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Welcome to Episode 3 of Stock -vs- Tuned! This week we have chosen a match-up that was suggested to us by GTP member: VspecZR1GT2RS89. Thank you for the compelling comparison idea, and compelling it was indeed. Nissan Skyline R32 vs 2009 Nissan GTR SpecV, so sit back, relax, and on with the show.
Before we begin the tests, lets have a look at our two contestants shall we? The R32 2.6 Liter inline 6 produces 312 horse power and 295 ft-lbs of torque to all four wheels. It weighs in at 1500KG. So all in all it is a relatively average car on paper. Moving on to the GTR R35 now, 3.8 Liter Twin Turbo V6 that produces 502 horse power to all four wheels. The GTR is packing some extra gut how ever, and tips the scales at 1680KG. Now by buying the R32 we've saved 104,400cr to put back into it, and with that kind of budget you would think it's the R32's race to lose.. We will soon see.
As always we take the car to the runway strip and get some numbers down, and the R32 surprises us,
0-60: 5.001 0-100: 12.301 1/4 mile: 13.6 0-1 Mile: 34.258 and was able to achieve a top speed of 168.3MPH.
Definitely not a slow car by any means. Then we got into the R35 and got some crazy numbers,
0-60: 3.370 0-100: 7.889 1/4 mile: 11.685 0-1 Mile: 29.238 Top Speed 201.6 .. Very fast. It really does blow the R32 away. With all the performance data down lets see how it translates to the track.
At the track the R32 is great to drive, very grippy yet you can always get the rear to kick out when you want. The car has snap reflexes, very impressive for a car from the mid 90's. It doesn't pack a very big punch on the straights, but that really comes at no surprise, having only moderate horsepower levels. It takes a few laps to really get the hang of since the car is prone to considerable understeer. Our average time over our first 5 laps was 1:20.454, not too shabby. With an un-counted amount of laps emerged 1:19.687, very close to the Honda NSX from Ep. 1. The body roll this car has may have taken away from the lap however, it's not a bad lap at all, but now we'll see what the R35 SpecV can accomplish.
Right out of the gates you know that this car is on a whole 'nother level. The 1st little straight that the lap starts on, the SpecV achieved a higher speed than that of the R32 the whole stint we tested it. It is a much easier car to drive; less under steer, less body roll, almost non-existant oversteer even if you try, and massive over all grip. People say this car has no soul due to it's lack of driving emphasis. I, on the other hand, think that is what gives it it's soul. It shows just how far super cars and automotive technology has came in the past 10 years. You can have a car with break neck acceleration, crazy grip, great brakes, and still have creature comforts, and not to mention room for 4. All with the vulgarity of a V6... Amazing when you look at it and compare it to what super cars really had to offer at the turn of the century, but enough of the history lesson, lets see some more numbers! The average of the first 5 laps we ran came out to be 1:14.104, and our fastest lap, a 1:13.538. Not a big increase between average time of first attempts, and the best lap. Goes to show how easy this car is to be fast in. As it stands now, this car is nearly 7 seconds faster than the R32, which may sound like a lot, but 100,000cr sounds like a fair bit as well.. Only one way to find what car is the better decision.
It took some decision making to figure out what upgrades we would equip the R32 with, we knew it was desperate for some straight line speed, and it wasn't a heavy car to begin with, so we actually "played it by year" We started with the Stage 1 Weight Reduction, which really lightened the car up, so we stuck with only the 1st stage. Other upgrades included: Stages; 1,2, and 3 Engine upgrades, High RPM Turbo, Semi-Racing exhaust, racing air filter, ECU tune, height adjustable suspension, and a sports exhaust manifold. We also "Moderned up" the car with a Dual Clutch, 6 Speed Close Ratio transmission. Which in part proved to be a bad idea.. We originally only bought the Height adjustable suspension, and the 6-speed close ratio tranny, but that left us with a car that couldn't handle and could only go 170MPH. We then decided we would get rid of the tranny, keep the twin plate clutch, and buy the FULLY customizable suspension. Proved to be the right decision.. Anyway, the new car.
With those upgrades, the car has about zero relations in terms of driving to its stock counterpart. 608 Horse power!! 448 lbs-ft of torque. That's almost double what it was when we had last checked! Rev limiter sets in at about 9800 RPM rather then the 8200 it was originally. Now weighing in at 1380KG this car on paper is an R35 Killer. The new exhaust note on the car, mehh, we could take it or leave it. I'd personally leave it.
In past tests I've learned that giving a car 600+ HP usually makes it fast.. This? No Exception.
0-60: 3.305 0-100: 6.985 1/4mile: 11.171 1 Mile: 27.546 Top Speed: 210.8 MPH. Yikes! It obliterates the R35's times beyond 60MPH and when we lined them up together it left the R35 in the dust. It's time to head to the TGTT again to witness what would appear to be the demise of the R35. Correct?
First sharp turn...
"Total power corrupts, totally!" .. This saying has never spoken truths so clearly to me before. This car is unbearably .. Bad. Snap oversteers, uncontrollable understeers, you name it and this car probably had the problem. Sure on the straights the thing was an absolute rocket, turns came by to pay a visit though, and the rocket turned into a balloon with a hole in it. I thought that with time getting used to the car we could settle it down, nope. Tuning the suspension to balance out the increase in power? Nope. The rubber we laid down during this run must have been against some kind of law. It was horrible, and it wasn't even a predictable slide. It was a car that just took patience, if you let your focus slide for a few seconds, you end up missing your mark - by about 10 feet..
There was no winning with this one, we just had to run the laps and see what we could come up with. Average first 5 laps came out to be 1:15.233, which wasn't looking good for the R32. With a countless amount of laps we managed mid-to-low 1:14's but it just wasn't going any faster. I managed a clean, yet fast lap, and it still couldn't match the R35.. our final time: 1:13.853. Missed it by about Three Tenths. Shucks.
We have a new addition to the Stock -vs- Tuned Series, and it is Nurburgring Lap time. We have some GTP Heavy weights on the team to get full potential out of the car because me doing a lap time would never be doing the car justice. So we handed the 3 cars: Stock R32, Tuned, and Stock R35, to the NurburgStigs to see what they were capable of. Piloting the Stock R32, Mac K was able to run 8 minutes dead. Nothing to laugh at that's for certain. The Stock R35 was able to fly through the ring in 7:09. Now for the true test, could the R32 muster up a 51 second climb? We handed it to the best in the business: Mike_GT3 to get full potential out of it. It's time: a 7:21. It was just not meant to be faster. Mike said he wasn't able to get a fully clean lap in, but he didn't think the 7:09 was a realistic goal for the R32, it was just too violent, and this coming from the guy who holds a ridiculous amount of GTP Records around the ring.
In conclusion, we can finally confirm that it isn't always the best idea to buy and tune the cheaper car. Was it more fun then the R35? Depends on what you think fun is, my opinion: NO. Fun is when the car is controllable even in the worst of slides. This just isn't, and it's that lack of control that reflects negatively on the Lap times. Sure the R32 may be more nostalgic, but, one word of advice, leave it stock. It looses any "nostalgia" it once had when you start throwing upgrades on it. The technology and the good old engineering excellence that the R35 has to offer is far too much for this classic sport car to handle, and that is where we will leave you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Stock -vs- Tuned, I certainly did. Have a great day.
Thank you for reading this weeks episode! I'm sorry that it was late, it was hard getting all the pictures rounded up for this one. Please leave some comments and suggestions for future episodes and we will certainly consider them:tup:
SvT Team
MOTORTRENDmitch - Writer, Test Driver, Photo shoot
Turbolefty78 - Editor
SebaEspinosa93 - Test driver, Photo shoot
Mike_GT3 - Nurburgking
Mac K - NurburgStig
Jesse208 - Test driver
We are also looking for some one to be a photographer. See this.
This thread just gets better and better!
Definitely worthy of my "favorite thread to read" on GTP.
I like the addition of NurburgKings to the comparable lap times.
Keep up the great work. 2 👍
Thanks man 
