It Turns Out All The GT-R Needed To Be Fast Was 1,500 Horsepower

by Jack Baruth

January 3rd, 2013 5:07 PM

it turns out all the gt r needed to be fast was 1 500 horsepower

My experience with the original Switzer P800 GT-R was so impressive that I ended up working with the company briefly in 2010 before the 246-mile daily commute started to get a bit tiresome. Naturally, they waited until I was out of the building before completing a GT-R with a staggering one thousand horsepower measured at the wheels.

That previous milestone now looks, shall we say, conservative.

Quoth the Switzer press release,

The Goliath car was built to explore the limits of Switzer’s package architecture, building off of the same hardware upgrades as the Ultimate Street Edition, as well as the same intercoolers, plumbing, and exhaust hardware used in the USE, as well as the P700, P800, and record-breaking R1K-X Switzer GTRs. “The other component to this exercise,” explains Tym, “was to see how much power we could make on our engine program’s standard-bore/stroke 3.8L VR38 build that’s been so reliable for us over the past four years.”

Keep in mind, this is not some chopped-up dyno-queen/ringer car. Grinding or welding on the chassis was not permitted, so Goliath’s firewall, frame rails, and power steering systems are totally intact. The factory AC system is completely intact, and “is a must”, according to Switzer … which makes sense, considering how many of these cars end up in extreme climates.

We’ll see what we can do to get behind the wheel of this highly unreasonable GT-R. Keep in mind, it’s winter in Ohio, so the accidental-death factor will be high.

#EvolutionMotorsports #GT-R #Nissan #Switzer

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11 of 22 comments

FJ60LandCruiser on Jan 04, 2013

Reminds me of those idiotic Hennessey vipers Car and Driver tested ages ago with their 700-1200 hp engines that couldn't keep from blowing up every quarter mile unless tended to by 12 techs with two spare engines and a half dozen diffs and transmissions back in the truck...

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- MeaCulpa on Jan 04, 2013
  
  Who's diffs and engines where they and did he ever get them back?
  
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- Porschespeed on Jan 06, 2013
  
  @MeaCulpa The owner probably the engine and trans out of the car of next poor chump to walk into that con shop. (To be fair, supposedly they've straightened up. Supposedly.)
  
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- MeaCulpa on Jan 06, 2013
  
  @porschespeed The sad thing about that supposed straining of ways are the lack of rambling posts all over the internet where Hennessy basically says "so I committed fraud, but that was like a week ago, stop talking smack about me just because I stole some part from you this morning".
  
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- Porschespeed on Jan 06, 2013
  
  @Mea Culpa, I'd written them off 10 years ago after hearing all the stories and seeing their pathetic "build quality". It was so bad it made contemporary Lingenfelter stuff look good. I don't do Vipers so I haven't paid any attention to them. But I did a quick search and apparently they are as larcenous as they ever were. Caveat Emptor.
  
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Krhodes1 on Jan 04, 2013

I just don't see the point. Though I suppose it is a bit like climbing mountains just because you can. I'd much rather have 120hp in a Lotus 7 replica that weighs 1200lbs minus my fat ass, skinny tires, and no electronics at all. Would certainly be a lot more fun, and your license would last a lot longer.

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- Nrd515 on Jan 05, 2013
  
  I have a friend who has a Challenger that has about 720HP at the rear wheels(blown 440CI stroker from a 6.1) and I can't even imagine twice that, even with AWD. Somehow, even though he has made a few "test runs" where he's broken 140 (There's a nice road out in the boonies where the only victim of this insanity would be him and maybe a Possum, you can see for miles in all directions), he's only managed to get one ticket on it so far, for 45 in a 35 zone. He just was cruising along and forgot to slow down. He went to court on it and the cop never showed, so it was dismissed. I've driven it a few times and it's a lot of fun, but it's easy to get into trouble in.
  
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- Raph on Jan 06, 2013
  
  @nrd515 720 HP and just breaking 140? Does he employ the stock gearing? I'm about 130hp short of that at the crank and with the stock gearing in my car blowing past 140 in a short amount of time is really not hard to do. Matter of factly, I can trap right around 120-123 in the quarter and run smack into the rev limiter in 4th (152 mph) very shortly there after. The "wall" so to speak seems to come up just before 160 or so as the acceleration past that point in 5th gear really slows down. Popular Mechanics IIRC took the speed limiter off of a stock 07-09 GT500 and reached 183 mph in 5th, it must have taken forever to get there.
  
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MeaCulpa on Jan 04, 2013

Am I being a bit pessimistic in assuming that the service intervals might be short at 390hp/l?

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Owenstanley on Jan 04, 2013

Don't forget: the F1 cars from the Turbo Wars also were fueled by a mixture of indolene, heptane, toluene and liquid manganese, plus up until 1987 most cars carried the fuel in vessel that could maintain a very cool temperature as the fuel was cooled by liquid nitrogen as the car was filled. This resulted in a fuel that measured 91 RON but had the effect of about 130 octane gasoline in the combustion chamber. Watch the starts on an old Youtube video - it's a rolling Superfund site!

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- Porschespeed on Jan 06, 2013
  
  Pump gas is 40%+ toluene, but yes, you're right. They had all sorts of other tricks too. Oh the sounds they made. I was just talking about spec output.
  
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