kit_Chris

Quite right. All manufacturers seem to improve their products only marginally over the years, but could do much better if engineers were given the mandate so to do. I suppose marginal improvements keep customers interested, while quantum leaps in performance would make it difficult to sustain over time, hence the delicate balance called "automotive progress", and it seems more than ever determined by marketing imperatives than pure engineering ingenuity. Competition in market segments is so tight, one would imagine the German "gentleman agreement" isn't limited to the 155mph top speed, there seems to be an implicit agreement among manufacturers that gradual enhancements should allow for the entire industry to move forward while keeping all products at virtually identical performance levels.

That is until some odd Japanese player comes along to trash the rules and make a car that raises the bar. What interests me now is how sports car makers will react to this because, for now at least, their once exclusive performance edge is humbled by a vulgar Datsun. For years, this sole selling point (performance) was the best marketing departments could come up with. The best example I can think of is the Ferrari 348, by all means a great car but its performance was replicated by far lesser cars (mostly from Japan!), even Ferrari said at the time that this competition from overseas was the reason why the replacement 355 was so good. I like to see the GTR as this kind of unexpected competition that will get others to push the envelope this much more.

Engineers at Porsche may well be given the green light to design the 911 of their dreams, all because of the GTR, and who could complain about this?!

Regards,
Chris

gete3

Engineers at Porsche may well be given the green light to design the 911 of their dreams, all because of the GTR, and who could complain about this?!

+++ No one. But when is the earliest this could happen? And what car would it be? The 998 Turbo? And by that time where will GTR performance be?

gete3

14/05/2008 http://www.drivers-republic.com/news..._05_08_pg2.cfm

Nissan GT-R (The story behind that 7 minute 29 second lap)

Author: Jethro Bovingdon

It's old news that the Nissan GTR is rewriting the rules on what's possible for a relatively affordable and everyday usable super-coupe and that it recently lapped the Nordschliefe in 7:29 - setting a new benchmark for fully homologated production cars. But meeting the man who set the time, Tochio Suzuki, and the man in control of the car's development from the ground up, Kazutoshi Mizuno, is a great opportunity to witness first hand just how obsessive Nissan are about the GTR. And how proud they are that it has undoubtedly set new standards for everyone else to be judged against. Grabbing a couple of laps of Estoril with Suzuki is pretty revealing, too...

First up that Nurburgring lap. The target for the GTR was always 7:30 - and it had to be achieved in a fully representative 'customer-spec' car. Mizuno is quite clear on this: 'This time was set on a totally standard car, just like a customer will get. For us 'Time Attack' must be repeatable in a customer car. No special brake pads or cut-slick tyres - everything was standard GTR.' The time, set on April 8th, was achieved on the Dunlop SP Sport 600 DSST tyre that is standard on the basic GTR (i.e. non Premium or 'Black' spec, which both have Bridgestone RE070R tyres).

The Dunlop is a little noisier and not quite as good in the wet as the RE070R, but in the dry it's worth 4-5 seconds around the 'Ring. Incredibly all the tests of the GTR in the UK so far have been on the slower Bridgestone - and yet it has consistently set faster lap times than cars like the GT3.
Suzuki is quietly spoken and although he doesn't like to conduct interviews in English he's eloquent when talking about the lap. 'The conditions were perfect. I don't think the car could go faster. Its main strength is stability - on the brakes and in the corners. And the tyres are very consistent.' Is there a scary part of the circuit? - a key section to getting a good time but also the bit you don't look forward to? 'No. The lap was optimum but the car is predictable and easy to drive on the limit.'

The data trace that Mizuno is proud to take me through suggests that Suzuki is being ridiculously modest. The peak lateral G figure is 1.4 - and the car averages 1.3G from corner to corner. The GTR hits 290kph twice on its way to that lap time. The throttle position graph tells of total commitment (TPOS on the graph). Lapping a 1740kg road car in 7:29 is simply a phenomenal achievement.

incredibly there's more to come. Mizuno, Suzuki and the rest of the team are already well into the V-Spec development programme. Both men are tight lipped about the project but with an increase in power (to around 550bhp) and a 100kg weight saving, the V-Spec should move the GTR even further ahead of its rivals. Suzuki thinks the car should be as much as 10-seconds quicker than the standard car around the 'Ring. However, the V-Spec will have more extreme track-biased tyres, which will account for a large chunk of the time saving.

Jon70

I agree completely. The ends justify the means in this case.

MikeBat

The entire point of the Ring was that it offered a varied road course, with enough length that tweaks to a real world car based upon the results would be worthwhile.

I read an article this past weekend, I believe in GT magazine, where Walter Rohrl says that Ring times are becoming more and more irrelevant with the traffic on the track and manufacturers making one off Ring ringers.

Maybe the private track method that Ferrari is more informative. Something would more variety in road surface would be best.

SpeedGeek

I think the 'Ring works pretty well for suspension tuning of real world cars. OTOH, I think it makes for too-tall gearing. I'd like manufacturers to tune their chassis on the 'Ring, but gearing on smaller tracks.

I've never driven the 'Ring, just guessing from the cars I've driven that were developed to perform well there.

gete3

European cars have to compete on autobahns and the Ring; they need tall gearing.

allegretto

Couldn't agree with WR more;

Let's see...no tech inspection, variable traffic, variable weather, different drivers

Is this what "standards" are made of?

But I can't see how Ferrari running an unknown on their private track is any better.

I really don't see what non-reproducible data from covert sources has to do with us driving on the streets anyway. Buy whatever you like, but don't imagine the data is comparable from one test to another.