HKS have released their awaited forged pistons and conrod package for the VR38 engine recently as a compliment to their GT800 turbine upgrades. Designed to offer high durability, the HKS pistons are also designed to cope with much more power than standard.

Before getting too steeped in the technical specs, let’s run over the highlights of the HKS forged piston product. These pistons offer the same bore x stroke of the OEM pistons meaning the same displacement volume and that they’re a direct fit. What does change is the crown volume (concave) which increases from 4.49cc per cylinder to 8.01cc. This has the effect of decreasing the compression ratio from the standard 9.0 down to 8.7. Thanks to the forged hollow channel construction, the HKS pistons also weigh in at 25 grams less than the OEM items (420g vs 445g).

For full specs for the pistons and the conrods see the data below from HKS. For pricing, contact your HKS distributor for local pricing but expect to pay around 367,500 yen if you’re in Japan for the full set.

Link: HKS Forged Pistons and Connecting Rod Release

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Recently a representative of HKS Japan, Mr Suzuki, came to Top Racing Hong Kong “GT-R professional workshop” to make the announcement that the release of the HKS F-con V-Pro and F-con IS is set for mid to late June.

Top Racing was given a unit of F-con V-Pro to conduct tuning tests on the R35 GT-R and were impressed with the results. The V- Pro was installed on a R35 with the HKS GT600 kit installed, and during peak power there was a 20 horsepower gained. On our dyno, we were able to achieve 619.3 horsepower, and we can see a complete power up throughout the rev range.

The F-Con V-Pro is a full computer and completely replaces the standard ECU in the R35. It is plug and play, so installation is very straight forward. At the same time, this V-Pro comes with the HKS Valcon system, it allows the tuner to adjust the engine’s VCT system, which dramatically improves the low and mid range torque. With the ability to fine tune the fuel map, allows better fuel consumption and of course improves the power throughout the RPM. It’s again one big step in computer tuning for the R35.

We weren’t unable to conduct any test with the F-con IS. But technically speaking the F-Con IS is a sub-computer and runs off the stock one, but at the same time also allow the tuner to use the HKS Valcon system. The only differences is that you will need to run a OSC (Oxygen Signal Computer) to run the F-Con IS, this is due to the strong A/F close loop circuit the stock eco runs.. We believe that the power output between the two comp shouldn’t differ greatly, but the F-Con V-Pro will have more potential for tuning.

Link: Top Racing HK Website

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Designed to improve the front stability and downforce, this new front lip spoiler from HKS Kansai is also pretty good looking in carbon fibre. It’s manufactured in wet carbon so it wont hit you too hard in the hip pocket either.

It’s available now from HKS Kansai distributors for about 81,000 yen in Japan.

Link: HKS Kansai Website

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HKS Premium Day was held just over a week ago now and it wasn’t all about on-track festivities. HKS also had an entire new turbo lineup to unveil. This is their new inhouse designed turbo lineup known as the HKS GTII.

Due to be released in March this year, HKS are also developing a full turbo kit for the Nissan GT-R that will utilize these turbos matched with a HKS exhaust manifold to directly compete with the current Trust TD06-20G kit that has been out for some time.

Source: GTR-World.net Special Report – HKS Turbo Unveiled

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Lucky owners are already getting their hands on the hot new intercooler kits from HKS for the R35 GT-R. This GT-R owner from the NAGTROC club in the US has unboxed his to find an extremely attractive setup. The cores and ducting looks like the typical HKS top notch quality.

Head over to NAGTROC forums for the rest of the pics!

For more info on the cooler itself, check out our original post on the release.

Link/Source: NAGTROC Forums – HKS Intercooler Unboxed at Jotech Motorsports

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We’re not quite finished with the TAS2010 coverage just yet, we still have a load of photos to sort through for interesting tidbits from the show. Today we’ll cover the HKS Kansai booth who managed a huge showing again at this years AutoSalon. Most interesting this year was getting a chance to check out their lineup in the flesh. Let’s take a look then.

Up there is the HKS Kansai brake air guide system, bigger than I had expected it’s made from carbon and fits up with some nice stainless cap screws. The guide should provide some decent airflow and is probably best combined with some ducts from the front underspoiler. It’s no FIA GT ducting job but it should give you a bit of help on the track keeping the brakes cooler.

We also got a look at the HKS Kansai front mounter transmission cooler. As described a while back, this unit cools the transmission by cooling the engine coolant before it makes its way back to the transmission assembly. This is possibly one of the safest ways to cool your transmission and the quality of the HKS Kansai product is top notch. The ducting you can see is designed to take air from the front bumper to the cooler much the same way as the factor ducting does on the opposite side of the car.

Next up we checked out the HKS Kansai front and rear LSDs for the GT-R. The front LSD we had seen before in the HKS Kansai product release but the rear LSD is new to us. Again these are quality units and are made by a well known Japanese company for HKS Kansai. We’d tell you who but we’re told to keep it quiet for now. The same company makes the other items we saw actually, namely, the GT-R sway bars and adjustable control arms.

These are the first adjustable control arms we’ve seen for the GT-R so far and might be good for guys wants a bit more control over their camber at the front. We haven’t seen them fitted up yet or heard of real world results so we can’t give the specs just yet. They’re still in development for now but hopefully we see a full release soon.

For now you can read up on pricing and specs of product they have released over on the HKS Kansai website. For the new stuff, we’ll keep you posted when we know full details.

Link: HKS Kansai Website

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HKS have announced their own transmission cooler for the Nissan GT-R this week just prior to Tokyo AutoSalon. The front mounted oil cooler design goes up against some already strong entries in the market, one from regional affiliate HKS Kansai. The difference here is that HKS have seemingly chosen to directly cool the transmission fluid by way of pumping it through a front mounted, 15 row, oil cooler. The core dimensions of the cooler are 220mm x 220mm x 48.5mm.

In contrast, the HKS Kansai item cools the engine coolant that the GT-R pumps through the transmission to cool it before it reaches the transmission by way of a water cooler in the same location. Which is best?

Anyways, the core is fed cold air from the front bumper by way of ducting that mirrors the ducting to the factory oil cooler, a slight modification to the standard front bar to open the airflow to this duct will be required.

In testing at Fuji Speedway, over a 15minute full on session, HKS saw the transmission temp level out at 127 degrees with the HKS DCT Cooler fitted. In comparison, with the standard setup they had to abort the run at the 11 minute mark as the transmission fluid temp hit 135 degrees celsius and showed signs that it would continue to climb.

Cooler transmission fluid temps increase fluid lifespan, offer smoother shifts on the track and decrease the chances that you’ll hit the inbuilt safety limp mode of the TCM. One other side effect of cooler transmission temps that HKS noticed while testing is that the engine coolant sees a subsequent drop in temperatures as well. I guess it’s job is made a little easier by not having to cool a 135 degree gearbox down.

Theres a few other details to note, and we should be able to clear up all the how’s and why’s on Friday at TAS.

Price is set at 262,500 yen in Japan.

Link: HKS Website

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HKS Kansai have announced they will be attending Tokyo AutoSalon in their traditional parts stocked booth. Along with their other demo cars will be the HKS Kansai R35 GT-R Black Edition. This HKS Kansai car is kitted out with the entire catalogue of parts including:

• HKS Racing Suction Kit
• HKS Metal Catalyzer and Front Pipe Kit
• HKS Kansai Titanium Dual Exhaust
• HKS Kansai Transmission Water Cooling Kit
• HKS Kansai ECU
• HKS Kansai Stabilizer/Sway Bars
• HKS Kansai Front LSD
• HKS Kansai Seat Rails
• HKS Kansai Floor Mats Set
• HKS Kansai Tow Hook
• HKS Kansai Carbon Exhaust Protector
• HKS Kansai Carbon Radiator Shroud

As well as that formidable list, the car is also decked out in a fairly comprehensive list of SEIBON carbon products such as the dry carbon aero hood, rear spoiler, trunk lid, front lip spoiler and grille.

We’ll grab the latest pics this coming Friday the 15th of January so keep checking back for our Tokyo AutoSalon coverage for 2010…

Link: HKS Kansai Website

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HKS continue to come up with some new ideas in the R35 GT-R parts business, especially this week in the intake air cooling arena where suprisingly few companies have succesfully ventured so far. Perhaps the standard cooling solution is difficult to improve upon? Either way the HKS Intercooler Kit for the Nissan GT-R is a shift in the right direction I feel.

What HKS has done is ditched the standard intake air guide/ducting system and replaced it with their own carbon version. This allows them to choose a longer core (400×260) and gain important surface area in doing so. Available surface area in an intercooler can mean more efficient cooling but in this case HKS went with a thinner core (65mm) to do so. What you usually end up with when doing this is an increase in pressure drop across the intercooler but, this is something that HKS have thought of in advance and they’ve tried to design this away with a new inner fin design. The thin core design also helps in lessening the effect of blocking airflow to the radiator.

The HKS Intercoolers offer all this and at a lower weight as well losing 1.6kg over the standard items. There’s no pricing as yet but we’ll let you know when we find out around January 2010.

Link: HKS Website

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Two new LSDs for the Nissan GT-R in three total configurations have been released by tuning house HKS Kansai recently. The HKS Kansai front LSD Spec 1 and the Spec 2 are available to meet different applications of the Nissan GT-R and are both 1 way limited slip differentials. With a 1 way front LSD, effects are only felt under acceleration and the aim is to improve handling when in and exiting corners under acceleration. It also improves grip when accelerating in a straight line.

The HKS Kansai Front LSD Spec-1 is a street and light circuit oriented diff. It comes in two types depending on how agressive you want it. The specifications are as follows:

• Cam angle (accelerating/coasting): 35°/0° or 45°/0°
• Initial Torque: 5-6 kgf
• Friction Plates: 8 per side, 16 total

The HKS Kansai Front LSD Spec-2 is a competition oriented differential and comes only in one type. It also excels at getting you maximum traction off the line in high powered drag GT-Rs. The specifications are:

• Cam angle (accelerating/coasting): 55°/0°
• Initial Torque: 10-12 kgf
• Friction Plates: 8 per side, 16 total

Whether you want the mild street, light circuit or full competition spec front LSD, the price is the same at 205,800 yen. Contact your local HKS Kansai distributor for local pricing and availability.

Updated: Corrected initial torque values

Images/Source: GTR-World.net
Link: HKS Kansai Website

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