Nismo Titanium Exhaust for The R35 Nissan GT-R
December 8, 2009 by Justin Karow
Filed under Latest Articles, Odd Spot
Like Peter, I was also experiencing a little Nismo action myself over the weekend, only a little further south in Nagoya.
One difference being it involved me bringing the now semi slick shod R35 GT-R back to Tokyo in heavy rain on the Saturday night; an interesting experience, I can tell you. The very sticky Toyo Proxes R888’s refused to let go despite the risky conditions and really are a fantastic tire, even in poor conditions. The Cobb Access Port inside the GT-R was tweaked to make a full 580hp available and it does indeed make a significant difference. Mid range grunt has improved dramatically, with second and third gears delivering a much more vicious amount of thrust noticeable to the vital organs. For the purposes of this particular prelude to the trip to Nagoya though, I wanted to show you the underbelly of Nissans most notorious and revered supercar.
This car is very interesting to observe from below – especially this particular example, seeing as it is constantly undergoing transformational modifications. I’ve been fortunate enough to have experienced each of the changes as they have happened; the gap in performance compared to the standard GT-R continues to widen and it makes me wonder when a roll cage will be fitted to this car. Surely it is only a matter of time? Perhaps I should bite the bullet and get that Fuji Speedway NS4 license I have been procrastinating over for so long…
The most intriguing part underneath the car is definitely the glowing blue Nismo titanium exhaust system. Weighing in at over 2 million yen to buy brand new, this masterpiece in mechanical engineering has exquisite and intricately spaced hand welded cooling fins and looks so futuristic it wouldn’t look out of place on an intergalactic spaceship. That it helps the GT-R to develop its 580hp through clearer breathing and reduced weight is unimportant. Just look at it! If this is not one of the most beautiful exhausts in existence then I don’t know what is.
Along with the magnificence of the exhaust system, the car has benefited from the addition of good old Australian engineering, ironically, from none other than my hometown of Adelaide in Australia. Willall Engineering were enlisted to provide a transmission cooling device, in turn supplying a new transmission sump pan and oil cooling element for the GT-R. Instructions though were hardly what you would call comprehensive and the general opinion between us was that while the product has a solid concept and is effective in keeping transmission temperatures down, for more than $2500, it needs to be more polished and presented better. Having said that, we pushed the car hard and whereas before we were seeing temperatures of over 110 degrees centigrade, the addition of the Willall oil cooler has kept them below 100 which is a significant step forward and one the transmission would undoubtedly thank us for.
I have a lot of stuff to show you from Nagoya, including an awesome tuning shop as well as a few more “action oriented” activities, so stay tuned for more. It should prove to be worth more than its weight in, umm… titanium?
Words/Images: Adam Zillin
I have a small correction here guys. The transmission cooling kit retails for 3000 AUD and the more I think about it the less acceptable those totally inadequate instructions are.
You will also need to factor in more than 700 AUD to change the oil, which we did so factor in nearly 4000AUD all up for the operation.
Having said that, on the drive home I did notice that the shifts were a little more liquid and the car didn’t jolt on up or down shifts; a significant improvement. There was less clunk and whine from the bix too.
Now, I’m not sure how to describe this but it was as if I could make the car “sing” by making it change up and down through the cogs with light changes of throttle pressure. It was really interesting how smoothly and quickly the gears shifted, no doubt the oil and the kit is worth the expense.
That exhaust does look very tasty. Makes me wonder what TRD will do for the LFA
Also with those instructions they could’ve at least stapled the damn pages together. WTF
I pretty much have nothing new or refreshing to add so I’ll just ditto everything that celica said. Though that exhaust does remind me of “Interstella 5555″. It seems so alien in its design but in an eye-pleasing way.
You’d think for a little over $3000 the cooler instructions would at least come in a folded pamphlet or something and not an inkjet printout.
Instruction sheets aside, the sump does look like a very well built product and does its job. The Nismo exhaust pretty much defies words… for 2,000,000 yen you’d want some alien technology under the rear of the car for sure.
I don’t know what it is but why do those main cooling fins look like Lieutenant Worf’s fore-head from Star Trek?
http://cusecountry.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/250px-worftng.jpg
I may be missing something but why are cooling fins on an exhaust a good thing? Does cooler air flow through a muffler faster?
A cooler exhaust definitely aids performance and it’s always better to have under body temperatures under control and if those fins assist in doing that for the exhaust temperatures then it’s definitely something I wouldn’t mind attaching to the car. Not only that but it looks amazing. Pity you have to hoist it up every time you want to look at it!