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100+ R35 GT-Rs at Japanese R35GTRClub National Meet
More than 100 R35 GT-Rs gathered at Laguna Gamagori in central Japan for the R35GTRClub National Meet this Sunday.
I’m sure it should be one of the biggest Nissan GT-R meets ever held over the world. Not only were fellow members of R35GTRClub there but, demo-cars from Kansai Service, HKS, NISMO, Nordring, TommyKaira, and Hashimoto Corp turned out as well.
Enjoy some of the pics taken at the meet.
GTROC Sponsors Seiji Ara of GT1 World Championship Swiss Racing Team
The Japan based GTROC (GT-R Owner’s Club) has announced their sponsorship of Swiss Racing Team GT-R driver Seiji Ara today. The Japan born driver has had a long career in GT racing and won the 24hrs of Le Mans in 2004. He was a logical choice to step into the 2010 GT1 Nissan GT-R after spending 2008 and 2009 driving the GT500 Nissan GT-R in the Japanese SuperGT Championships.
The GTROC also took this opportunity to show off their updated club logo. The GT-R club that has been in existence since 1996 has featured the silhouette of the venerable R32 GT-R. The updated logo now features the outline of the R35 GT-R.
As I too am an owner and a big fan of the GT-R, I’m very glad to have strong support from GTROC, Japan’s most reputable GT-R owner’s club. I will do my best in the FIA GT1 World Championship to bring brilliant news to the supporters!
– Seiji Ara, Swiss Racing Team Driver
Link: GTROC Website
Link: Swiss Racing Team Website
Link: FIA GT1 World Championships Website
GTRBlog.jp: GTRBlog Officially Launches in Japanese
Thanks to our friends in Japan, the GT-R Owners Club and the GTR-SNS, we’ve now gone live in Japanese on local Japan based servers to provide the best and most up to date news and information on the world of the Nissan GT-R!
The two sites will be delayed mirrors content wise but be also providing original and localised content written by Japanese enthusiasts and bloggers. This will also give us an even bigger leg up in getting out GTRBlog English readers the latest news out of Japan. Something we always strive to improve.
So hitup the link below to get your daily dose of GT-R news in Japanese!
Link: GTRBlog.jp – Your Source for Nissan GT-R News (日本語)
Nissan GT-R 2010 Model Version Up Kit Offered in Japan
Another interesting Japan only dealership offering was recently launched. With the latest model GT-R comes a few select upgrades with regards to the brakes and navigation system. Instead of leaving 2007 – 2009 model owners in the cold, Nissan have built the “’10 Model Version Up Kit” for them.
It’s worth pointing out here that what Japan calls the 2010 model is broadly equal to what the US market refers to as the 2011 Nissan GT-R.
The kit comes in three flavors but primarily consists of upgrades or changes to the Brembo brakes, Carwings Navigation and MFD system and rear spoiler. Let’s take a little deeper look.
First up, the Brembo brake calipers. As part of this service, the calipers will be refinished and rebranded back to Brembo. As you would know when the GT-R launched in 2007, the Brembo logo adorned the brakes. This changed in 2009 when Nissan changed it in favor of a large NISSAN logo with smaller red Brembo logo. On top of this, the paint used on the GT-R’s brake calipers faded to a dark brown after circuit use which is less than attractive in many owners opinions.
For this service the calipers will have their gold finish reapplied with more robust paint and the Brembo logo will once again take pride of place on the calipers.
In addition to this, the 2010 model features an upgraded pad spring clip. This is actually quite a big deal as quite a few guys have found the stock spring clip to be less than ideal in some situations. This clip will be retrofitted here.
Next up is the Carwings navigation system upgrade. It’s no secret that the 2010 model GT-R features a significant upgrade in this department. It’s not just software but also some hardware bits and pieces to provide USB functionality and make it compatible with the NISMO DataLog Kit MFD upgrade. This service does not exactly include the NISMO upgrade but it’ll get your Japanese GT-R up to spec to have the NISMO MFD upgrade installed separately.
Pricing? Well for the MFD upgrade alone you’re looking at 693,000 yen in Japan. For the brakes and the MFD upgrades together its 819,000 yen. The MFD upgrade is available on its own but, for reasons unknown, the brakes are not.
Last but not least is a special limited offer. The SpecV dry carbon rear spoiler will be available to the first 20 regular (or black or premium edition) GT-R owners that rock up to the NHPC with the cash. How much cash exactly? Don’t expect much change out of 630,000 yen… None at all really.
Thanks to Orito-san from GT-R OC of Japan for the brochure images and to Ado-san from the R35 GT-R Owners Club of Japan for further details.
Nissan Japan Initiates GT-R Steering Lock Replacement Service Campaign
This is a controversial issue for GT-R owners in some regions. If you’ve been hanging around owners club forums and discussion boards you’ll have already seen the mysterious posts where owners get stuck with a car that wont start for seemingly unknown reasons.
Often the culprit is found, after much time and effort and probably swearing, to be the steering lock which seems to be in some way prone to a fault. The fault, when it arises, will prevent the car from starting and has so far been noted to affect Japanese and US model GT-Rs.
Nissan, in Japan at least, is cognizant of this issue and has begun sending out letters to GT-R owners informing them of a Service Campaign to replace potentially problematic steering locks for no charge for customers. We’ve received a copy of the letter and have included these photos of it.
We hope that following hot on the heels of this letter is a similar one for cars affected in other regions.
Nismo Festival 2009: Nismo Festival Walkthrough Part 2
Following on from our first part of this article on a walkthrough of Nismo Festival 2009, we continue our story.
By this stage of the day you would have either tired yourself out from shopping or done the alternative. That is to say, if you didn’t come to Nismo Festival to shop then maybe you’ve been lining up for some of the special event tickets available on the day. These include things like; Circuit Safari bus tours on the race track with SuperGT cars whizzing by and Passenger car ride-alongs on the track.
One of the cheaper and more available of the special tickets is the Grid Walk ticket in which you get to step foot on Fuji Speedway’s circuit to get up close with the cars and drivers. Take your posters, hats or postcards out with you and have them signed by Satoshi Motoyama and get a photo with a super popular race queen. All for just 1,500 yen and they sell a couple of hundred of them versus the 40 or so for other ticket types.
Once your sorted for tickets its time to check out the Japanese muscle on display down in the pit area. There’s so much racing history jammed into these garages from 2009 model SuperGT GT500 GT-Rs to KPGC10’s from the 70’s. These cars aren’t just static displays either. Chances are you’ll catch them warming up for one of the many circuit events where anything from the Group-A R32 GT-Rs to the latest GT500 R35s will be out on the circuit. This usually involves loud revving while up on their air jacks.
After you’ve gone through the pits thoroughly is probably about time to sit down and enjoy some motor sports. Some of the races from Nismo Festival 2009 were the All time Dream Battle featuring GT500 GT-Rs from various generations versus GT500 Fairlady Zs from 2007 and earlier.
We’ll featuring some of the circuit photos in the next update. For now sit back and have a click through some photos I took of the pits and special ticket events.
Images: Copyright (C) 2009 GTRBlog.com
Garage Saurus Tune the Nissan GT-R SpecV
Given the opportunity, you would tune this too. Not content to have the quickest production GT-R available, this SpecV owner has booked it in for a few basic performance upgrades. Garage Saurus have complied and installed a few choice upgrades from their range such as the Trust / GReddy full titanium exhaust, Garage Saurus Suction Piping Kit, Blitz twin blow off valves, Garage Saurus upgraded wastegate actuators, and to control the boost a HKS EVC.
To complete the picture, ECU tuning will beging this week. With this being the first SpecV worked on, they expect a few speed bumps but nothing serious. While tuning a set of Garage Saurus Bosch 750cc injectors may make their way on to this car as well to beef up the fuel system. I think this car is in good hands! Should be interesting to see the final power figures.
Link: Garage Saurus R35 GT-R Website
GT-RR Launch Carbon Dry Japan Parts for Nissan GT-R
GT-RR has teamed up with Japanese carbon parts manufacturer Carbon Dry Japan to launch their extensive range of Nissan GT-R parts globally. Carbon Dry Japan is already known for producing parts for other tuners such as Esprit for whom they manufacture Esprit Dry Carbon GT Wing 262 and front grilles. Having just been launched in Japan, GT-RR has already setup a partnership with the company to distribute globally and so, available now, is the full range of parts from aero to interior including:
Aero Parts
- Dry Carbon Aero Hood
- Dry Carbon Rear Wing
- Dry Carbon Side Skirts
- Dry Carbon Front Canards
- Dry Carbon Rear Underspoiler w/optional F1 LED Tail light
- Dry Carbon Rear Overfenders
- Dry Carbon Front Lip Spoiler
Moving on to the interior we have:
- Dry Carbon Console Surround
- Dry Carbon Aircon Outlet Surrounds
- Dry Carbon Shifter Center Surround
- Dry Carbon Cup Holders
The quality of Carbon Dry parts has to be seen in person to fully appreciate. I checked out the Esprit parts recently and was impressed with what I saw. I think for the price you’d have pay for these items that’s something you might want to do before you make the jump.
For full photos of everything listed up there and pricing, hit up the link to the Carbon Dry Japan category over at GT-RR.
Link: Carbon Dry Japan parts on GT-RR.com
Tokyo Auto Salon 2010 Dates Announced
It really seems like TAS2009 has just been but time flies and dates are now already announced for next years event. In case you don’t know or have never heard of it, Tokyo Auto Salon is Japan’s largest annual tuner auto show. Spread out over the many halls of the Makuhari Messe each year is everything you could possibly want Japanese car tuning related. From the subtle to the sublime from drift cars to VIP it’s all here and it’s growing in size.
This year you should most certainly plan your trip in advance and be in Tokyo from the 15th – 17th of January 2010.
Tokyo Auto Salon 2009 was huge, 388 companies exhibited 626 cars over 3,117 booths over god knows how many kilometers of hall aisles. This eclipses TAS2008 in size even without some of the bigger name tuners like HKS in attendance!
In January this year we attended Tokyo Auto Salon with guys from NAGTROC and were well impressed with the cars on show and of course, we’ll be back next year to bring you guys all the news we can from across the ocean.
If you’re planning on going, or even a maybe, post in the comments. We had many great meetups with NAGTROC members and GTRBlog readers this year in Tokyo so looking to do it all over and have an even better time in 2010.
Nissan Tochigi Plant – Godzilla Ground Zero: GTRBlog Photo Gallery
The Nissan Tochigi Plant is an amazing place to visit, sprawling over a vast physical area you need to take a bus (or a “plant test GT-R”) to make your way around it. That’s exactly what we did in January this year with NAGTROC thanks to Nissan Japan and our good friend and GTR Owners Club Japan President Shin Inoue. If you’re interested in the entire writeup on the experience you can checkout our previous post with the link to the official NAGTROC magazine style writeup. If you’re more of a visual person, well you can enjoy some of the photos I took at the plant.
In terms of what we could and could not photograph, we were quite restricted. Photography within the plant structures was forbidden due to certain confidential things we may or may not have seen. Outside again we were also fairly restricted. Only I was allowed to bring my trusty Nikon D300 and I tried to capture what I could but there was a LOT going on. Everyone else was made to leave their cameras behind.
Enjoy what we have here and let us know in the comments if you want any details on what exactly is going on in any of these. Click the giant “Read More” link below for the rest of the photos…
Photos: GTRBlog.com (C) 2009 – Reproduction with permission permitted
Link: NAGTROC and GTRBlog Visit to Nissan Tochigi Plant – Full Writeup (17mb, PDF)
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