So PD updated the GT-R LM Nismo Gr.1 car...

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Skygrasper550

Skygrasper550

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And it got one hell of a glow-up with the latest update. It was absolutely crap to drive ever since GT6, but now they changed it so that the hybrid powertrain now functions as it was originally intended: with the V6 powering the front wheels but the electric motor powering the rear wheels (essentially a 4WD car). This makes a HUGE difference in its driveability; you can now comfortably navigate slow to medium speed corners and the god-awful power understeer is all but completely gone. And yes, while it does feature a flywheel instead of a battery to store energy (this is why it runs out and recharges so fast), that 2 seconds or so of electric RWD power is more than enough to help you launch out of those kinds of corners and keep up with the rest of the Gr.1 field.

So far I have only tested it around Trial Mountain, including a Sophy grid with other Gr.1 cars (the AI-driven LM NISMO was keeping up). I can't wait to test it on 850PP races that feature tire wear. Looking forward to having another toy to play with for the weekly challenges.

EDIT: the Vision GT cars Kaz keeps adding are nice and all, but this kind of "what-if scenario" for cars like the GT-R LM NISMO is something I am all down for. PD should definitely do more of these, another example is what they did with the Isuzu 4200R in GT5.
 
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Yep, for just a small line in the patch notes it has transformed the car, it's nice to see the version that Nissan hoped to run at Lemans, but never got the chance to thanks to component reliability.

And that one component screwed the real life car in others ways. With no functioning hybrid the car had to run different brakes than intended, which required different wheels than intended, which required different tyres than intended, which required different suspension than intended... And so on.

One of racings big if's, give it another year of development, and what would have happened the next time out?
 
The real life story of this car is one of my favorite racecar engineering what-could-have-beens.

This post explains a lot of the design process:


but this post explains the cascade of failures that resulted from the lack of the flybrid system working properly (at all lol):


If you only read one of those, I'd read the second one, and I'll try to summarize the best points here:

First we need to understand the concept:
"The intended design of the car would have allowed for a power train that could harvest it's 8mj capacity much quicker that any other hybrid system, and could then unleash the entirety of that potential energy faster than any other Hybrid system via a direct mechanical coupling. And do so lap after lap without the wear degradation of a battery system, or the bulk of trying to convert the kinetic energy to electric like in the Audi flywheel system. This meant that the braking system could be made very small, with minimal cooling, and be very light weight, because the hybrid system would be doing the vast majority of the hard braking work. It also meant that with smaller brakes, you could run smaller wheels, and with smaller wheels a taller sidewall tire, which could do the bulk of the suspension duty, similar to Formula 1, so you could simplify out some of the suspension travel, making the car more compact, by not having to make allowance for additional suspension travel. And with the hybrid system doing the majority of the heavy acceleration and deceleration, on the engine side of things, the gearbox and it's clutch, could be simplified and downsized to made to be much lighter and more compact, just like the suspension. And finally, by making the car FWD, they could exploit the rules that allowed for unlimited size and dimension of the front diffuser area. So the lopsided front weight and aero balance could not only be overcome, but used as an advantage putting the primary downforce central with the cars weight. A nice exploit of the rules in a class where those rules specifically penalized mid engine cars under floor aero. And by using the flow through tunnel design they could greatly enhance the performance of that front diffuser, while simultaneously providing wake infill, and improving rear diffuser performance, while also reducing drag. Making the whole car very compact, relatively balanced on mass, aero, and packaging, and an absolute monster on a straight line. Something designed specifically for LeMans, and little else."

The tl;dr of the rest of it is basically that the company sourced for the flybrid system totally failed, and the car had to run in the race with a functioning ICE and a completely dead flybrid system that was not only taking up dead weight and space, but was also a critical component of diverting what would normally be thermal energy from braking into kinetic energy for the flywheel. They needed traditional brakes that could stop an LMP car, so that required larger wheels, different tires, changes to the suspension geometry and aero profile so essentially NONE of the original concept could work, not just the flybrid system. They had unnecessary stress on the brakes, suspension, wheels, tires, gearbox and ICE and lost a lot of the advantages that had originally been engineered in, not to mention the car was down on power and had horrible grip leaving corners in a fully FWD configuration.
 
crackhaed
If you only read one of those, I'd read the second one, and I'll try to summarize the best points here:
Click to expand...
Never seen those posts before but they certainly sound similar to the various versions I've been told and summarised in a previous Daily Races thread:

www.gtplanet.net

"Daily" Race Discussion [Archive]

St.-Croix B is a pleasure to drive! First race at St. Croix in a long time. So refreshing. I can imagine new people saying: "Hey, nobody told me about this new track!" and "Wait, this was in the game?" Hard to believe it was only used once before. I hope to see it more often since there's...
www.gtplanet.net www.gtplanet.net

For reference, this is the smallest actual "Flybrid" system I've ever seen:

1751407945900.jpeg


Though I'm told there's one that fits in a bus.

Additionally, Dyson apparently used the Flybrid system from three races in 2012-13, so I assume that there was a functioning unit at some point - though it was comfortably the slower of the two season-long ALMS entries in 2012 and overtly down on power, winning races when the HPD had issues, and finished second overall. It also came second, 56 laps behind, the Petit Le Mans-only Rebellion entry, so who can say.
 
Woah, creepy. I’ve been suggesting this change for ages.

The car’s concept was genius, all designed around efficient high-speed aero. The skinny rear tires and front-mid engine allowed a super wide and long venturi and diffuser. Unfortunately they ran out of money and time to get the rear driveline working.

I’m curious why they’ve made this change after all this time. Did somebody finally bring it up in a meeting? Are they actually reading comments? Did Nissan request it, either for brand image purpose or even to “test” the layout within the game’s physics (which is a plausible verification method imo). Depending on rules, this layout is actually still plausible with current LMH regulations although it would still only be effective at very high speed tracks. Plus, modern battery and electric motor combos eliminate the complexity of a mechanical drivetrain and likely improve weight balance.

I wonder if Nissan is cooking something up for LMH? It would be a huge risk given their current situation but would also bring a lot more attention to a company that is basically dead to racing besides Super GT.
 
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Keef
Woah, creepy. I’ve been suggesting this change for ages.

The car’s concept was genius, all designed around efficient high-speed aero. The skinny rear tires and front-mid engine allowed a super wide and long venturi and diffuser. Unfortunately they ran out of money and time to get the rear driveline working.

I’m curious why they’ve made this change after all this time. Did somebody finally bring it up in a meeting? Are they actually reading comments? Did Nissan request it, either for brand image purpose or even to “test” the layout within the game’s physics (which is a plausible verification method imo). Depending on rules, this layout is actually still plausible with current LMH regulations although it would still only be effective at very high speed tracks. Plus, modern battery and electric motor combos eliminate the complexity of a mechanical drivetrain and likely improve weight balance.

I wonder if Nissan is cooking something up for LMH? It would be a huge risk given their current situation but would also bring a lot more attention to a company that is basically dead to racing besides Super GT.
Click to expand...
Would be an insane story if they ran a car with the same name and/or with the same internal concept, and won Le Mans. Didn't think about the idea of them using the game to test but very interesting crafty idea if true!

More than likely PD just decided to make it what it was intended to be, but intriguing to think about it being at the request of Nissan for sure!
 
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Just to add here, I watched this YT video from the channel B Sport yesterday. Pretty good and interesting watch, and includes some really cool screenshots which show the internals of the front and rear end of the car (there's almost nothing at the rear end, just some wires, suspension and brakes)

 
I was actually fine with the FWD version. It was different, and unusual. A new challenge. With a little tweaking it was plenty competitive. As long as you kept in mind that it was a FWD car, and drove it accordingly, it was fast. I won quite a few 800pp events with it. I haven't tried the new version, and I'm sure it's good, but I'm actually going to miss the quirky FWD LM.
 
ShonnDaylee
I was actually fine with the FWD version. It was different, and unusual. A new challenge. With a little tweaking it was plenty competitive. As long as you kept in mind that it was a FWD car, and drove it accordingly, it was fast. I won quite a few 800pp events with it. I haven't tried the new version, and I'm sure it's good, but I'm actually going to miss the quirky FWD LM.
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The downforce at high speed was like you had grip hacks lol. I too will miss the eccentricity but given they're restoring the car to what it was intended to be, and it apparently drives better, personally I'm not too upset.

It would've been nice if they could've done a drivetrain swap of some kind, an option in GT Auto, but maybe that was more work than they could afford for a relatively small/average update like this. It would be good though to have the FF version for historical/revisiting purposes.
 
Hang on, so if the hybrid system never worked and Nissan ran the car as a FF in Le Man, I don't understand why PD has changed the setup/core functionality of the car to something that, 1. never actually worked and 2. is not true to the car in the real world.
All intentions aside, even if it was originally intended to be a 4wd hybrid, that is not how the car actually functioned once it reached its final design/usable state.
 
FluxWildly
Hang on, so if the hybrid system never worked and Nissan ran the car as a FF in Le Man, I don't understand why PD has changed the setup/core functionality of the car to something that, 1. never actually worked and 2. is not true to the car in the real world.
All intentions aside, even if it was originally intended to be a 4wd hybrid, that is not how the car actually functioned once it reached its final design/usable state.
Click to expand...
The car still had hybrid deployment in GT7 before this update, and in previous GT games, but the issue was PD for some reason programmed the car to dump all of its hybrid deployment into the front wheels. This caused massive understeer and made it almost undriveable.

The real car was supposed to do hybrid deployment to the rear wheels while the front wheels were driven by the V6, so essentially a reverse LMP1 car where the others would have electric motors drive the front wheels with conventional rear wheel drive. But of course we know the real car's hybrid system wasn't developed in time for Le Mans and had to be scrapped, so it pretty much ran as a non-hybrid in the actual race.

This new update is realistic to how the car was supposed to function, if the hybrid system was actually implemented properly. The old all-power-to-the-front depiction was wrong too. This is still wrong but less wrong.
 
The only question that remains for me is, what's being represented by the 25/75 torque split in it's settings? Does the ICE power down when the electric motors kick in? Or are they dumping a stupid amount of energy?
 
Keef
Woah, creepy. I’ve been suggesting this change for ages.

The car’s concept was genius, all designed around efficient high-speed aero. The skinny rear tires and front-mid engine allowed a super wide and long venturi and diffuser. Unfortunately they ran out of money and time to get the rear driveline working.

I’m curious why they’ve made this change after all this time. Did somebody finally bring it up in a meeting? Are they actually reading comments? Did Nissan request it, either for brand image purpose or even to “test” the layout within the game’s physics (which is a plausible verification method imo). Depending on rules, this layout is actually still plausible with current LMH regulations although it would still only be effective at very high speed tracks. Plus, modern battery and electric motor combos eliminate the complexity of a mechanical drivetrain and likely improve weight balance.

I wonder if Nissan is cooking something up for LMH? It would be a huge risk given their current situation but would also bring a lot more attention to a company that is basically dead to racing besides Super GT.
Click to expand...
I have suggested & criticized several of the new GT7 cars this year that is FF type instead of 4WD, to Kaz on Twitter. I've also suggested that PD add drivetrain swap to GT7 later this year, similar to engine swap. But I am the only person in the world who might believe that it was my suggestion & not the sum of suggestions that brought this change. For only one car we got a drivetrain change, not for us to swap, but Kaz did the engine swap for us..! And it is one very fast and good car at least.
 
Since we are getting a new Skyline in the next update and maybe in the future, an engine swap for it, I was wondering how does the engine in this Nismo compare to the R92CP engine available on the R34 V-spec.

Better or worse fuel mileage? Better base stats regarding torque curve? Max bhp with turbo upgrades (more than 987 bhp from the R92CP engine)?

If not equal or better, I hope it gets some other engine than either of them, preferably one that breaks the 1000bhp mark.
 
Savolainen83
Since we are getting a new Skyline in the next update and maybe in the future, an engine swap for it, I was wondering how does the engine in this Nismo compare to the R92CP engine available on the R34 V-spec.

Better or worse fuel mileage? Better base stats regarding torque curve? Max bhp with turbo upgrades (more than 987 bhp from the R92CP engine)?

If not equal or better, I hope it gets some other engine than either of them, preferably one that breaks the 1000bhp mark.
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I'm hoping for this swap, for sure. It would at least be interesting, and not the typical VR38 or LS swap.
 
Savolainen83
Since we are getting a new Skyline in the next update and maybe in the future, an engine swap for it, I was wondering how does the engine in this Nismo compare to the R92CP engine available on the R34 V-spec.

Better or worse fuel mileage? Better base stats regarding torque curve? Max bhp with turbo upgrades (more than 987 bhp from the R92CP engine)?

If not equal or better, I hope it gets some other engine than either of them, preferably one that breaks the 1000bhp mark.
Click to expand...
Would any of you fine gentlemen be willing to answer this query of mine?

What are the pros/cons between the engine in this car versus the V8 from R92CP?

Fuel efficiency?
Max bhp with turbo upgrades?
Better/worse torque curve?

I'd rather not spend million credits on a car that I don't care of, need nor want, just to check those three parameters when there are knowledgeable aficionados right here.

@Skygrasper550 @jrbabbitt ?
 
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