GOTO:Racing R35 GT-R Stretches its Legs at Infineon Raceway, First test day a huge success Options

[GOTO:Racing]

The GOTO:Racing GT-R finally had its first day on track and the performance was nothing short of amazing. At a race weight of about 3650 lbs with fuel and driver, and running a R35 motor with a COBB stage 2 map and open exhaust as its only modification, the car turned a shocking 1:39.5 lap time at Infineon Raceway. "I knew the car was going to be fast," commented Brian Lock, GOTO:Racing's lead driver, "but I never imagined we would break into the 30's our first day out. When my Dad came over the radio and told me that I was running 1:40 flats in my first session not braking-in the motor, I knew this car would be everything we all hoped it woul be."




Steve Lock, owner and crew chief for GOTO:Racing commented, "The Nissan GT-R platform just blew us away today. It is a real testament to Nissan's engineering that we achieved the lap times we did today with a mostly stock GT-R and green set-up."


Seeing the first fully Road Race prepped GT-R roll out onto the track for the first time held a moment of excitement for the entire crew but the day had its bumps. The first session was reserved for basic motor break-in and chassis shake down. A few minor tweaks were made right away. It was clear from the first session that the car needed more spring and bar. With 3600+ lbs sitting down on the suspension and huge sticky Hoosiers slicks created some serious loading. Also, as expected, the ABS system proved to be too smart for its own good and it was quickly discovered as speeds increased that it was not programmed for the grip levels the car is producing. Both Brian and Chris Lock commented that the balance of the car was great, "It just wants to be driven fast," Chris Lock explained with a smile. The JRZ shocks were doing a great job right out of the box controlling the massive car, only small adjustments were made to stabilize the rear end under acceleration.




GOTO: Racing at the end of the day was happy with the car's performance, but as all good race teams they left the track with a list of modifications to be done to continue to develop the potential seen today. They predict the GT-R to be multiple seconds faster in a matter of weeks. The first concern on the table is the cars' weight and should drop by about 200 lbs. A custom tune from Forged Performance should increase power output significantly. The aero package is currently very simple and plans for more front and rear downforce are in the works.


The next scheduled test is August 21-23 at Thunderhill Raceway with NASA. The car will be running in its first wheel to wheel race in the Super Unlimited class. Longevity testing will be the focus of the next test day. We know the car has the speed to take overall at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, but GOTO:Racing's engineers need to make it last.




GOTO:Racing would like to thank its sponsors all of whom put their faith in this project and contributed a significant amount of support to make this build possible...




Sheedy Crane

GT:R Fabrication

North American GTR Owners Club – www.nagtroc.com

Forged Performance - www.forgedperformance.com

Brooks Motorsports Engineering (MODE Racing)

JRZ Suspension - www.jrzsuspension.com

Hoosier Racing Tire – www.hoosiertirewest.com

Jongbloed Racing Wheels - www.jongbloedracing.com

Motorsport Brake Specialists and Performance Friction Brakes - www.motorsportbrakespecialists.com

Rob Green Nissan

This post has been edited by GOTO:Racing: Aug 12 2009, 04:53 PM

[gotboost]

Congrats on the build and the performance you're acheiving already! I've been following your project the whole way and I'm very impressed so far!

[descartesfool]

I was trying to get a reference point for your lap time. I always use World Challenge lap times as a reference for road car based racers. They haven't run at Infineon for a while, but I found that the pole time for a GT car (running on RA-1's?) was 1:39.6 back in 2005:

"Over in SCCA SPEED GT Championship, Lou Gigliotti cut a similarly record-breaking lap of 1:39.581 (91.463 mph) in the No. 28 LG Pro Long Tube Header Chevrolet Corvette C6"
http://www.automotivearticles.com/123/Gigl...ge_Sonoma.shtml

So your time is really, really impressive. Congrats.

Curious to know what spring rates were you running on those JRZ's and what are you thinking of going to match the weight? You guys are running on slicks and not Hoosier R compounds right?

[Sharif@Forged]

Congrats on the preliminary results. If you are running 1:39 out of the box, this car is dip down drastically from there. Great work. I am looking forward to joining you on track for some additional tuning, and more power!

This post has been edited by Sharif@Forged: Aug 12 2009, 08:32 AM

[bbimpreza]

Congrats. Sorry I was not able to make it out there. Give me a call and let me know what we need to do to make the car more reliable and faster.

Billy Brooks
Brooks Motorsports Engineering (MODE Racing)

This post has been edited by bbimpreza: Aug 12 2009, 09:53 AM

[GOTO:Racing]

Thanks guys. We are about to unload the car and start the long list of things to do for Thunderhill. I will be posting pics in build thread of what we plan to do to solve our tranny heat and AWD clutch heat issue.

[amfaster]

Which course was it at Infineon?

[GOTO:Racing]

Which course was it at Infineon?

The ALMS sports car course, or "short 7", not the NASCAR long 7.

[pio!pio!]

Thanks guys. We are about to unload the car and start the long list of things to do for Thunderhill. I will be posting pics in build thread of what we plan to do to solve our tranny heat and AWD clutch heat issue.

armchair aerodynamicist here:

in regards to tranny heat..is the inlet and outlet position for your tranny coolers ideal?
the inlet is at the base of the rear window..so a very low pressure area...
and the outlet is where the underbody air travels..which would be higher pressure than the base of the rear window.

i could see the higher pressure air from the underbody trying to travel back up thru the coolers and into the base window area! of course that u-turn is too severe so instead you would get underbody flow detachment and turbulence...reduce downforce and increasing drag

maybe place the inlet naca ducts at the small triangular side windows? much higher pressure inlet source
and if you take the c6-r for example (hell all of pratt & miller's cars) they place their cooler exits where the license plate area is. that should be sufficiently low pressure to suck air through the coolers..

ok i'll take off my armchair aero hat.

is the tranny fluid and wet clutch fluid separate? or are they shared?

[pio!pio!]

forgot to add : VERY NICE time and video!!!

[GOTO:Racing]

Thanks!

Those were exactly the same thoughts that we had. We plan on cutting out the license plate area to vent the coolers in a less turbulent area. Also we are installing high flow bilg fans in line with our ducts. Probably something that I should have done from the start but I was trying to save some $$. The inlet area may not be ideal pressure wise but running the ducts up to the side windows would be kind of clunky, that is why I originally went with the rear. But your right, low pressure is not a great place to get air from, hopefully the fans and the better rear venting will help. I will update the build thread with what we do.

This post has been edited by GOTO:Racing: Aug 13 2009, 01:16 PM

[pio!pio!]

if you're gonna run fans..maybe forgo the naca ducts and pump air from in cabin thru the rads and out the license plate :P
help promote cool in cabin air temps :P

[GOTO:Racing]

if you're gonna run fans..maybe forgo the naca ducts and pump air from in cabin thru the rads and out the license plate :P
help promote cool in cabin air temps :P

Interesting idea, I think we will try both at T-hill and see what are temps looks like in each location.

[ChrisLock]

I was trying to get a reference point for your lap time. I always use World Challenge lap times as a reference for road car based racers. They haven't run at Infineon for a while, but I found that the pole time for a GT car (running on RA-1's?) was 1:39.6 back in 2005:

"Over in SCCA SPEED GT Championship, Lou Gigliotti cut a similarly record-breaking lap of 1:39.581 (91.463 mph) in the No. 28 LG Pro Long Tube Header Chevrolet Corvette C6"
http://www.automotivearticles.com/123/Gigl...ge_Sonoma.shtml

So your time is really, really impressive. Congrats.

Curious to know what spring rates were you running on those JRZ's and what are you thinking of going to match the weight? You guys are running on slicks and not Hoosier R compounds right?

Yeah, the significance of the time was not lost on us, especially given that we may want to race in that field one day. We still have some work to do since our R100 slicks are quite a bit faster than the RA1s that they used in 2005, but to be in the ballpark on the first day gives us great confidence that we are closer than we expected to being up to speed.