1000 Horse of Reliability?

[Danzil]

Hey I was just having a friendly argument with a v8 lover recently about the reliability of the street legal GTRs that run 1000hp+

His argument was that these engines wouldn’t last long with that much power and would never be able to do 300km plus for extended periods.

The only thing I had to go on as proof was a statement on the yellow GTR Jeremy Clarkson drove. That had 1000hp and he said the owner had the car for 5 years and it never once broke down.

Now does anyone have any opinion on this subject, ...is my mate right?!

Could you ever register a GTR with 1000hp in Australia, would some states allow it and some not?

Cuz I’m saving up for the Top Secret crate rb26dett motor they sell for the R34 GTRs with 900kw for a measly $80,000.

heheh (imagine that!)

Uhhh yeah!

-Dan

[urbanoperations]

it really depends on how you are going to drive it, if u are going to clutch dump at 7000revs at every set of traffic lights then i expect it would last long, but if you are driving like a granny with the occasional fang then it should last alot longer

[Zagan]

there's quite a few 1,000+ cars in japan those would be going down drag strips all the time or drifting.

I think it purely depnds on how you drive even while dragging or what ever, most "hoons" or people who try to push an excel too much or keep doing line locks and never fix or service the car will have problems with in months.

Also these people are usually too cheap to get proper services etc.

An engine is an engine the only differeance between them is the amount of power they output.

There's a 1,000HP skyline GTS-T in QLD street legal, was in last months auto saloon.

[JimX]

Hey I was just having a friendly argument with a v8 lover recently about the reliability of the street legal GTRs that run 1000hp+

His argument was that these engines wouldn’t last long with that much power and would never be able to do 300km plus for extended periods.

How did he arrive at this dubious conclusion? What research has he done to conclude that GTR engines just can't handle 1000hp+ reliably? I'd say he's just guessing, without having done even a slight amount of research.

Ask him what part of the engine "fails" and how he knows that. I would really laugh if he says it's the pistons. If that's the case, then just tell him that there are lots of Skylines running American forged pistons. If he then says that these are the only ones that last, then laugh at him some more. Too many places to go here. I think the first thing to do is find out where he's getting his facts from. If he's pulling them from his arse as I suspect, then it's probably not worth getting into a discussion with him about it.

[ferni]

Obviously a stock internals RB26 woudln't hack it, but with forged internals... as said above there are guys already doing it..

Tell him about Ben from racepace with is measly 500rwkw GTR daily driver that on semi slicks (fully street legal) pulled a time around sanddown only 2 seconds slower than the V8 supercars do on full slicks/non street legal cars

[RNS11Z]

1000bhp from an rb26 being used all the time... i give it no more then 20 000kms

[Benno]

Where are all these 1000hp skylines when it comes to summernats and other type shows? Obviously not at the drags either.

I don’t care what motor/block it is. If its built to put out 1000hp it aint going to last long. 20k kms if you are lucky.

[Warpspeed]

Yeah, if you do a complete engine rebuild every couple of months it should be completely reliable, no worries at all.

Even a 6,000 BHP+ slingshot dragster could be completely reliable and probably run for years if it has a complete total tear-down and inspection after every few runs. A new set of plugs and valve springs and an oil change after EVERY run would definitely be required.

You just cannot build a high power highly tuned engine and thrash the crap out of it for hundreds of thousands of kilometers and expect it to be reliable.

20K's that is almost exactly 50 quarter mile passes, without checking or changing anything, pretty optimistic for a 1,000 BHP Skyline without something bustin.

[PHaT MR30]

hmm i remeber a magazine a few years back had this workshop in melb i think and the guy there was nutters, had a 1000hp gtr that was his daily driver and a s2000 or s14 track car (don't quote on this).

hmm would cost most ppl their weeks wages just to run the bloody thing to and from work!

[Benno]

. Its easy to say my car has xx hp. “I just cant get traction that’s why I run mid 13’s”. My car has 1000hp, it just looses 600 of it through drivetrain losses.

[letemlaf]

if you have 1000 maximum hp your not developing 1000hp all the time, that is just the maximum amount which might only get touched every now and then.

drive it like a granny every day you might only be producing 200hp

[PHaT MR30]

true, good example was the Group C gibson bluebird 80hp at 3000rpm, then bang 3500 it sky rocketed

[T88 ON BOARD]

The JUN gtr that was driven by Jeremy clark was 1000hp and it has never broken down for 5 years straight to the people who have seen the video will understand

[Chris32]

like any car it comes down to -

revs and compression

If it was assembled with the best forged internals ets and at close to stock compression (around 8.5-1) there is no reason the car cannot live for many many kms

on the other hand, if it was driven strictly as a drag or race car with that power, it would need rebuilding more regularly

a fire that burns twice a hot only lasts half as long

[Warpspeed]

There is a bit more to it than that. When you start running very large amounts of valve lift and cams with very fast rates of opening and closing, with super strong valve springs, as you must with a really serious engine. It can rip the hell out of the rest of the valve train pretty quickly.

So you might drive your engine that has a power band between 9,000 and 11,000 Revs like a granny. It might cough and splutter and be totally gutless off boost below seven grand and be no fun at all to drive. The whole valve train will be rooted pretty quickly, a return Sydney to Melbourne trip would probably do it at a steady 100 Kmh.

The glossy magazine editors love those engines. A feature story about how some dork buys a forty grand car and spends another eighty grand modifying it to destruction. It sells a lot of magazines. Some wide eyed pimply eighteen year old reads that, and thinks he can make his rusted out twenty year old bomb go just as hard if he fitted all the same parts.

It is all pure fantasy for the gullible.

Go and buy a five dollar magazine and dream...................

On the other hand if you might have a multi million dollar aftermarket parts, or tuning business, you can afford to build a project car as a publicity machine, and tax write-off. You win horsepower heroes with it, or get it into the hot car magazines as a promotion. It will bring in lots of business from the dreamers.

So you might have some car that cost well over a hundred grand to modify, with the company name all over it and it dynos at 1000 BHP+ Maybe it appears as a promotional exercise a few times a year at car shows and so on, with lots of publicity. People go......oooh....ahhhh, and talk about it on the Forums.............

If the same car is still there five years later, people seem to think it must be driven to work every day, and must be some guys personal transport. Hardly likely.

[Chris32]

yeah, very good point

A good tune is also nessacary

[Benno]

Warpspeed: Oh so true!

Driving a motor like that like a granny can do more damage than good.

Its all about the wank factor with some of these cars.

Might get flamed for this example, but from the words of 2003 Hp Heros Champ mouth when asked what time it would run with 1300+ hp at the treads: Wouldnt race it in this tune. It would blow up half track."

Forget the taxi/commndore comebacks.

At the end of the day big HP doesnt mean shit!

[Chris32]

yeah, dyno power is one thing, real road/track power is another thing all to its own

So whats everyones general opinion of what power a RB20/RB25/RB26 can make and still remain reliable - that said, providing everything is done perfectly???

[Danzil]

Some intresting points. Agree with the saying that if you burn the candle twice as bright expect it to burn half as long. Sums it up pretty well. Especially since it was said by Mario in regards to his GTR700 (1350bhp)

The discussion came about between this mate of mine in regards to reliability of an RB26dett tuned as to match any factory Ferrari or Porsche on the Track and Strip.

Then it lead to the extremities and i believe that a ferrari/porsche tuned to 1000hp would be the same story as an RB26dett of the same power output. One wouldn't outlast the other...or am i mistaken?

And in the case of owning a reliable 1000hp (or in that HP region GTR) is not a dream. For anyone with a thick wallet, who can afford a $200,000+ car can easily purchase Top Secrets, to name one of many, tuners who sell their project cars at the end of each year..and at a quater of what they cost to build.

Even in australia your able to pick up a 1000hp ready motor from Mario for around $50 AUD. If you were so inclined a big HP GTR would be more affordable than most worldclass supercars.

-Dan

[Warpspeed]

Another factor is, what is the car actually going to be used for ?

If it is a street car, anything much over 100Kmh can be pretty lethal to your driving licence these days. You can even get nailed at half that speed.

A pretty quick 0-100Kmh car does not need 1,000 BHP with a narrow power band. In fact, a very highly tuned turbo engine can be quite slow and difficult to drive except absolutely flat out at high speeds. With something like that it would either totally bog, or break into uncontrollable wheelspin. Only fast in the hands of an expert driver, definitely not a good everyday car.

If you want fast and reliable, something like an HRT427 would be nice, but they do not make them.

I hate V8s, but I cannot deny they make quick easy to drive and reliable road cars. Maybe not that fast down a dragstrip, but easier to drive, and probably actually quicker at legal road speeds. If you have ever been caught off boost in the wrong gear, you know what I mean.

Having something that accelerates really hard at over 250Kmh is pointless on the street.