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0 Last week, we were contacted by a return customer that owns a BMW M3 informing us that he has added a 2012 Nissan GT-R Black Edition to his stable. He immediately wanted to schedule a date for his GT-R to be dropped off at our location for round one of upgrades. The car arrived at our shop with a little over 300 miles on the odometer and that new car smell still floating around the interior.
As most of you know, for the 2012 model year the Nissan GT-R received a significant update from the manufacturer. Front and rear bumpers were changed improving aerodynamics and brake cooling efficiency. Extra carbon-composite braces are included from the factory for a more rigid chassis and caster is increased from 5 to 6 degrees to improve the cars stability at high speeds. Combine further OEM suspension tweaks and the fact that the 2012 GT-R roars to life with an additional 45 HP more than its previous sub-generation and you have a factory car that is capable of embarrassing the most expensive and exclusive super cars. For those that want to stand out even further on their commute to work there is the very limited and sought after “Black Edition” which includes 20 inch Ray’s forged wheels and red accents on the beautiful Recaro branded seats and interior panels.
While the 2012 model has many improvements in factory trim over previous years, one thing has stayed consistent: There is more power and trq to be had with upgrades and ECU tuning. The baseline (with mods, no tuning) dyno graph, which you can see below tells a horrid story of erratic air to fuel ratio and sub-par mid range power. Prior to tuning, the car was unable to make a clean pull to redline and started missing at high RPM. Sharif had to abort the baseline runs, and he went straight into the custom ECU tuning that he’s known for. While the car makes strong power from the factory the area “under the curve” is lacking as is the throttle response. This is one thing that the owner wanted to address when modifying his GT-R. The game plan was pretty simple and straight forward, performance oriented upgrades without sacrificing the smooth drive-ability and reliability that comes with a brand new car. With this goal in mind, we added the following to the GT-R’s already potent platform:
• Cobb Tuning Intakes
• AMS Downpipes
• CBRD 90mm Y-Pipe
• Greddy Power Extreme Exhaust
• Forged Performance Custom ECU Calibration using Cobb Accessport
With Sharif leaning on the keyboard, he completely transformed the car from docile to insane throttle response, horsepower, and torque resulting in a net increase of 31whp and even more impressively 85lb/ft of torque. With the higher OEM boost from the factory Nissan didn’t leave as much on the table with respect to horsepower, but left plenty in the torque and midrange department. The all important area on the curve is night and day and translates into one fast GT-R on the street! Keep in mind, our baseline included the bolt on power adders above. A typical bone stock 2012 GT-R produces about 430-440 whp on our dyno and for reference, our Dyno Dynamics reads about 10% lower than most Dyno Jet’s…sometimes even lower. For your enjoyment, we added several different dyno charts that depict power, torque, air fuel ratio, and even boost pressure. You can see it’s quite an improvement.
With this combination we were able to return the car back to our customer with more horsepower, better mid range torque and smoother driveability than what the factory offers. All without changing the character of the car or introducing any excessive noise or harshness to the package.
We like the 2012 BE so much, that Sharif and Ryan and a handful of our customers will be purchasing the 2013 in Jan! 2013 is looking to be an even more exciting year for us!
Thanks for looking.
HP and A/F Ratio of OEM Tune vs FP ECU Calibration:
HP and TQ:
HP and Boost:
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