602 horsepower Amuse GTR sets Tsukuba afire

After more than a month spent previewing the Paris Motor Show, it's time for a change of pace.

There will be no pie-in-the-sky concepts tonight. No highfalutin discussion of design aesthetics on a car that will do little more than sit on a turntable.

Nor will there be a pity party tonight about the looming fiscal Armageddon while the stock market convulses like a heroin addict.

Tonight it's all about red raw horsepower — six hundred and two of them to be precise. They all come wrapped in the sinister form of the Amuse R1 Titan Nissan GT-R, which has been thoroughly tuned to demolish lap times with savage ferocity.



Amuse holds a narrow lead over rival tuning firm HKS in the volume of parts available for the R35 GTR. The company currently offers a ECU reflash, which eliminates the stock speed limiter, fully adjustable coilover dampers, a full titanium exhaust with high flow catalytic converter and dry carbon fiber spoilers front and rear.

The combined weight savings coupled with the massive increase in horsepower were sufficient to lap Tsukuba in 1:01.32. Godzilla indeed.

[GTRBlog]

VIDEO: HKS launches GT570 tuning program for Nissan GT-R

After spending the week extolling virtuous fuel misers and squashing the rumor of a high-po Veyron GT, we're wrapping things up with a demonstration of real, verifiable red-raw horsepower courtesy of HKS, HyperZSpeed video magazine and Japanese tuning garage Top Racing.

The R35 GT-R — Nissan's newest generation of their venerable Skyline sports coupe — has only been on the market in the US for a few months. Aftermarket tuning powerhouses have only just begun to dig into the untapped potential of the GT-R's 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6.

HKS is the first to sell a full tuning program for the new GT-R, albeit only in Japan for the balance of the year.

The HKS GT570 kit includes new wastegate actuators for the stock turbos and an electronic boost controller, along with aluminum intercooler piping and silicon hose couplers to withstand the increased boost pressure. On the exhaust side, a set of straight pipes which replace the stock catalytic converters provide both maximum efficiency and a sinfully decadent exhaust note.


In the end, 562 wheel horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque are extracted, albeit at expense of the stock GT-R's emissions legality. Crank up the speakers and enjoy.





[Sean Morris c/o 2009GTR / HKS]