Following on from my post on the Mine’s R35, I thought it would be worth going back in history a little and featuring a slightly older GT-R. The BNR32 is what put Nissan on the supercar map back in 1989, and pretty much fueled the tuning boom in Japan during the 90’s. Garage Saurus have been around since the beginning, building some of the most extreme cars the streets of Japan have ever seen.
Garage Saurus has proven to be one of the strongest contenders in the drag scene, but at the same time has shown the time attack crowd that they know a thing or two about circuit racing. Back in 2005 their orange R32 Skyline GT-R won the Tsukuba Super Battle, a car that originally was set up for 1/4 mile runs!
But it’s the car you see here that we are interested in, probably the most extreme street BNR32 Hayashi-san, the president of Garage Saurus, has ever built for a customer. I first saw this GT-R at last year’s Tokyo Auto Salon, on display at the Option Magazine stand. It was the stance that impressed me to start off with, sitting so well on those massive 19-inch BBS wheels…
…but I quickly realized that there was something very special going on with the bodywork. Joining the Garage Saurus carbon front lips spoiler and hood, the owner of this GT-R had a set of custom carbon front fenders created, along with carbon doors…
…and even carbon rear fenders! The lower rear arch finisher you see here is also made of carbon, and not the cheap variety, but top quality dry-carbon.
The owner had these parts painted to reveal the underlying fibers, creating a pretty cool carbon strip running along the whole side of the car. For a rawer look the Garage Saurus dry-carbon hood has been left unpainted, doing away with any sort of protecting glossy clear coat.
There is even more carbon at the rear with the Garage Suarus trunk lid and spoiler, both made from the expensive composite material. To help lower the center of gravity of the Skyline the owner had the steel roof cut out and replaced with a carbon roof! This, which is reinforced with a honeycomb aluminum structure, is boned in place and again left unpainted for that extreme look. To finish things off Garage Saurus fitted their own carbon rear diffuser, which helps keep the rear end of the car planted at high speed.
Lift up the paper-light hood and this is what you are confronted with.
The N1 racing block has been fitted with an HKS Step-3 2.8L kit made up of a fully counter-balanced crankshaft, H-section connecting rods and forged pistons. The head has been ported and polished and fitted with HKS 290º duration camshafts. Joining this set up is the massive HKS T51 BB SPL turbine which force feeds the engine with 2.4 bar of boost, allowing it to develop 985 PS at all four wheels. To deal with all that power Hayashi-san fitted a triple plate clutch and a 6-speed sequential transmission, both from OS Giken. To beef up the driveline a GReddy carbon fiber propeller shaft replaces the weaker stock item while the Cusco drag front & rear LSDs try to juggle all that power between the wheels.
The fuel system on a car like this needs to be serious and as you can see it pretty much takes over all of the trunk space. There are a total of three fuel pumps, starting with the Nismo one inside the ATL racing fuel tank, and the bigger twin external Bosch pumps. The braided fuel lines make their way from the Garage Saurus 3L surge tank towards the front of the car…
…and feed the six 1000 cc/min Sard injectors.
Check out the gear position indicator for the OS Giken transmission as well as the Neko Corporation AF-700 wide-band lambda meter display. How about the 80’s Nissan log on the horn button? Extra points for that is you ask me!
Garage Saurus cars always sport some of the cleanest interiors out there. Before the build the car was stripped down to the bare chassis, spot and seam welded and fitted with a custom roll cage. It was then fully sprayed in the same silver used on the body panels.
The Recaro buckets are joined by Simpson racing harnesses.
GReddy gauges help keep an eye on the water temperature, oil pressure as well as the fuel pressure. The HKS F-Con V Pro ECU is fitted in the center console for easy access.
For me this is one of the most impressive BNR32 I have ever shot, perfect in every way down to the finest details. With this being AWD month I think it would be a pity not to take a look at their orange R32 GT-R demo car. What do you guys think?
– Dino Dalle Carbonare