Tuning shop Garage Yawata are a well established tuning shop in Aichi, Japan. These guys have had their white Nissan GT-R for a while now and so far they have cracked the ECU and are offering speed delimiting to their customers at around the 130,000 yen mark. Tuning of the standard ECU is currently in development.

Garage Yawata are featured in Option magazine this June regarding their top speed runs in this car and it so far they’ve managed 309.3 km/h (GPS measured) in their almost standard delimited GT-R.

Over 300km/h the car is said to still be relatively quiet inside and to track quite well. It’s a little scary but it’s not going to stop them trying to go faster. Next steps are to figure out the tuning side on the standard ECU and shoot for 320km/h! Good luck guys.

We showed you first pics of the Tamiya model unassembled earlier this month. Now here’s a photo taken at Tamiya “Plamodel” (Japanese for plastic model) Factory at Tressa Yokohama, Yokohama, Japan. You can see the fully assembled and painted 1:24th scale Nissan GT-R with a bunch of extra parts behind. This is one fine looking scale model.

This model goes on sale next month at a retail price of around $40 USD at hobby stores Japan wide and worldwide shortly thereafter.

Video: Take a video tour of the Tressa Yokohama Tamiya Plamodel Factory

If you’re after that lower ride height for your Nissan GT-R but don’t want to spend mega bucks on aftermarket suspension RS-R may have the solution for you.

RS-R’s latest product for the new Nissan GT-R is a set of lowering coil springs designed for the standard Bilstein Damptronic suspension. After installation of these “Ti2000 Super-Down” coil springs, your GT-R ride height is lowered by 25-30mm at the front and 20-25mm at the rear. Much more than this and your front lip spoiler is toast at even the mildest speed hump down the shops.

Source: RS-R via CBA-R35 blog

Wow it’s beginning to turn into Tirerackblog.com around here… Anyways here’s an update on how the Nissan GT-R has been doing in the Tire Rack One Lap of America!

First off we got an explanation direct from Mary, the co-driver, regarding the poor 1/4 mile ET last we told you about last update. As thought, Tony had difficulties figuring out the launch control system. There are a series of steps to follow and once done the launch control is easy to cancel. Seems Tony accidentally canceled the launch control on each pass attempt while rolling forward to the line. Ah well, thanks Mary for the inside info.

So on to the results, the GT-R did well at the No Problem Raceway in events 9 and 10 with a great 8th and 7th placing for 325 and 330 points. Carolina Motorsports Park was kind on the GT-R too with two 7th positions for 660 points total.

Onward to BMW motorsports park and a decent finish for the BMWs. The GT-R doesn’t do too badly though with a 9th spot.

That’s about when the rain started. The race hit Virginia International Raceway and so did the weather. The RE070’s are reportedly disastrous in the wet so the team finished well down in 43rd position in event 14. Behind a Honda Odyssey! Slightly better with a 39th in event 15. Finally the rain stopped and they made up for it finishing 7th in event 16.

So where does that place us overall? Well 6th in class still but movin’ on up one place to 6th overall! Great going guys!

Source: TireRack OneLap and NAGTROC
Images: Billyco @ NAGTROC

Perhaps to co-incide with the whole Tire Rack and Car & Driver One Lap of America Tire rack have added Bridgestone Potenza RE070 20″ runflats on their website at a refreshingly affordable price. After hearing of Nissan Japan’s price for these tires it’s good to see Nissan had simply kept the tradition of large mark ups on parts and that tire shops aren’t as crazy. Prices are $373 USD per front tire and $388 per rear tire.

Tire Rack are also offering the all season Dunlop 7010 DSST runflats at a slightly higher $404 USD each per front and $447 USD each per rear.

As for wheels, Tire Rack has added the Rays Gram Lights R57GT for Nissan GT-R to their inventory as well priced at $3,880 USD per set. Not sure what offsets Tire Rack are stocking right now but these are the same wheel we first saw on the Zele International / Harrison demo car pictured. If the offsets are right they can look quite good.

Source: Tire Rack via NAGTROC
Image: Zele International

Tokyo Auto Salon 2009 dates have now been announced so it’s time to start planning. It’s a long ways off but some of us have a long way to travel and like to get in early with the travel plans! TAS2009 will run from Friday 9th January 2009 to Sunday 11th January 2009.

As usual Friday morning is media, industry and VIP invite only preview with general admission after 1PM. Cost of entry is 3,000 yen pre-booked or 2,500 yen on the day for Friday and 2000/1700 yen on Saturday and Sunday. Trust us when we say PRE-BOOK if you can (it’s easy online) to avoid standing in the FREEZING cold queue out at Makuhari. To see all of Tokyo Auto Salon you generally need at least two days and even then you will miss things.

Tokyo Auto Salon, in case you didn’t know, is a huge annual modified Japanese and Import car show held in Makuhari in Chiba about an hour or so out of Tokyo. Each year hundreds of thousands of people flock to the halls of Makuhari Messe exhibition center to lay eyes and hands upon the hottest new cars and tuner parts to come out of Japan. Not to mention the Auto Salon Girls.

In 2008 nearly 250,000 people attended the 3,000 odd booths at the show. GTRBlog.com was there in 2008 and will be there in 2009 as well.

If you are planning to, or are hoping to attend TAS2009 but haven’t traveled to Japan before and/or are lost at the thought of organizing a trip to Japan we will be posting up a series of Japan/TAS2009 travel hints over the next few months that will take a lot of the pain out of the trip. From airlines to hotel suggestions and travel dates and side trips to take. Stay tuned!

Link: Tokyo AutoSalon Website

Road & Track magazine comes with a special DVD inclusion in June’s issue. I always have trouble getting these US magazines outside the US so luckily for me someone has uploaded it to YouTube already.

Check out the videos for some decent footage including an interview with Mizuno-san and a lap with Steve Millen.

Follow the jump for the second part of the video…

Source: Road & Track Magazine via NAGTROC

Read more »