Kaizen Tuning LLC

Project car – 2009 Nissan GTR “Godzilla”

We started this project in July last year when we took delivery of the first GTR in New England. I knew right away I could not sit around and let all that trapped potential just sit locked inside this car. I used my experience from tuning my Supra to start mapping out a mod list that would unleash what was inside this car. I knew that I needed to do something with the outlets from the turbos to make power. The car had good airboxes so that was set from the factory. My goal was a 600 HP car that I could take out on the town or to the track, reliably, with just boltons. I can saw this goal was achieved and then some. This has been a long project that has not been completed yet. There are still lots of things in the air around this car. For now, I am down with power mods and am looking to taistfully compliment the lines of the GTR with some more parts from Mines.

I started mapping out what I would need:

Downpipes – I went with Amuse, as they are considered one of the best pipe makers in Japan with a partnership with Nippon Steel. This mod eliminated 2 cats. However I had to somehow fool the car ECU to think they were still in the car. The power in the GTR is locked up in these 2 parts. In addition the shitty sound was also piped up in the downpipes. We lost a whopping 30 pounds replacing these. The whole setup took 5 months to get from Japan. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting on something you have zero control over. I passed the time looking at additional power mods as they came available.

Midpipe – Again I turned to Amuse, and decided that I would have 1 set of cats so I could pass inspection. I knew this was going to cost me power, but also knew that I could change it out if needed. Again a huge wait savings of 20 pounds was to be had here.

Catback – No one makes a better catback than Amuse, so I decided to stick with the whole turbo back system. Pure Japanese titanium, with a medium blue burn. More weight to be saved here to the tune of 20 pounds. The system is not the loudest at idle. But does produce a great, tuned sound all through the RPM range. At WOT, it howl’s like its real real angry.

Actuators – Nothing was ready when I was getting ready to order these. I wanted something adjustable and tunable. Not something with just a lager spring in it. I had to wait til I got to TAS2009 to see that Forge had something coming out for my application. I waited and got what I wanted. They only became available in June of this year… A long wait.

Boost controller – These are a dime a dozen, but I chose an HKS unit for ease of used and tune when I wanted to switch from high levels of boost to something more tame. The unit is setup for 14 PSI and 18 PSI. We mounted it in the cup holder to be hidden but can be easily accessed when needed. We learned that the BC was needed to keep a nice smooth boost curve through the RPM range. HMS got this right on there own GTR, and I followed them.

FMIC – This ended up being the biggest hurdle. NOTHING was available, even at TAS2009. No one had gotten there shit together and address this issue of intake temps. Like the 3000ZX turbo, the GTR has 2 small FMIC’s. Finally Greddy came with a solution to the problem, a unit that would drop temps 60%. More R&D was needed, but we got it done. We used a Top Secret titanium hard hard pipe kit and C clamps on all the parts to make everything solid.

To pull all the mods together I needed a flexible tuning system that would change and grow as the mods in the car came available. I turned to Cobb Tuning this this and added an access port. This is a great little controller that you can datalog with, tune, edit and reset and read codes. Very handy. Its not without drawbacks but most of those have to do with the Cobb tunes and not with the unit its self. I turned to Forged Performance in Atlanta to put together a custom 114 and 18 PSI map. This pulled it all together and add a huge jump in mid range power.

I had to do some enhancing the look of the car, and turned to my favorite carbon tuner Mines Japan for this. I added a sudble accent of a Mines grill and ducts to the car.

For suspension performance I again turned to Cobb, and went with a coilover sleeve system that lowered the car about 1″ overall. In addition I added a Cobb swaybar kit to help turn in on the car. This added a ton of steering feel to the GTR, and lowered my laptimes considerably.

I also in this time went through 2 sets of factory Brembo rotors. I figured out the Brembos were cooling too fast and warping after a track excursion or 2. I replaced the rotors with AP Racing slotted units and never looked back. It seemed my hunch was correct. The rotors were cooling too fast, and the AP units were not. I added Carbotech X10 pads and Castrol SRF fluids to the mix as well.

I wanted a set of wheels that were going to be light, strong and striking. After seeing the Mines GTR up close with Volk TE37 V2’s on it, I had to have these wheels. Once again, I was R&Ding and went with a ton of wheel sizes before settling on the Nitto combo that is on the car now.

After a few track days it became apparent that the car had heat issues. The trans was heating up, I was getting high oil and coolant temps as well, so decided to add some mods to help reliability at the track. The first of these was to add a trans cooler from Willall Racing out of Australia. In addition I used a new trans fluid that would dissipate the heat, and add more lubrication elements at high temps. This is also offed by Willall racing. It worked perfectly and added to a 20% drop in trans fluid temps!

The last pice of the puzzle was safety. I went to Status Racing and got 2 of the Ring model carbon buckets in Alicantera, and got some Bride seat rails. Once again, more R&D, and told Status that the setup they had does not work, my head hit the cieling. We had to wait for the Bride rails to come in. Once in, more problems, the stock seats have airbags in them. The airbag light thus went on when we took out the seats, killing any hope of passing inspection. Then we tried to get a harness bar to get into the car. No one makes one that fits. We had to design our own with the help of a west coast cage builder BBI.  The cage was installed and painted the factory GTR ivory white.

As it stands now Kaizen Project Godzilla is waiting for Tokyo Auto Salon 2011 to see what is new in the world of GTR mods.  We will strive to supplement the power of this great car with taistfull line of slight body mods.  I know in my heart that this project is going to never fully be complete as new mods arrive every day….  What I can tell you is the Kaizen GTR as it sits now is easily a full blown Porsche eating machine.

Kaizen GTR at WGI

Kaizen GTR at Lime Rock Park

Stock Kaizen GTR at Lime Rock