2010 HKS GT-R R35
Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:39 am
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Exclusive Road Test: 2010 HKS GT-R R35 - Road Test
The King of Japanese tuners finally gets its hand on the Nissan GT-R.
By Sam Mitani / Photos by John Lamm
July 13, 2010
The Nissan GT-R has been around for a couple of years now, and while there have been many aftermarket tuners who have created their own versions of the “ultimate Japanese performance car” out of the popular grand tourer, HKS has been suspiciously quiet, not at all customary from a company that’s known as the foremost aftermarket tuner from Japan.
On many occasions, I approached HKS North America and European CEO Jun Toyoda and HKS North America president Rick Lafferty on what the holdup was. Their response was always, “We’re working on it.”
Last week, Jun and Rick sent me an email telling me they had the company’s first tweaked version of the Nissan GT-R ready for me to drive, saying we’d be the first ones in the world to get test numbers. The car looked sweet—it was lowered slightly and wore black Yokohama Advan RS-D wheels ($3870). I noticed there was a new exhaust system in place. According to Jon Kuroyama, Manager of R&D at HKS, this piece ($5295) was made entirely of titanium and weighed only 22 lb.
It was this exhaust system that highlighted the difference between the stock GT-R and the HKS version when the 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged engine came to life. It didn’t sound like a GT-R but something Italian. The Stage 1 version of the HKS GT-R included a variety of changes under the hood. The GT600 Racing Package ($8595) included a racing center pipe, intercooler pipe kit, electronic boost controller, Super SQV blow-off valve kit, reinforced turbo actuators and high-performance spark plugs. There was also an intercooler kit ($4795) and a clutch and transmission cooler kit ($2595).
These new components result in a horsepower jump to 638 bhp at 6000 rpm and 605 lb.-ft. of torque at 4500. What this means to the driver is that the car can reach 60 mph in 3.0 seconds and get to the quarter-mile mark in 11.1 at 128.9 mph. Zero to 100 mph comes at 6.8 seconds. This is one mean machine.
And what’s more, HKS made sure that the chassis could handle all the extra power. Thanks in part to the stock car’s rigid nature and HKS’s sport coil-over shocks ($4295), the revived GT-R sticks to the pavement like Superglue, exhibiting flawless balance through most corners. The rear stays firmly planted to the ground, but if it does break loose, all the driver needs to do is keep his foot pegged to the floor; the GT-R’s excellent all-wheel-drive system stabilizes the car almost magically. Around the skidpad, the car registered 0.97g and flew through the slalom at 73.8 mph.
HKS decided not to install bigger turbos for this Stage 1 version, but Kuroyama said that there are definitely plans for a Stage 2 version, with larger turbochargers. Still, the Stage 1 version was quite enough to satisfy my appetite for performance, and although I had wanted this car to arrive sooner, the HKS GT-R was well worth the wait.