I saw your porsche cayman at a sonic meet, it's badass. Prob one of the nicest cars here in ia.
I'd spend my money on a gt-r though...
I saw your porsche cayman at a sonic meet, it's badass. Prob one of the nicest cars here in ia.
I'd spend my money on a gt-r though...
he will get more looks and ***** because of that porsche. While most will look at you like you stupid for paying 80 to 90k for a nissan.Originally Posted by NissanTun3r
I saw your porsche cayman at a sonic meet, it's badass. Prob one of the nicest cars here in ia.
I'd spend my money on a gt-r though...
Resize sig area!
amt of premium you pay for premium and exotic brand is different. That's what im saying here. No need to interpret that deeply.
I trust Top Gear...
Independence from both companies
Will Nissan says 911 is a better car than a GTR?
Will Porsche says GTR is a better car than a 911?
NO!!!
Probably because the Nissan testter were so used to the GTR that they could drive it so much better than the Porsche testers there for better time for the Nissan and worse time for the Porsche.
Nissan wasn't the only company to run this low time in the GTR.. porsche seems to be the only company that sucks at driving this car. Obviously they're trying to prove that porsche > all. I wouldn't be surprised if they ****ed with it. Not to mention the stig ran a ridiculous laptime behind the wheel of the GTR on the Top Gear track and jeremy clarkson HATES NISSAN and LOVES the GTR. But i guess that car was modified too. Everyones trying to find reasons to put the GT-R to shame.. what a shame.. Porsche must have really gotten their feelings hurt when they found out a car for 60k less handles better in the twisties.. and that's supposed to be their flagship..
Ferrari Enzo: 1.19.0
Arial Atom: 1.19.5
Nissan GTR: 1.19.7
Ferrari Scuderia: 1.19.7
There's the OFFICIAL time from topgear. Haters take it how you want, but that's fact.
Last edited by willum14pb; 10-01-2008 at 07:46 AM.
This is worth looking into though. Nissan has given out cars for testing that made significantly higher numbers than baseline GT-R's that you would get if you went to a dealership. People shouldn't jump to conclusions or anything, but unless the driver of the GT-R was trying to get a slow time a 25 second difference is huge. If Nissan gave GT-R's making higher numbers to Car and Driver, why would it be so far fetched to say they didn't do the same for Top Gear? You never know. I'm not going to write Nissan off just yet but this could end up holding water if it's looked into more.Nissan wasn't the only company to run this low time in the GTR.. porsche seems to be the only company that sucks at driving this car. Obviously they're trying to prove that porsche > all. I wouldn't be surprised if they ****ed with it. Not to mention the stig ran a ridiculous laptime behind the wheel of the GTR on the Top Gear track and jeremy clarkson HATES NISSAN and LOVES the GTR. But i guess that car was modified too
Ferrari Enzo: 1.19.0
Arial Atom: 1.19.5
Nissan GTR: 1.19.7
Ferrari Scuderia: 1.19.7
There's the OFFICIAL time from topgear. Haters take it how you want, but that's fact.
Oddly enough, now that you mention it, the car Top Gear received was in a "wreck" and was given back to nissan before sent out to Top Gear.. so it is possible! lol. Either way... for some of you to say that top gear isn't a viable source of information as far as a cars performance, you're an idiot. The 10 minute segment clarkson does is worth ****, entertaining at best, but the stig segments are always good, and pretty accurate at juding a cars performance.
I agree with you about Top Gear, the Stig segments are all one driver comparing different cars, so to say the results are invalid is pretty stupid imo. I didn't know that about the Top Gear GT-R, if that's true that is pretty interesting. Who knows wtf is going on with Nissan. Hell, maybe Porsche did some reverse-sandbagging and drove too slow but that sounds stupid as fawk to me. I'd love to see how all of this pans out.
That segment was filmed before the GTR was crashed. And it was the Top Gear magazine staff that wrecked it.
last i watched it they said it was wrecked and given back to nissan before the stig test. I remember someone saying "this is the very one that was in fact wrecked" or something along those lines.
I cant believe you guys actually think Top Gear is a worthy source of information. Wow.
Jeremy Clarkston is an entertainter - he will say ANYTHING to make his show popular. Top Gear is very entertaining - but don't think for a second that he wont lie to improve ratings. They do the stupidest things and make the most vague and rashest comments without any base.
The top gear track is small and this is where I'd expect the GT-R to shine. I would not expect it to do so well in a long high speed track like the 'ring.
Last edited by Atlblkz06; 10-01-2008 at 11:53 AM.
I love Top Gear but I must say I lost some respect for them when they were "rating" an new "GT Mustang" and it was a bonified V6 base auto model package. Quite sad....
WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW NISSAN
lulz always wanted to say that
EJ: From what I have read, I stand by my statements earlier. What I read was that it was not Rohrl who did the testing, otherwise I would have VERY MUCH so believed that this was a case of sandbagging. I personally don't care whether the GTR or 911 is faster, as I wouldn't ever be in a position to be racing one unmodified anyways. All I'm saying is that believing that this test is some how "proof" of the argument one way or another is crazy. It will take probably another year before we have some definitive proof of whether or not this car is really what they say it is, but Nissan has always lowballed horsepower figures for their cars. There are badly running S30 Z's with stock L24's who can still put down 120hp to the rear wheels on dynos. I have seen a few completely restored L24's putting down almost 150 at the wheels, which is roughly the rating Nissan gave the 240z as crank horsepower. Nissan has a decent history about "fudging" horsepower numbers to sneak cars under the radar of the Japanese government too. Lastly, you have the frustrating fact that EVERY SINGLE GTR ENGINE is unique. Each engine is hand-assembled by one of a crew of techs, different techs assembling different engines. There are racing teams who care less about the engine than that.
I again say: This is a VERY bad way of taking a comparison test. There's EVERY possibility that the Porsche driver simply bagged the runs for any number of reasons, not the least of which is simply taking his foot off the gas too soon at every corner. With a track as long as the ring is, repeated small mistakes can be as fatal to lap times as a singular but obvious f-up.
I get the feeling that you are putting me on the side of the GTR's defence which is not the case. I have yet to really look up everything for myself since i have been busy. You might be right about the "easy" driving a Porsche man might have done. We'll find out sooner or later.
There's really only one way to settle this. Porsche execs vs. Nissan execs in an epic cage match.
This is a guy that I used to get along with on another forum. Very knowledgeable and tracks his cars. His article is 100% on point.
http://www.speedsportlife.com/2008/1...#comment-78438
Story by Jack Baruth
Okay, class, put away your books. Time for a pop quiz. It’s just one question, and it’s multiple-choice:
Which car holds the official Nurburgring lap time record for production automobiles?
a) Nissan GT-R
b) Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1
c) Porsche Carrera GT
d) Radical SR8
So, what did you pick? It doesn’t matter. Whatever you picked, you’re wrong. It was a trick question. There is no “production car record” at the Nurburgring. Period. It doesn’t exist. You may find that shocking. After all, don’t the British car rags continually natter on about the “production car record”? Didn’t Edmunds.com recently devote several terabytes of hype to the idea of the GT-R setting a “production car record”? Isn’t there, like, a totally official list on Wikipedia somewhere? There has to be a record! Everybody talks about it all the time!
Sorry. There’s no “Nurburgring lap time record” for a simple reason: Real lap time records are set by real race cars, using real timing and scoring equipment, during actual competition or sanctioned practice sessions. They aren’t “self-reported” for the same reason the World’s Strongest Man Contest isn’t held by having everyone mail in their “results”: because people can, and do, lie and cheat.
Despite the obviousness of this concept, it is not yet universally understood that one cannot simply claim a lap time on the Internet and have it be “official”. Case in point: I happen to be a member of a small Web forum for Midwestern racers and open-lapping drivers. A few years ago, we had a bit of a tempest in a teapot when a fellow claimed that his $5000 project car had lapped Mid-Ohio in a certain time. He’d obtained this time by taping a stopwatch to the dashboard and timing himself during a NASA HPDE session. While this fellow was a competent driver, we were rather skeptical about his reported time, not least because it would have put him on the pole of the American Iron race which had also occurred that weekend, and his old sedan was pretty far away from being an optimized AI car. Furthermore, those of us who have to race under the cold glare of an accurate-to-one-ten-thousandth-of-a-second transponder system rather objected to the idea of just banging a stopwatch somewhere around the start/finish line every lap. It’s pretty easy to gain or lose a few seconds by sloppy stopwatching, you see. After much discussion, the driver in question agreed that the time probably shouldn’t be considered “official” in any sense, and everybody calmed down. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust him; it was simply that recording one’s own lap time is not, and will never be, the equivalent of setting an honest, independently timed lap under controlled conditions. It’s just plain common sense.
Or is it? After all, didn’t Nissan recently manipulate the all-too-willing media into “witnessing” and then reporting “official Nurburgring lap times” for their all-conquering R35 GT-R? First, there was the pretty-hard-to-believe 7:38 time which the fine journalists at Edmunds advertised, excuse me, reported, followed by the no-really-you-have-to-be-kidding 7:34 time, and finally the don’t-insult-our-collective-intelligence 7:29 shared with the world in a breathless press release a few months later. The Nissan media blitz was so successful that when Horst von Saurma obtained a 7:50 time from a real production GT-R, it went virtually unreported by the major automotive rags. Where’d those twenty-one seconds between von Saurma’s drive and Nissan’s “test” come from? The Internet had many answers, none of them credible, and none of them particularly persuasive to anyone who has ever driven the Nurburgring in anger.
And now, Porsche - the company which has had perhaps the most storied relationship with the ‘Ring, the company which has been testing production cars in the Black Forest since the Fifties, the company which has historically set the benchmark for excellence around the North Course – has called Nissan out on their self-reported times. Without quite saying as much, Porsche has implied that Nissan cheated at the ‘Ring. Did they? If so, how?
The answer is simple: Nissan did not cheat, because it’s impossible to cheat when there are no rules. There’s no official lap time record, remember? What they did do was knowingly manipulate a credulous, ignorant media and general public into misunderstanding the GT-R’s capabilities. It’s not the first time they’ve done it, and they aren’t the only guilty parties.
Here’s how it was done.
Automakers have been testing at the “Green Hell” for a long time. According to Karl Ludwigsen in his must-read Excellence Was Expected, Porsche was timing its production cars at the ‘Ring as early as the Fifties. Back then, ten minutes was considered to be outrageously quick for a street car, and it took a fairly hot Porsche, such as a 550 Spyder, to make it around in that time. Rest assured that a ten-minute lap isn’t exactly screwing around; I ran an automatic-transmission SLK200 at a slightly sub-ten-minute pace (approx. 9:15 “bridge to gantry”, which is the shorter distance) two years ago and was either at full throttle, ABS activation, or serious slip angle for the whole time, and the SLK200 had modern tires and 167 horsepower compared to a 550 Spyder’s 110 ponies.
For the next forty years, Porsche used the ‘Ring as a development arena for its street cars. It’s important to note that Porsche rarely, if ever, publicized its lap times; from Stuttgart’s perspective, that would be no more interesting to a customer than the frequency resonance data from a particular Autobahn. Why would their owners be concerned with lap times for a street car? Don’t forget, this was before the World Wide Web made keyboard racers of us all. Back then, there were two kinds of Porsche owners: people who drove street Porsches on the street, and people who drove racing Porsches on the track, and they were not necessarily the same people, and the former group didn’t pretend to be the latter. Porsche wasn’t shooting for “bragging rights” with their lap times; the intent was simply that each new car be faster than its predecessor.
It took an inspired act of marketing to make ‘Ring times worthy of public consideration. Somebody at Nissan noticed that no street car had been “officially” timed at under eight minutes, so in 1996 they hired one Dirk Schoysman to accomplish the feat in the R33 Skyline GT-R. After some amount of fettling, fussing, and lapping, Dirk dutifully turned a 7:59, and the “Nurburgring record” was born. The fact that a little bit of the “German mystique” rubbed off on Nissan as a result was, of course, entirely not coincidental. At around the same time, journalist and erstwhile racer Horst von Saurma began posting his own “Supertest” results for single laps on the ‘Ring, starting a race for Nurburgring supremacy that has persisted to this day. For no particular reason that I can understand, the self-reported ‘Ring time has become the gold standard by which performance cars are judged.
Let’s take a moment to talk about lap times. Consider the following: Last year, I set the fastest Spec Focus lap at the NASA National Championships at 1:45.620. At this year’s Champs, the best lap was 1:48.170, despite the fact that the Spec Focus rules now allow wider tires and lower suspension. Do you really think I’m two and a half seconds better than the best guy was this year, particularly considering that he was driving a better-equipped car? Of course not. Mid-Ohio was slow this year because it rained the day before and washed the rubber off the track, taking a couple of seconds off everybody’s lap. Consider, if you will, that on a track the length of the ‘Ring the equivalent rain-washing time gap would be nine and a half seconds. Lap times set on different days, under different conditions, simply aren’t comparable. It’s that simple. Some days are hot, some days are cool, some days there’s rubber on the track, some days there’s oil. The same competent driver, in the same car, might have a fifteen-second variation from one ‘Ring session to the next. Think about that.
Now consider the fact that the published Porsche times and the von Saurma “supertests” are usually the product of a single day’s session. They take a completely production car out on the track and run it. Simple as that. And since we already know that the same driver can produce vastly different lap times, it’s obvious that these ‘Ring laps are only useful as a very general guideline.
Nissan’s stroke of marketing genius in 1996 was to realize that they could attack those “official times” using a completely different methodology. By taking the track for as long as they needed, with a full support crew, an endless supply of tires and tuning equipment, and a motivated racing driver, they were able to simply obliterate those existing “records”. It’s commonly understood that a weekend of development and effort can knock five or six seconds a lap off the times of a Showroom Stock racer on a two-minute track. That equates to twenty seconds or more at the ‘Ring, and that’s a big gap.
Porsche’s response to this was to, well, pretty much ignore it. It took Porsche a long time to concede that the Japanese might even be capable of building a decent car, much less one that would hustle on a racetrack, so they put the 7:59 GT-R lap down to a publicity stunt and continued to set their times by sending Herr Walter Rohrl out on the track for an afternoon. Meanwhile, von Saurma continued to build a database of lap times by “Supertesting” production cars.
At about the same time, the British motoring enthusiast public, enraged by speed cameras, limited track time on their island, and the general “F-the-motorist” stance of their own Government, began to make regular, organized pilgrimages to the ‘Ring, and consequently the British motor rags started obsessing over ‘Ring times in a big way. The “trackday special” companies – Radical, Ultima, Westfield, et al – started attacking the “production car record” with cars that redefined what “barely legal” meant. (Oh, come on! Not that kind of “barely legal”! Shame on you!) To no one’s particular surprise, it turned out that 1500-pound sports prototypes with full downforce and motorcycle engines are considerably faster than real street cars, which is why various companies are claiming “production car” ‘ring records all the way down to an “estimated” 6:55, courtesy of the Ultima GTR720. It’s absolutely possible to buy a street-legal car in the UK that will turn a 7:20 ‘Ring lap; you have several choices that will turn that time or better, actually. You had just better hope there are no speedbumps on the roads between your home and Germany, because two-inch ground clearance and massive carbon-fiber splitters tend to be incompatible with “sleeping policemen”.
Nissan knew that ‘Ring times would be a critical component of their marketing push for the R35 GT-R. Their potential buyers, weaned on Gran Turismo games and generally rather enamored of meaningless driving statistics, would accept no less. Never mind that the average GT-R owner would find himself being lapped by Showroom Stock Chevy Cobalts during a trackday; they’re a numbers crowd, they’re addicted to numbers, they repeat the numbers endlessly on the Internet, they love the numbers. The GT-R would have to develop the numbers.
What happened next was almost surreal. The impressionable people at Edmunds were invited to witness “production car testing” at the ‘Ring, where touring-car hotshoe/F1 washout Toshio Suzuki proceeded to set some very interesting lap times with a “production” car. These times were duly reported as a “new official record” and picked up by the world in general. Never mind that the lap times of a turbocharged car in factory hands require an entire shaker of salt to be taken seriously; never mind that the car could have been in any state of tune from the dampers up without Edmunds’ being any the wiser; never mind the fact that the car’s performance was very far away from what one might reasonably expect given the stated power and weight. Edmunds reported it anyway, and the “new production car record” flew around the Internet. Mission accomplished. Numbers delivered. Thanks, Edmunds!
A little journalistic integrity would have gone a long way here; it also would have helped to have someone on the staff who had, oh, I don’t know, raced something at some point in the past. It hardly mattered for long, as Nissan then cheerfully reset its own record to 7:29 in private testing. Again, this was accepted as gospel by the motoring press. A car with approximately the power-to-weight ratio of a Porsche 993 Turbo runs thirty-four seconds faster around the ‘Ring than said Turbo? Sure, why not? Must be the magic electronics and, er, downforce.
Journalistic stupidity is like blood in the water; it draws sharks who are eager to profit as a result. The next Mako to strike was General Motors, which proceeded to set a couple of “production car” times in caged cars! Here’s a hint, friends: Rollcages make cars faster. Simply replacing the Autopower cage in our ’94 Neon ACR with a stiffer custom cage took 1.5 seconds off our lap time around Mid-O – equivalent to seven seconds on the ‘Ring. Why? The car twisted less and planted its tires better. Caged cars go faster. It’s as simple as that. But GM claimed it was for “safety”, and the Press As A Whole swallowed the explanation without comment. The final blow was the Viper ACR’s outrageous 7:22 laptime, which is, ironically, probably the most “legitimate” time of the bunch despite being the lowest. The problem is that the Viper ACR is only nominally a street car; it’s America’s answer to a street-legal Radical SR8.
It’s now possible, therefore, for pimply seventeen-year-olds whose driving experience is limited to piloting Mom’s Camry around the local Fashion Bug’s parking lot to authoritatively draw a “comparison” between, say, the 8:28 laptime set eight years ago by von Saurma in a naturally aspirated 993 and the 7:24 of a Corvette ZR-1 - but it’s a house built on sand. The conditions are simply too dissimilar to really understand anything about the way the cars actually perform. For that, you’d need to have your own test drivers, your own private time at the ‘Ring, and standardized conditions under which to test.
Porsche happens to have all of the above, so it’s not really a surprise that they have, at long last, decided to enter the Nurburgring publicity game with a bang. Their new test times for the 997 Turbo and GT2 are more aggressive than what they have previously reported, and their GT-R test time appears to line up pretty well with von Saurma’s independent test of a production car. They’ve taken a relatively bold step in publicizing their times; it’s really the first time that one manufacturer has offered a direct public commentary on another car’s Nordschleife capabilities. Apparently, the gloves are off, which is probably bad news for competitors who rely on ‘Ring times to give their cars a little bit of that much-desired Green Hell mystique. At this point, even the most unrepentant PS2-player has to admit that Nissan’s “test” was more of a “stunt”. Keep in mind, there’s nothing unethical about that; there are no official rules of “testing” at the ‘Ring. It’s manipulative, it’s scheming, it’s too clever by half, but it isn’t “cheating”.
The amusing thing about all of this planning, posturing, and boost-twiddling is that, in the end, it amounts to nothing. A better ‘Ring time doesn’t make for a better car, particularly for Americans who rarely find themselves doing triple-digit speeds along one-way, Armco-lined rural roads. It doesn’t even necessarily make for a better track car; any car which has been optimized for the bumpy, transition-heavy Nordschleife will feel like a rolling boat on a flat Alan Wilson course. The best thing that could happen to Nurburgring testing would be for all the stopwatches to disappear, because at that point the manufacturers could get back to Porsche’s original rationale for testing there: simply improving the vehicle beyond its predecessor. No trickery, no stupidity.
It won’t happen, at least not until one of these fresh-faced “engineers” is decapitated by a barrier in the course of setting some hilariously deceptive sub-seven-minute lap. At that point, somebody at Nissan, Porsche, Chevrolet, or Chrysler might realize the fundamental ridiculousness of fighting for imaginary bragging rights. In the meantime, the rest of us can enjoy the show, while understanding that it means absolutely nothing. Go have a good time in your car – but if you want me to believe in your good time, you’d better put a transponder behind the bumper, okay?
Vossen CV3 20x9 & 20x10.5
It's funny that this time last year, it was the Porsche guys who were the over-obsessed ring-rats, pulling the same kind of tricks as Nissan's being accused of now, but now Nurburgring is played out.
I suggest a new way of timing sports/supercars. One lap standing start around Hockenheimring. Why Hockenheim? Cause...I like it. :-p
The Hockenheimring was killed many years ago.
BTW. Just like Monaco, Indy and the Dakar.....the Green Hell will never be "played out" It is a part of German tradition like the autobahn and some auto industry trends won't change that.
LOL! Its simple GTR>Porsche.
You're an idiot.
Nissan fanboys are funny.
Have you ever owned a Nissan??
LOL what is that supposed to mean? If he has he will automatically fall in love? I owned one. after some time I fell in deep hate haha.
1991 300zx Slicktop, the rarest one.
And, im actually in the boat of liking most everything cause i can usually see cars past 1/4 mile times and see what character every car has.
That is why i hope the Fiat 500 comes to the usa next, if so, it will be my next car. But a Porsche is a machine that is a cut above everything else. Even Ferrari have to make better cars to compete with Porsche.
Here is why...
Even though i have brought this up countless times, it is very important to remember. Porsche has already made a "GTR" in their history. It was called the 959. It was so technically advanced that many people said it forgot about the driver. Since that time, Porsche has focused on putting driver involvement into their cars ahead of tech. The 90's is proof that this worked as Porsche went from going almost bankrupt to becoming the 3rd most expensive brand in the world behind Toyota and BMW today. With knowing that, Porsche does have alot of customers that are all image and no real passion about driving. So the PDK is here. But because Porsche is about us true fans, the H box is and will continue to be an option. Something Nissan forgot to do with the current GTR wihich is why i could never pick it over a 911. Shifting is part of driving. I race on a track and i drive on the street. When im racing, give me every aid and whatnot possible but when im driving, let me do the work.
Last edited by EJ25RUN; 10-05-2008 at 08:53 AM.
well put repped
Wow, you are smart. LOL. GTR > Porsche my ASS. Ricer.
Holy **** you typed up a 2 page long essay for a response.
Thank you, but man this is IA - you wasted your time lol.
if you read his post, it was just copy and paste
what u ment to say was
backwoods mullet having chevy > all mightly JDM nissan
as stated before
ZR-1 > GTR
and if you say something about price range, you're wrong. ZR-1 is a better performance car.
get off your knees and stop sucking the GTR's d*ck
Ha Ha cause you don't suck a grungy GM d*ck... Jeez let the the keyboarders race... Hot damn you know they all "cheat" to lower the track times. It is the same thing that American manufacturers did in the muscle car era. They tweaked the tires, carbs, suspension, sometimes they had ballast in the cars all to run a lower 1/4 mile time. You can bash the GTR all u want but even if it only runs a 7:59 or whatever its still well performing car that is worth the $.
Agreed.
You're right I don't "suck a grungy GM dick". Also I will race more than my keyboard, how about against, that pretty 240? Lastly, I never said the GTR was a bad car, just stating that the GTR is a lesser car.
I wish is still had that piece of **** s13 just so i could try to bust your ass with a car that cost about 1/5 the price of yours. Now i drive a slow boat of a Lexus and its not GTE swapped yet so no dice....but the ring times are bull**** and time will tell whether or not chevys new toy is better or not than the GTR. And my post was not in reference to the GTR being a better car or not I think that if that guy sucks Nissan's **** for liking the GTR then you suck GM's **** for liking the ZR-1 or Z whatever it is. Honestly though, who gives a ****... thats the beauty of the Car Talk section you can keyboard race all you want and state your opinion even if it has no factual basis what so ever.
no you wouldn't be running the vette LOL, you would be running the bucket
and it just so happens that i like the zr-1 better, has nothing dealing with me driving a vette (also have a ford).
wow i guess i gave the GTR too much credit!
crazy...
and what about this problem with alot of the new gtr's tranny breaking?
anyone heard of that yet?
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