Very old C/D reference

The GT-R has AWD, which helps greatly with launching. From 0-60, the biggest factor for almost any car with 400+hp is traction, not power/weight ratio. Which is partially why 0-60 is kind of pointless in this day and age where even Camrys are doing it in under 6 seconds.

The GT-R also has launch control, which I’m assuming helps cut down 0-60 times too

I don’t think it’s outrageous for the GT-R to have a better 0-60 than the Z06

peak hp is a nearly worthless #, so good luck with your calculation.

That may be true, but to a lahman comparing apples to apples:

2008 Nissan GT-R with 480hp twin turbo V6, AWD and weighs close to 4000lbs accelerates 60 in 3.4 seconds at last review.

2008 Corvette ZO6 with a 505hp V8, RWD and weighs a little over 3000lbs accelerates to 60 in about 3.8 seconds at last review.

Am I the only one who sees some kind of problem with these figures?

I read that ultra-short gearing has a lot to do with the GT-R equally a Ferrari Enzo in the sprint but still….magazine after magazine that I’ve read have always speculated the Nissan was making substantially more than the advertised 480hp.

Chris, what are you talking about? No one’s suggesting Car and Driver is guilty of anything here. If anything, there are to be commended for calling bullshit on a test car.

That was in reference to prior assertions that C/D et al are in the pocket one way or another with the manufacturers who provide them test vehicles. But yes, I’m glad they investigated this.

It’s a question of honesty, accuracy, integrity. WWSIWYG. What We Say is What You Get. And I’m totally down with Sajeev’s point. If an enthusiast tweaks his ECU, the warranty goes poof! If the manufacturer does it, it’s OK? In what moral universe do you float?

You’re assuming the ECU is tweaked. It’s not like underrating horsepower for insurance, marketing, whatever reasons is something new. Back in the 1960s, the 426 Hemis were underrated, as were the 427 Chevy L88s. A more recent example is the BMW 335i, which performs far better than an even 300 horsepower I6 should and dyno results have shown 300 to be an underestimate. As a comment above said, it could be sandbagging.

Maybe something more sinister is afoot, but there is no evidence of that. When 60% of the cars C/D tested – including the last one, which is allegedly in production spec – are consistently over the published power rating, that tells me that the car may be just underrated. Until we see retailed cars NOT making those dyno numbers, Justin’s guess about giving ringers to car magazines is just a guess and proves nothing. Sometimes a cigar might be just a cigar.

About the ECU reprogram, if it’s applied consistently, where’s the problem? If Nissan tweaks it and gives me more power and covers any repairs resulting from that change under the warranty, it means the party making the change pays for any repairs. If an owner does it and voids the warranty, it’s the same thing – the party making the change pays for the repairs.

I really don’t see an issue with my moral universe. All I’m saying (which you know I’ve contended before) is that sometimes the most sinister outcome is not the truth. The C/D investigation did not find evidence (at least at this point) that Nissan gave them test vehicles with more power than paying customers will get, so at this point there is no (confirmed) TRUTH in that idea. I believe that skepticism can be healthy, and of course TTAC thrives on it, but stating definitively that Nissan sent ringers to the auto rags seems inaccurate to me. Maybe it’s a simple case of under-promising and over-delivering.

IF customer cars show up making the advertised power on a dyno and not these inflated figures, I’m more than happy to crucify Nissan. But to my knowledge that has not yet happened, has it?

In one of the “slow” GTR’s it was in a comparison and got spanked by a mile to 150 by the Z06. Pretty much what I would predict for an AWD 4wd lead sled vs. the Z06.

So if 3 out of 5 cars perform the same, that’s a good indicator of what? Ringers? Crappy QA?

I think it boils down to every car media outlet wanting to be ‘first’ with all the gt-r info that they jump the gun and just print whatever the hell they see in the first 5 minutes of demo-ing their tester.

I’m with conslaw. The car may be a ‘bargain’, but I find myself struggling to care. It may go like greased lightning, but at that price I like a little style over substance, and this thing has the frontend of a lancer and the backend of a cobalt; neither of those being a compliment.

When GM is the only company out of your list “GM, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, or Mazda” that has made a car (ZR1) that is as fast as, or faster than the fastest cars from Porsche, Lamorghini and Ferrari (Aston Martin is not even in the same performance league)

Notice, I said: IF they decided to make it a priority! Now notice that GM (a company that cant figure out its a$$hole from its elbow) is the ONLY one mentioned above that is wasting precious recourse (of which they have few)on a 638hp 2 seater car that will not gernerate enough profit to by dinner for the GM execs. The rest all go racing, yet understand that it is the $25,000 cars that they sell that are making their employees and shareholders happy!

IF (big IF) the Malibu was at least the number 2 seliing car in the USA (like it should be) than I could understand GM (the largest automaker in the world) beating its chest with the ZR1.

Unfortunately those guys over at Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda can look at GM with its ZR1, Ford with its Ford GT, and Chysler with the Viper and say; “yeah, those are some nice “toys” you got there. Now tells how much money did you make this year???????”

Dyno tests should be used as relative tools to test modifications. I use them to tell if that tune or that intake is worth the cash…not to see if the factory is under or over rating the motors to begin with, or if mine is stronger than my neighbor’s.

Agreed. I remember a Sport Compact Car article from a few years back where the writers took a bone stock Ford Ranger 4×4 to five different dyno shops in their area and got back five different horsepower and torque readings with as much as a 30 hp difference between the numbers. There are many variables that can affect a dyno’s reading even to the point that changes in temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure can affect readings even on the same dyno.

Why can’t we assume that since the 3 tested cars were similar, then maybe the only issue is Nissan giving us a conservartive hp number.

Other examples where the stated hp numbers were suspected to be a little low:
BMW 335 (as discussed in various bmw forums)
Ferrari 599 (also in the C&D magazine)
Neon SRT-4 (not 100% sure on this one)
Future possibility C6 ZR-1

I don’t know about the other cars, but the SRT-4 (at least the 03 models) was severely underrated from the factory. Dodge rated them at 215hp, but some magazines got as much as 228 when they tested them.

It’s funny that you say “Aside from some serious financial problems facing GM anyone of these companies could smash the European “heritage” brands in the game of high-performance sportscars IF they decided to make that a priority.”

When GM is the only company out of your list “GM, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, or Mazda” that has made a car (ZR1) that is as fast as, or faster than the fastest cars from Porsche, Lamorghini and Ferrari (Aston Martin is not even in the same performance league)

SupaMan:
can 480hp really accelerate a 4000lb car to 60mph in under 4 seconds?

But hey, I’m no mechanic sooooo…..

peak hp is a nearly worthless #, so good luck with your calculation.

My answer: no

But hey, I’m no mechanic sooooo…..

Other examples where the stated hp numbers were suspected to be a little low:
BMW 335 (as discussed in various bmw forums)
Ferrari 599 (also in the C&D magazine)
Neon SRT-4 (not 100% sure on this one)
Future possibility C6 ZR-1

The Nissans may just be consistently putting out more power than advertised.

Robert,

Car and Driver is not claiming that Nissan tweaked the ECUs on the GT-R to gain an advantage in Media performance testing!

What they are stating is that 2 of the 5 casrs they tested did not perform as strongly as the 3 others. It appears from their article that the ECU “MIGHT” be the cause of the difference BUT they are NOT sure because they have NOT dynoed all 5 cars.

Come on you guys can’t at this point honestly make the claim that these “early build” GT-R will perform any differently than those that will go into costumers hands.

But really, who cares?

As Far as I am concerned the GT-R like all of the other so-called supercars are all street legal passanger cars. So what Nissan has produced a car to sell that can out-perform soem Ferraris and Porsches! Any automaker can make a super car and sell it at a lose! Or better yet why don’t we all just admit that the price that Ferrari and Porsche charges for their level of performance is NOT worth it anymore (IF PERFORMANCE IS YOUR MAIN GOAL).

Lets keep it real! Do you guys actually believe that Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, AM, actually has some magic or technology that GM, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, or Mazda can’t match? All have made extremely competitive sports cars that have out-perfromed the so-called big-boys before.
Aside from some serious financial problems facing GM anyone of these companies could smash the European “heritage” brands in the game of high-performance sportscars IF they decided to make that a priority.

1) The GT-R is a legend per-se. No need to “make” fake cars for press/Nürburgring etc… Or is it “needed”?

2) Why Nissan would do this? What are the reasons behind all this?

I call BS on this.

Your second paragraph statement is flawless (based on your first one), but Mr. Clarkson better provide some factory dyno charts to back up his stuff.

Each engine after assembly (whatever it is) is tested on a dyno to verify (among other things) that the power level is within a range. If I remember correctly is about +/- 5% of advertised value. Of course, the tolerance change between manufacturers and engines.

And there’are always variations in engines, whether they’re hand or robot assembled due to part tolerances.

Guilty until proven innocent I suppose.

Chris, what are you talking about? No one’s suggesting Car and Driver is guilty of anything here. If anything, there are to be commended for calling bullshit on a test car.

Also, the fact that the most recent car tested, supposedly in “full production spec”, put up the same higher dyno numbers that the very first “early build” car did, tells me that this is probably nothing more than underrating all cars.

It’s a question of honesty, accuracy, integrity. WWSIWYG. What We Say is What You Get. And I’m totally down with Sajeev’s point. If an enthusiast tweaks his ECU, the warranty goes poof! If the manufacturer does it, it’s OK? In what moral universe do you float?

So if C/D presumably benefits from having a ringer to test (more impressive numbers on the front cover), and there is allegedly some sort of conspiracy and quid pro quo action going on between manufacturers and print auto rags, why on earth would they go through the effort to investigate this and call out Nissan for understanding horsepower?

Guilty until proven innocent I suppose.

Also, the fact that the most recent car tested, supposedly in “full production spec”, put up the same higher dyno numbers that the very first “early build” car did, tells me that this is probably nothing more than underrating all cars.

If Nissan expects significant variance in engine output for whatever reason, it would behoove them to shoot toward the low end of the range when picking a number. Otherwise, they end up like Ford did with the Mustang Cobras and Mazda did with the early RX-8s not making their advertised power. I’d rather buy a car that’s giving me 40 more horsepower than the spec sheet says than 40 fewer, wouldn’t you guys? Either way people will bitch, so Nissan is, as GM often is, damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Dyno tests performed at the wheels can vary for a number of reasons (conditions, manufacturer of the dyno, etc.), and can be hard to translate to HP at the crank. I’ve seen where driveline losses have been somewhat accurately estiamted, based on the average of a large number of stock, production models taken to their local dyno shop…but I doubt that’s happened with the GT-R (how many have been sold…any?).

Dyno tests should be used as relative tools to test modifications. I use them to tell if that tune or that intake is worth the cash…not to see if the factory is under or over rating the motors to begin with, or if mine is stronger than my neighbor’s.

P.S.
Santa wins, by the way…

3 out of 5 means Nissan was consistent 60% of the time. Justin, its the first year of a complex AWD 500hp+ car with a hand built engine and dual-clutch trans. There are going to be weak ones. First year buyers beware.

Quick aside: One of the cars C/D tested, if I remember correctly, was one of the GT-Rs from that reno-fernley raceway press event. Those Nissans were not babied, I would age them in dog years.

The carmaker attributed the difference between published and actual hp to “early build” cars’ varying computer software programming.

What does this really mean? “Early Build” mean PRE-PRODUCTION. Needless to say Nissan was testing many different software profiles for the GT-R.

How much difference in HP is there between the diferent cars?

Were any of these “early build cars” slower than the others? Remember we are talking about “varying computer software programming”.

How many cars are we talikng about and are these the cars that were tested in Germany, Japan, or the USA?

Are you guys also making the claim that other automakers do not routinely do the same thing?

Now that a few “production models” have been test are the results totally out of line with those of the “early build” cars?

Quoted from the C&D article:

Three weeks later, a fifth GT-R arrived. This one, allegedly, was a production version with the latest—and final—engine calibration. We took it both to the test track and MotorCity’s dyno.

This car performed nearly identically to the fourth car. It smoked the quarter-mile in 11.6 seconds at 120 mph and produced 420 wheel horsepower. We also measured the turbo boost pressure in both cars, and the curves were basically identical.

Though we didn’t get a chance to dyno-test the two slower GT-Rs, three of the five were so close in performance that we believe they accurately represent the GT-R’s capability. Clearly, Nissan is delivering more than the advertised 480 horsepower. And the most likely figure is about 520, which is yet another reason to bow to the best performance value since the Corvette Z06.

It appears that the C& D Article is actually contradicting the premise of what you have presented here.