Lies, damn lies and HP ratings: C&D dynos five Nissan GT-Rs

[VH_Supra26]

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/08/01gtr_dyno_candd.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/08/02gtr_dyno_candd.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/08/03gtr_dyno_candd.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/08/04gtr_dyno_candd.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/08/05gtr_dyno_candd.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/08/06gtr_dyno_candd.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/08/07gtr_dyno_candd.jpg

From the beginning, the Nissan GT-R's performance figures seemed too good to be true. Weighing in at over 3,800 pounds and packing a claimed 480 hp, the 3.5-second sprint to 60 and 11.8-second quarter-mile time just didn't add up. And then the tests began...

Buff books and online outlets began publishing 0-60 runs between 3.2 and 3.4 seconds, and quarter-mile times began dropping quicker than a co-ed's IQ on a nitrous binge. CARandDRIVER.com discovered a similar discrepancy between five different GT-Rs and finally decided to get some time on the dyno to get some real-world numbers.

CARandDRIVER's first tester ran to 60 in 3.3 seconds and past the traps in 11.5 seconds at 124 mph, causing C&D's scribes to suspect that Nissan engineers cranked up the boost on the evaluation vehicle. Shortly thereafter, two more GT-Rs arrived at their offices, both recording significantly slower quarter mile times and confirming their suspicions. Unfortunately, time constraints prevented either vehicle from getting up on the rollers. That would have to wait until Tony Swan returned with his GT-R after campaigning in the One Lap of America.

Surprisingly, Swan's GT-R performed exactly the same in performance tests as the first GT-R C&D tested. When they finally strapped it to MotorCity Speed's Mustang dyno, No. 4 put down 415 horsepower to the wheels, and with an estimated drivetrain loss of 20 percent (an average on most all-wheel-drive cars), that meant output was closer to 519 hp, rather than Nissan's claimed 480 hp.

Not content to leave well-enough alone, CARandDRIVER procured a fifth GT-R, which returned almost identical 0-60 and quarter-mile times as the fourth vehicle, along with 420 hp at the wheels on the same dyno.

You can read all the details at CARandDRIVER.com, hear Nissan's explanation for the discrepancy and see charts of both the dyno pulls and the boost levels on two of the five vehicles.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/08/20/lies-damn-lies-and-hp-ratings-i-candd-i-dynos-five-nissan-gt/

[TXBlackout03]

Ha!


I told you all.

[iRIDElow]

lol

[tiedupfool]

"boost discrepency"

:rofl:

[i-vtec195]

i curious to see how nissan replies to this. if it's true, then nissan's got quite the foreseeable PR nightmare on their hands...

[Maxima96]

uh oh....spaghetti-o's......some ones got their gonads on the chopping block :P

[dantheman]

Ha!


I told you all.

"boost discrepency"

:rofl:


what did i say from the beginning.

with a turbo car its just too easy to say "stock boost" and bump it up 5-10psi

[rene]

explaination is that each engine is "hand built" for its chassis....that's too big of an inconsistancy for what should really be a cookie-cutter nissan.....no bueno

[GSRcaucAZN78]

This is old news, Nissan has already responded...

"Nissan engineers insist the GT-R really does only have 480 hp. Motohiro Matsumura, president of Nissan Technical Center North America, Inc. in Farmington Hills, Michigan, says our dyno test story, which revealed the GT-R develops 430 hp at the wheels, is basically right. But he insists our estimate of a minimum 15-percent friction losses -- which suggests the GT-R is making 507 hp -- is wrong. Matsumura-san says ultra-low friction bearings in the wheel hubs and transmission, plus the careful alignment of the all-wheel-drive system's propshafts, mean friction losses are reduced to an unprecedented 10 percent or so."


anyone who thinks its more is obviously stupid because it shows that it cant keep up in strait lines with higher hp cars after 60+mph.

it shows its strengths on the race track where it makes up alot of time on the corners. it can corner and brake faster than any other car out there (name a few tho).

must be every nissan R35 is a ringger then.

[eN_2_Oh]

explaination is that each engine is "hand built" for its chassis....that's too big of an inconsistancy...
thats what i was thinking

[arkive43]

rofl @ ppl trying to dog a great car you cant deny it that. so stop trying.

[rene]

rofl @ ppl trying to dog a great car you cant deny it that. so stop trying.

lol did you read the article? nobody's dogging the GTR itself---just pointing out the fact that nissan skewed the HP numbers in their favor...

[seinkonnen]

$5,000 bucks says that the 7:29 Nurburgring GTR would've dynoed even higher then those cars. But, as it is, they probably destroyed the car and all traces of it's existence.

[al]

So 415-420 at the wheels, those are pretty consistent numbers for a limited production vehicle. Nobody cares if it's been underrated, it's something that the Japanese have been doing for decades, and it's better for insurance (if they even care above 300hp).

For Nissan's dramatic redesign of the GT-R's drivetrain layout, I would assume a 20% drivetrain loss estimation is way too high.

[inferno14u]

$5,000 bucks says that the 7:29 Nurburgring GTR would've dynoed even higher then those cars. But, as it is, they probably destroyed the car and all traces of it's existence.

So what about the car that was bought independently and ran a similar time? The article says that they actually only dyno tested two of the 5 cars, the One Lap car that they campaigned and one other one, which both posted similar dyno numbers and times in the 1/4 and 0-60.

[arkive43]

:o

[Vincent]

Why didn't they publish any info on the slower GT-Rs? What were the 0-60 and 1/4 mile times?

nvm - didn't click the link.

[super cirrus]

This is old news, Nissan has already responded...

"Nissan engineers insist the GT-R really does only have 480 hp. Motohiro Matsumura, president of Nissan Technical Center North America, Inc. in Farmington Hills, Michigan, says our dyno test story, which revealed the GT-R develops 430 hp at the wheels, is basically right. But he insists our estimate of a minimum 15-percent friction losses -- which suggests the GT-R is making 507 hp -- is wrong. Matsumura-san says ultra-low friction bearings in the wheel hubs and transmission, plus the careful alignment of the all-wheel-drive system's propshafts, mean friction losses are reduced to an unprecedented 10 percent or so."


anyone who thinks its more is obviously stupid because it shows that it cant keep up in strait lines with higher hp cars after 60+mph.

it shows its strengths on the race track where it makes up alot of time on the corners. it can corner and brake faster than any other car out there (name a few tho).

must be every nissan R35 is a ringger then.

considering nissan underrated the previous 3 generations of GTR, I'd have to say your wrong. The reason its low at higher speeds is cause its frickin heavy.

[seinkonnen]

So what about the car that was bought independently and ran a similar time? The article says that they actually only dyno tested two of the 5 cars, the One Lap car that they campaigned and one other one, which both posted similar dyno numbers and times in the 1/4 and 0-60.

There was another GTR that ran close to the old 7:32 lap... Haven't seen any other 7:29s.

[inferno14u]

There was another GTR that ran close to the old 7:32 lap... Haven't seen any other 7:29s.

Best Motoring is going to release it on their video which is supposed to be coming out soon.

[i-vtec195]

bmi went 7:29, i'm pretty sure.

[inferno14u]

bmi went 7:29, i'm pretty sure.

Yes they did, and their official video is coming out soon...they just aren't leaking it on the internet as they want to make more money off of it.

[Dorian]

Who
Cares

[RED z32]

I think they ratings about right 15-10% loss, besides who decided that 20% loss was that standard, it was just a rough estimate that people like to use. Also technology and improvements in transmission and drivelines have come a long way, I would expect frictional losses to be low in japans finest top of the line current production car.

On the flip side you have to wonder how is the engine dynoed when it was on a engine dyno. What was the room temp, what was the flow across the intercoolers compared to driving. Theres a few variables.

Anyways to bad the cars a pig even as fast at it is, if it was 400lbs less like a normal car or the first GT-Rs then it wouldn't have lost to the new ZR-1 recored setting production car lap time at the ring. And wheres the new 911 gt2 that thing is susposed to be a beast? Anyone know 911 turbo, gt2, times on the lastest models with VGT turbos. Sorry didn't mean to turn this into a lap time post.

But hey, maybe they can reclaim that recored with the V-spec that is normally released later

[Jeff Goji]

:really?:
This thread is just amazing...
When cars rate lower then advertised on the dyno, people bitch (Mazda buy-backs anyone?)
When cars rates higher then advertised on the dyno, people bitch (this thread.)

[RED z32]

:really?:
This thread is just amazing...
When cars rate lower then advertised on the dyno, people bitch (Mazda buy-backs anyone?)
When cars rates higher then advertised on the dyno, people bitch (this thread.)

Mazda was just trying not to lose sales to the 350z, and got busted. I honestly think Nissan hyped up the 350z rating as when it was relased it was 267 and somehow got hyped up to 276 and even 283. They were dynoing 230-240wheel typically. I did recently though see the 08 350z with 35hr put down 260 or 266wheel I forget and was impressed.

[azinwood]

Who
Cares
wrd

you get more horsepower. yay!

[OneArmedScissor]

There was another GTR that ran close to the old 7:32 lap... Haven't seen any other 7:29s.

I seriously can't believe people are splitting hairs over 3 seconds on a 12 mile track.

Seriously...the track has it's own changing weather conditions on each part of the track and goes up and down over 1000ft. No two days on the ring are going to be the same, and the tarmacs grip level changes drastically every few hours.

3 seconds doesn't mean ANYTHING at nurburgring. Also, on touristfahren you can't do a rolling lap of the ring. You have to stop short. We're really just arguing over something that has very little bearing on the fact that the GTR is a great car, despite its massive size.

[dantheman]

I seriously can't believe people are splitting hairs over 3 seconds on a 12 mile track.

Seriously...the track has it's own changing weather conditions on each part of the track and goes up and down over 1000ft. No two days on the ring are going to be the same, and the tarmacs grip level changes drastically every few hours.

3 seconds doesn't mean ANYTHING at nurburgring. Also, on touristfahren you can't do a rolling lap of the ring. You have to stop short. We're really just arguing over something that has very little bearing on the fact that the GTR is a great car, despite its massive size.
while thats true, the arguement isnt over 3 seconds on the ring.

the arguement is with all the nutriders that were talking shit on teh Z06/Zr1 because the porky ass GTR did the ring only a few seconds faster/slower than a car with a massive ammount more power and tire and brake that weighs 600lbs less. so their bragging about how "imports rule cause a 485hp car that weighs 3800lbs is almost as fast as teh 3100 lb 505hp Z06 and the 3000lb 630hp Zr1"

If the GTR was dynoing in the high 300's i would applaud it for its accomplishments. with it making obviously over 500 at the crank it becomes less of a marvel of technology and more of a "well that makes sense". if nissan stepped up and was like "yea the GTR really make 530crankhp, our bad." it would be all gravy. but instead they are coming out with "o well we used new bearings, and and and light weight stuff. our AWD system only loses like under 10% of the power." and im supposed to believe an awd system loses less power than a FWD with a hole differential and driveshaft and everything else more? not gunna happen.

[al]

so their bragging about how "imports rule cause a 485hp car that weighs 3800lbs is almost as fast as teh 3100 lb 505hp Z06 and the 3000lb 630hp Zr1"

You missed the point, it went right over your head. Nissan is bragging about how they managed to build a car that performs better than the 911 at almost half the price. Fanboys then decided to compare it to the market's value product, the Z06, and determined it's a pretty fantastic rivalry, given the price point. And the GT-R is still cheaper than the Z06.

The GT-R's massive weight is more of a turn off and not a selling point, like you implied it is. But if it can do those lap times with that weight, that's just icing on the cake.

[inferno14u]

You missed the point, it went right over your head. Nissan is bragging about how they managed to build a car that performs better than the 911 at almost half the price. Fanboys then decided to compare it to the market's value product, the Z06, and determined it's a pretty fantastic rivalry, given the price point. And the GT-R is still cheaper than the Z06.

The GT-R's massive weight is more of a turn off and not a selling point, like you implied it is. But if it can do those lap times with that weight, that's just icing on the cake.

But...but...but...but...the Z06 gets better gas mileage:ugh2:

[Rybo]

considering nissan underrated the previous 3 generations of GTR, I'd have to say your wrong. The reason its low at higher speeds is cause its frickin heavy.

add to that short gearing and it gets let for dead above 100

[dantheman]

You missed the point, it went right over your head. Nissan is bragging about how they managed to build a car that performs better than the 911 at almost half the price. Fanboys then decided to compare it to the market's value product, the Z06, and determined it's a pretty fantastic rivalry, given the price point. And the GT-R is still cheaper than the Z06.

The GT-R's massive weight is more of a turn off and not a selling point, like you implied it is. But if it can do those lap times with that weight, that's just icing on the cake.
im not bashing nissan, im bashing hte fanboys.

i realize that they put out an amazing machine and i respect it as a competent auto albiet ugly as sign.

but it isnt jesus' saturday car like the fanboys would make it out to be.

[al]

but it isnt jesus' saturday car like the fanboys would make it out to be.

Since Jesus chose the impoverished no-frills life, you bet he would have picked the GT-R.

[seinkonnen]

And the GT-R is still cheaper than the Z06.

Actually now the Z06 is cheaper with GM's employee pricing (which everyone can get if you don't know about it).. It takes $10,000 dollars off sticker and you can get a brand new z06 for $62,000. Take that Nissan GTR!

[al]

You are comparing an 08 Z06 with an 09 GT-R. Yes it does matter.

[seinkonnen]

Since Jesus chose the impoverished no-frills life, you bet he would have picked the GT-R.

Actually I think it would be the Z06, given that the GTR is filled with more electronic bells and whistles then NASA. :blob:

[al]

And hopefully on Jesus' second coming he will like his Z06 so much he will provide salvation for General Motors.

[Replica]

I can't see the joy of daily driving a 4,000 lb sports car.

[MR.BallisticKrU]

I can't see the joy of daily driving a 4,000 lb sports car.

won't it FEEL slugish knowing that in the back of your mind

[Replica]

won't it FEEL slugish knowing that in the back of your mind
I'm sure it runs great on a road course, which I don't happen to live on. But I bet it's not much fun just gettin' around town in something that weighs more than the average sedan.

I still think a base C6 is the way to go.

[VTi EG6]

Everyone talking shit about the car probably can't afford it.

[Replica]

Everyone talking shit about the car probably can't afford it.
I cannot afford it, at all. Simply because I can't afford it doesn't mean I can't evaluate it.

[VTi EG6]

I cannot afford it, at all. Simply because I can't afford it doesn't mean I can't evaluate it.

True, but arguing about it? Really is it that worth it??

[Replica]

True, but arguing about it? Really is it that worth it??
I don't dislike the GT-R, I'm sure it's a fine touring car. I think people take the GT-R / Z06 way too far for something that is purely speculative to those of us with mortal budgets.

[mista_chewey]

i bet if any other car had higher HP than rated everyone would be
"OMG what a deal 30HP for free!!!!":hsugh:

[TXBlackout03]

i bet if any other car had higher HP than rated everyone would be
"OMG what a deal 30HP for free!!!!":hsugh:

Its basically because every GT-R fanboy was jacking off to the fact that it was quicker on tracks even though it had less horsepower. Now the rest of us 'vette fanboys are all like, "haw haw"


lol

[VTi EG6]

I don't dislike the GT-R, I'm sure it's a fine touring car. I think people take the GT-R / Z06 way too far for something that is purely speculative to those of us with mortal budgets.

Exactly my thoughts, like the never ending battle of Sti vs Lan Evo.
(But of course this is a different class)

[i-vtec195]

And hopefully on Jesus' second coming he will like his Z06 so much he will provide salvation for General Motors.

:roflmao: