IF YOU HAVE 9.88 SECONDS YOU HAVE TIME TO WATCH THIS Earlier this week, a few enthusiastic clients rented out South Florida's excellent PBIR to run a few friendly "grudge match" drag races. Among the attendees was one awesome R900 GTR on 20" Switzer Tech 107 rims and DOT rubber and a screaming yellow, twin-turbo Gallardo.
They lined up. The lights turned green. They blasted down the track.
If you've been following the exploits of our R-package GTR Nissans over the last few years, you already know who wins!
It was a great day, a great event, and we met tons of great people from PBIR, Dragtimes, and Audio Advisors - we can't wait to get back to Florida and do it all again soon!
LAUNCH IN 3 ... 2 ... I wrote about the how a Switzer R1K set the mph-in-a-1/4-mile record last week, but the R1K wasn't the only high-powered Switzer GTR in attendance at Norwalk.
Switzer's eco-conscious E900 GTR Nissan showed up to play, too (minus Amuse wing) and did not disappoint - blasting across the 1/4 mile mark at over 144 mph in just 9.8 seconds!
Video, below.
"GREEN" MEANS "GO!" I'm not sure what the overall 1/4 mile records for et and mph on E85 are, but if Switzer's E900 isn't the fastest corn-burning GTR PKG available, it can't be too far off.
NOW AVAILABLE IN STORMTROOPER WHITE When Nissan introduced the latest R35 version of its GTR in 2008, the international press was quick to nickname the car “Godzilla” - as much for the car’s size as for its fire-breathing performance - and Nissan was equally quick to call the car both “perfect” and “untunable”. That “perfect” label is a matter of opinion, of course, but enough GTR buyers felt the car lacked sufficient oomph that a number of tuning firms began to lay waste to the idea of an “untunable” car, building massively-powerful GTR Nissans along the way. One such firm is Tym Switzer’s Ohio-based Switzer Performance, and their massively-powerful GTR is called the P800 - a comprehensively tuned 800 hp track-weapon that’s as much at home on Main Street as it is on the back straight.
Of course, there are some enthusiasts who will always want more - and when one of these enthusiasts contacted Switzer about pushing the P800 GTR to the limit, the crew at Switzer Performance got to work developing the car you see here.
806 WHP ON THIS RUN “The P800 is already at the limit of what we feel comfortable for the stock GTR transmission,” explains Switzer. “So to go further we really needed to beef up the transmission. We contacted Dodson Motorsports in New Zealand and explained what our goals were with the car - 900 hp, more clutch area, ad smooth shifting at every speed. The new transmission is the product of several months’ co-development between Switzer and Dodson, and is exactly what we needed in order to start pushing the GTR forward beyond 800 hp.”
The next thing Switzer needed to address to keep “pushing the GTR forward” was fuel. “We didn’t want to just deliver a race-gas package that tethered the client to a fuel drum in his garage, but we wanted to be able to turn up the boost, also.” The solution? Readily-available E85.
“In a way, the solution was all around us,” offers Switzer, whose shop is located deep in Ohio’s farm country, surrounded - literally! - by cornfields. “E85 isn’t without its trade-offs. We had to modify the fuel system to handle the fuel and significantly increase the size of the injectors, also, but in the end we had a fuel that gave us everything we needed to crank up the boost on this car and deliver over 900 hp.” The E85 delivered other benefits as well: it is significantly “greener” than the pump-gas and race-gas versions of the GTR. “With most high-horsepower cars, you can barely breathe after just a few dyno runs. With the E85, we were able to run pull after pull to dial in the tune without feeling any effects of the usual emissions. It’s hardly scientific, but there was a noticeable improvement in the air quality in the shop compared to race gas.”
The final product - dubbed the E900 for “Ethanol fuel, 900 hp” - is a fast, capable package that offers linear power delivery and massive midrange torque with superior transient response compared to larger-turbo/race-fuel combinations, while maintaining a bit of environmental responsibility along with its blistering sub-6-second 60-130 mph acceleration. GREEN AND MEAN This first E900 also sports an Amuse carbon fiber aero package, 3-way adjustable suspension, and 20” BBS wheels that are an inch wider than stock at all four corners. Switzer’s new E85-fueled E900 PKG is available now. Contact Switzer Performance for more.
After a long Russian winter, the Switzer P800 GTR Nissan pilots are back in action - and their first "target" is a million-dollar, thousand-power Bugatti Veyron.
How'd the cars do? Dragtimes is keeping quiet until their full video (with VBox GPS timing) is cut and edited, but the rumor mill has the cars neck-and-neck to 300 km/hr, so stay tuned ... we'll post the full video as soon as we have it.
MASSIVE 997 TT PERFORMANCE For a $100 video camera, that's not bad!
Neil Switzer filmed his brother Tym running a Tiptronic-equipped P800 997 Porsche Turbo all the way up to 180 mph on the Switzer Performance dyno, then added some text and fade-effects for us ... and the end result looks great!
I think we found something else for Neil to do - while we put him to work, enjoy the video!
Some of our friends in Kuwait have called out a number of their tuner-car enthusiast friends and put together a series of clips of their Switzer P800 GTR Nissan tearing it up on the streets of Kuwait.
The boys in Russia are running wild with their Switzer P800 GTR Nissans, this time running down a Suzuki Hayabusa - one of the fastest street bikes money can buy! It's a bit of a wash at the start, where the AWD Nissan has a clear advantage, but from 60 mph on it's a dead heat, and the car walks the bike above 170 mph.
My favorite part? When the camera pans over the speedo at more than 200 mph! OH, YES! Great stuff - we're so proud of these guys and grateful to the Dragtimes video crew for taking this great footage week after week!
A few weeks ago, some other shops started posting 10.4 sec. 1/4 mile runs and 134 mph trap speeds and claiming GTR "records" at sanctioned tracks.
We've never claimed our GTR tuning packages would be record-breakers, and we certainly haven't set them up to be drag-racers (in fact, we developed the GTR PKG specifically as a road-course trackday PKG!) but that doesn't mean our 800 hp pump-gas car P800 GTR Nissan can't get down the road ... witness the runs above, consistent 10.4xx second runs at 132-133 mph.
I know, I know: these runs are not on a track, not sanctioned, etc. They're also not too far off that record, considering this is an off-the-shelf package that's been proven in 20-odd customer cars around the world, either!
... however, we are ALWAYS happy to hear about people enjoying our cars. In the driver's own words:
Several friends and I were headed back to Cleveland from the Columbus Cars & Coffee. As we are cruising back, a Prelude blows by all of us. He slows down for us, then hits it again. We notice the front mounted intercooler and realize it is a boosted Prelude. When he hits it again, we realize it is a pretty fast car (relatively speaking of course). He urges us to run. He seemed extremely confident that he has beaten many turbo Porsches in the past. Unfortunately, this time he picked the wrong Porsche to mess with. He slows down again and waits for us to pull up next to him. My friend in the passenger seat pulls out the phone camera.
What happens next? You'll have to watch to the end.
Tym's turned this shop into something of a breeding-ground for pump-gas monsters this year, with the 800 hp P800 GTRs - making over 300 more hp than their OE Nissan brethren - being some of the quickest of the bunch.
Of course, more is expected in this business and too much is never enough, so as soon as Switzer's customers got their hands on the cars, they started asking for more power still.
"How much will it make on race gas? That was the first question, right out of the box," explains Tym. "We've developed the 'P' packages as daily-use products that wouldn't force you to buy race gas or excessively strain the driveline. We wanted to make an 800 hp car that was a true daily driver, and we accomplished that ... but someone always wants more. We've bent a bit to the demands of those customers that are using their GTRs primarily as trackday cars, and developed a new 'R' package specifically for them."
The "R", in this case, refers to race fuel - as the "P" in "P800" referred to the fact that the package was developed for "pump gas" - and with better fuel comes, of course, more boost, and more power. "We're seeing consistent dyno results in excess of 740 all-wheel-horsepower and 715 lb-ft, pull after pull. Most everyone seems to agree that the GTR has about a 15% driveline loss. Based on that, this kit is making well over 850 hp and 820 lb-ft at the crank." As with all of Switzer's GTR packages, this kit builds power very similarly to the stock R35, before the boost really begins to kick in above 3500 rpm. "This helps preserve the trans. in the car, but it's right on the edge. The P800 is still the ultimate everyday car. This car, tuned like this, is something else."
Scary stuff. Dyno video, below.
Pricing for the new R850 PKG from Switzer is set at $20990, which includes pump gas and race fuel tunes, as well as Switzer's updated cooling PKG, and features a massive dual-core radiator, thermostat, and revised Switzer MONSTER intercoolers.
