Had a run with a GTIR!

[Lithium]

Hey Lithium, I think I know where you are coming from. I know everyone has a healthy respect for the GTiR but I dissagree with your assessment of a GTiR with minimal mods. I have a mate that ran his GTiR at the drags last week and got a best of 12.8 @109mph with exhaust and boost only. There is a guy in AUS that has ran a best of 12.2 with the same mods but disconnecting the exhaust at the cat. Either way, at 109mph you must admit that it will beat 70% of all cars at  a street meet. I think this is awesome for a 10-14 year old car with stock turbo/internals and I would suggest that there is NOTHING in that catagory (age and capacity) that would do the same. The EVO7 or a late model STi would be the only thing in that league and I would still consider the GTiR to be the favourite. As for calling a GTiR a baby GTR or Godzilla Jr, it is just plain stupid. The GTiR has:

1. Constant mechanical 4WD

2. single turbo and top mounted intercooler.

3.  2ltr capacity

4. Made to compete in the WRC.

Yep, I have heard about most of those things. I also happen to know someone in NZ that ran a 12.8 @ ~109mph, running intake exhaust and front mount stock intercooler pushing 18psi through the stock turbo with an interesting mix of 98 + other stuff to get ~100octane, which is pushing it a lot harder than what you mention - but all the same is a better time with little mods than you'd get with a 25t.

Most of the other stuff you have said is completely inconsistant with stuff I have seen in NZ, and seeing as I've had a few friends who owned GTiRs (moved on long since) and recommended them to people, I have a healthy respect for them and know what they can do. However, non of this equates to 12s or 109mph trap speeds with minimal mods. I managed to equal and out power 2 GTiRs at seperate dyno days in my old car - ~140kw @ wheels for all times, and there were also a couple of R32 GTSts making that kind of power at these dyno days. My old car weighed 1260kg, and struggled to break 100mph, and the GTSts didn't break 100mph on the 1/4. How does it work that a GTiR which weighs not much less (no less than my old car) than a GTSt, manages around 10mph faster trap speeds with less time to get there with the same power?

Having said that, one of the guys apparently did a 13.3 @ 100mph - with exhaust and 10psi, so the ET part of the story sounds realistic... the trap speeds seem way out though. Were they done at the strip or on a GTech type device?

[poyz]

Wow, this thread still going.

Mr. Sailor - fly that R flag high - everyone knows that anything with an R badge is faster than anything without an R badge

Lithium, I'm sure the more technically/mechanically orientated can answer that. Gearing/average power all play a role down the quarter, it's not all about max power.

[Pandaemonaeon]

I think the difference is Meremere is more like a farm driveway than a 1/4 mile strip.

[Lithium]

Lithium, I'm sure the more technically/mechanically orientated can answer that. Gearing/average power all play a role down the quarter, it's not all about max power.

Yes, but looking at your sig - you've gone and backed up what I have said by posting that yours did low 13s at 103mph with ~146awkw. I am pretty confident that your car would have not been completely stock at that point, right? That point I am on about is that the acceleration force is probably similar but the GTiRs have traction, and can apply full throttle through first and second gears helping the average acceleration - but thats not because of gearing or power delivery.

Unless your car was as exactly as Nissan released it from factory when you ran that trap speed, the odds are the trap speed debate is sorted

[poyz]

No, it wasn't completely stock.

How can "acceleration force" be the same if traction is an issue? ie. One car is moving, the other is wheels spinning, I know which one will have a better seat of the pants feeling. That said, the guy doing the wheel spinning will probably enjoy that feeling too

[R32 GT]

No, it wasn't completely stock.

How can "acceleration force" be the same if traction is an issue? ie. One car is moving, the other is wheels spinning

Because the other car is still acclerating at a similar rate to the car with traction, i found this very common with skylines- Then once the other car gets full traction, 9/10 it will be out acceling its opponent. The beauty of RWD and a lack of D/T losses.

[CalaisT3RBO]

They do seem to produce great results with light mods. Never driven one but from reading this it appears their not great at handling.

cool little machines though. neat interior's

[whatsisname]

Hey Irish, are you 100% sure that 'thingo' (can't remember his name) did a 109MPH? I thought his best for the night was a 106. Either way it was still putting down some awesome times and trap speeds considering the minimal mods (exhaust, pod filter and boost).

[jtir]

Not well, was abandoned because of poor rally results.

Stock RNN14 GTi-R > Stock R33 GTS-t

Case closed

[Irish]

The first run I saw (which was probably his 4th) was at 109. I have got 109mph myself in Darwin and I still have the slips to prove it. Even if I am wrong about kai's terminal speed you can't argue with the 12.8. He only has an exhaust/dump and electronic boost controller running 16psi on the night. It was a cold night but that is not going to drastically help a top mount like it would a front mount. Considering a STi is running anywhere up to 22psi to make the 130 4wkw's that a GTiR will make at 12psi (my car the day after I purchased it) I still think that there is nothing that is it's equal for the time. As for the silly comment about handling, come to Adelaide one day and I will treat you to the drive of your life in my "poor handling" GTiR. I have spent money on my suspension package but if I had to do it all again I could make a GTiR handle for around $1000.

[wrxhoon]

The first run I saw (which was probably his 4th) was at 109. I have got 109mph myself in Darwin and I still have the slips to prove it. Even if I am wrong about kai's terminal speed you can't argue with the 12.8. He only has an exhaust/dump and electronic boost controller running 16psi on the night. It was a cold night but that is not going to drastically help a top mount like it would a front mount. Considering a STi is running anywhere up to 22psi to make the 130 4wkw's that a GTiR will make at 12psi (my car the day after I purchased it) I still think that there is nothing that is it's equal for the time. As for the silly comment about handling, come to Adelaide one day and I will treat you to the drive of your life in my "poor handling" GTiR. I have spent money on my suspension package but if I had to do it all again I could make a GTiR handle for around $1000.

the stock aussie delivered sti only runs 15-16 psi boost , i don't know where you got your 22 psi .

we have a V6 (the 4 door 00 ) , the only mods are : power f/c 3" exhaust and cold air intake going in the stock airbox , it runs 12.6 @ 108 - 109 mph ( 1.8 60 ft , to much wheelspin ) at wsid .

no boost controler is used we control the stock solinoid with the power f/c , boost is only 1.2 bar ( 17 psi ) we can't run more boost cause the stock injectors are at the limit .

as fo handling the gtir is very heavy at the front , sti has a much better weight distribution . sure you can make the gtir handle a lot better with mods and some 16" rims ( 15" at the very least ) . what about the brakes on the gtir they are crap .

in the case of the sti it handles very well as it is, stocker , its a lot later model car and it costs more money as well .

you can't compare the 2 cars just like you can't compare the gtir with the gtr .

[Irish]

On another side note, Matt can confirm how hard it would be to get a perfect 400m with a great launch, no wheelspin on gear changes and not wheel spinning 2/3 the way down the strip. Matt has probably completed 50+ passes in his car now. It is piss easy to launch and accellerate the whole 400m in a GTiR.

[Irish]

I agree with you totally wrxhoon. What year was the V6? From memory it was late 90's and a GTiR is 89-93. One of the earlier Jap STi's ran 22psi stock but I can't remember which model. I just wanted to give a bit of a comparo between 2ltr engines of the day. With quad throttles, forged rods, solid lifters and the biggest factory T28 that was ever made, you must admit there is plenty of potential over its rivals of the time. You are correct when you talk about handling and I would much prefer driving a stock rex to a stock GTiR. I would consider a GTiR to be a"better" handling car than a R32 GTR though because of the short wheel base, constant 50/50 4WD and none of that shitty HICAS. I envy the EVO6+/STi/R34 center diff setup. As for the brakes, there is no defence there. They are CRAP, no two ways about it. Also, the shitty old 2 channel ABS works but is nasty. That is what you get with a car designed with 80's parts, pure and simple. My first mod was the brakes.

[wrxhoon]

I agree with you totally wrxhoon. What year was the V6? From memory it was late 90's and a GTiR is 89-93. One of the earlier Jap STi's ran 22psi stock but I can't remember which model. I just wanted to give a bit of a comparo between 2ltr engines of the day. With quad throttles, forged rods, solid lifters and the biggest factory T28 that was ever made, you must admit there is plenty of potential over its rivals of the time. You are correct when you talk about handling and I would much prefer driving a stock rex to a stock GTiR. I would consider a GTiR to be a"better" handling car than a R32 GTR though because of the short wheel base, constant 50/50 4WD and none of that shitty HICAS. I envy the EVO6+/STi/R34 center diff setup. As for the brakes, there is no defence there. They are CRAP, no two ways about it. Also, the shitty old 2 channel ABS works but is nasty. That is what you get with a car designed with 80's parts, pure and simple. My first mod was the brakes.

just a couple of points .

V6 was sold here in 99 ( 399 of them ) the diesign of the car dates back to 1993 ( 89 for gtir).

no forged rods in the gtir sr 20 and i didnt know they had solid lifters , they dont in the 200sx .

a stock sti is totaly different to a normal rex , lower , alloy control arms and much stiffer suspenssion as well as stiffer body .

i would disagree with the coment that stock gtir hanles better than r32 gtr , i have owned both cars and gtr handles a lot better .

i dont care about abs , if you have good brakes you dont need abs , its just that the brakes on the gtir are so small and inefective ( they use the same brakes as n15 sss pulsar ).

no doupt you can make them very quick though with a few mods but the cooler must the first one , in the rex the top mount works very well though .

yea the stock turbo is good for 1.1 bar in the gtir but then the sti stock vf28 is good for 1.3 bar .

like i said before you cant compare the 2 cars its like chalk and cheese .

the only thing thats the same is . they were both designed for one purpose to win rallies and we both know who wins on that count ( its only because nissan didnt persist and the base car they had was not as good as the base subaru ).

nissan went for track racing with the gtr and they did so well they were first penalised with extra weight , so much so that the were braking their race wheels and then banned them altogether .

on my thoughts of the sr20 ?

very tough engine based on the old fj 20 ( another good engine ) and very cheap and easy to work on .

[Irish]

Yeah REXHoon, I pretty much agree with most of your comments. The GTiR SR20 does come with semi forged rods that are 2mm wider in the big end to accomodate wider bearings. The GTiR SR20 also has an oil stabiliser that is located in a different position to the other engines. There are also sodium filled valves that allow better heat shedding (work perfectly with AVGAS) and different cams from other SR20's. The flywheel / crank are different with larger bolts fitted. Many a workshop has been stung quoting on engine repairs saying that it is the same as any other SR20. While I agree that the VF23 is a better turbo I don't agree with the 1.1bar statement. The GTiR T28 has a solid Garrett thrust bearing and steel wheels that would allow much more boost. It is just that you are heating the air after around 16psi (and your injectors are at 100% too). I don't dissagree with you (I am using a VF22 core myself) but I think you are selling the T28 short a bit. It is the most powerful factory T28 ever! As for the GTiR top mount, it works fantastically (while the car is moving). It also has aproximately twice the mass of a stock rex intercooler. Unfortunantly, traffic lights, stop signs and slow traffic make life hard. Alloy A arms were available but are rare, as is a very effective diff package that was offered by NISMO. You obviously never drove a GTiR with a front diff because you would change your opinion of the handling. It is that dramatic! As for the weight distribution of the GTir v pre00 WRX, they are exactly the same with front weight bias for both. This myth of a 50/50 balanced WRX is as misleading as the myth of the lead tipped dart GTiR. The FJ20 had no real influence on the development of the SR20 and there is nothing common with it other than the 2ltr capacity. The FJ is still considered one of the stronger Nissan engines though. I have enjoyed the conversation WRXHoon and it is rare to find someone that can put a logical case forward.

[TTT]

The only thing I have against the GTiR intercooler setup is that it is ON the engine block.

the WRX ones, even though much smaller, don't get as much heat soak as they are actually behind the engine block. if you take the wrx cooler off, you will find that there is a large gap under them, down to the gearbox.

[wrxhoon]

what do you mean semi forged ? they are either cast or forged , how can they be semi forged ? is half the rod forged and the other half cast ? any way i'm not aware if they are forged or not .

i knew about the solium filled valves , the sti is the same and very expensive to replace too.

its not expensive to rebuild ( parts anyway i can assure of that ) wrx rebuild parts are more expensive .

the sti comes with vf28 and its ball bearing so it spools quicker , one more reason the rexes spool quicker , the pipes from turbo to inlet are very short ( thats the reason they use a top mount ) on the gtir much longer .

i never said that vf turbos are better that garrett , i only said that vf 28 spools quicker ) ball bearing ) .

garrett turbos last longer and you can rebuilt them , vf turbos are a throw away item ( they are very cheap to buy $ 1100 -1500 ).

yea i agree that the top mount in gtir works when you are going fast ( tell me what cooler wouldnt ?) but its useless in traffic because of its location , you get all the heat from the engine in it . wrx on the other hand works 100 % even though its smaller than gtir but don't forget its a lot thicker and sti has bigger cooler that normal wrx's .

what do you mean gtir with front diff ? they all have front diffs .

i have to strongly dissagree with you on weight distribution , gtir has a lot more weight at the front than a rex . the rex engine is lighter than sr20 , gtir has the box right at the front ( front axle ) the rex has the box way back and even the engine is further to the rear . one more thing the boxer engine is very low so it brings the center of gravity lower as opposed to the sr20 in the gtir .

no its not 50 - 50 on the rex far from it you won't find many cars that are , basicaly mid engine cars and some rear drive cars with the gearbox at the back .

however rex has a much better weight distribution that gtir ( gtir is vevy front heavy ).

as fro the fj 20 not having any input on the sr i dissagree with you there , the basic layout is the same .

fj is cast steel sr is alloy , both twin cams 4 valve per cilinder , i know you can't use parts from fj in sr though .

do you know for sure that the gtir sr20 has solid lifters ? ( other sr29's dont )

i'm intersted to know , do you have a workshop manual ? if you do check it out .

i thought i had one but i can't find it anywhere . probably lent it to someone and never got it back .

Yeah REXHoon, I pretty much agree with most of your comments. The GTiR SR20 does come with semi forged rods that are 2mm wider in the big end to accomodate wider bearings. The GTiR SR20 also has an oil stabiliser that is located in a different position to the other engines. There are also sodium filled valves that allow better heat shedding (work perfectly with AVGAS) and different cams from other SR20's. The flywheel / crank are different with larger bolts fitted. Many a workshop has been stung quoting on engine repairs saying that it is the same as any other SR20. While I agree that the VF23 is a better turbo I don't agree with the 1.1bar statement. The GTiR T28 has a solid Garrett thrust bearing and steel wheels that would allow much more boost. It is just that you are heating the air after around 16psi (and your injectors are at 100% too). I don't dissagree with you (I am using a VF22 core myself) but I think you are selling the T28 short a bit. It is the most powerful factory T28 ever! As for the GTiR top mount, it works fantastically (while the car is moving). It also has aproximately twice the mass of a stock rex intercooler. Unfortunantly, traffic lights, stop signs and slow traffic make life hard. Alloy A arms were available but are rare, as is a very effective diff package that was offered by NISMO. You obviously never drove a GTiR with a front diff because you would change your opinion of the handling. It is that dramatic! As for the weight distribution of the GTir v pre00 WRX, they are exactly the same with front weight bias for both. This myth of a 50/50 balanced WRX is as misleading as the myth of the lead tipped dart GTiR. The FJ20 had no real influence on the development of the SR20 and there is nothing common with it other than the 2ltr capacity. The FJ is still considered one of the stronger Nissan engines though. I have enjoyed the conversation WRXHoon and it is rare to find someone that can put a logical case forward.

gtst , you will find that the cooler in the sti is only marginaly smaller in capacity to the gtir , gtir has much bigger area but sti is much thicker , normal rexes of the old shape is smaller still .

you are right the gtir gets all the engine heat , in the rex the cilinder heads are a long way away from the cooler and a lot more air circulates in the rex engine bay as it is bigger .

[Irish]

Hey REXhoon, you seem to have a whole bunch of misconceptions about the GTiR. First of all, yes I do have a workshop manual and I have also owned my GTiR now for 8 years. I would be confident that I would have had one of the first 20 in Aus. The is not much that I have not touched on the car and I can put my hand on my heart and tell you that the lifters are solid. The sooner people recognise that the GTiR SR20 is completely different to every other SR20, the better. The block is even completely different with more butresses in the case and a different oil filter location. The BTCC Primeras were using a GTiR block in a naturally aspirated configuration to produce 400kw at the wheels. THERE IS NOTHING MAJOR IN COMMON WITH OTHER SR20's. Secondly, if you don't know the process of semi forging then look it up on google. Along with my semi forged nissan rods I have got semi forged pistons in my 4AGZE. You can do the homework on that one. Also, when you are going to be sarcastic you should make sure that you are correct to ensure that you don't look like a goat. As for all GTiR's having a front LSD diff........BZZZZZT, incorrect! Everyone with a little car knowledge would have made the connection I was refering to a LSD so lets not go down that path. I figure with your statement that you car would not have. If it had, you would not have sold it. It was an option and only some of the homologation spec (incorrectly called a Dakar by most) had them. A standard GTiR has an open front diff (in the transfer case), a viscous center diff (in the gearbox) and a viscous rear diff (rear axle). So like I said, if you have not driven with a front diff, you won't believe the beautiful handling of the car. Andrew M. even mentioned this in a previous post. He is now a 32 GTR owner and has owned both cars for around 5 years (GTiR) and 4 years (GTR). As for the weight distribution, Eibach (the spring makers) have said that of all the pre 00 WRX's they have corner weighed, they have never had one even close to 50/50 and the actual quote was that they were almost exactly the same as the GTiR. If these guys are not (at the very least) equal to whiteline in reputation then I will eat my hat. I have actually measured my car and it was a 820kg/420kg split. What was your car? As for the FJ20, it was almost a carbon copy of the Cosworth twin cam engine. Even things like cranks are interchangable between engines. The SR20 was a purpose built engine. Nissan had a whole lot of criteria to meet when they designed it and it was all done "in house". I am not saying that the STi is a bad car but I still stick with my opinion that there was no equal in that type of car until the 00 WRX STi. Bang for buck it decimates the opposition. Dollar for mod it decimates the opposition. Outright good looks it decimates the opposition. Anyone else want to take a shot at the title.

[TTT]

off topic - kinda....

IRISH - what company is your front LSD from and what is the purchase cost?

[Irish]

My front LSD is a Torsen. The guy who supplied me my diff still has two left but they are not cheap. I think he is looking for $1600ea. email me at: [email protected]

for more details if you are interested. On a side note, the diff cuts the GTiR turning circle down from 4 lanes to 3 lanes. I now have power oversteer at the push of my throttle. The launch is the biggest gain. No spinning up the front left wheel any more. It feels like the car has 50hp more power. Amazing is the only words I can find for the transformation.