The end result is a car that handles beautifully, turns in to corners without understeering, and is simply devastating on the track.įor the regular R32 GT-Rs, the braking system was based around four-piston calipers and 296mm vented discs up front, and two-piston calipers and 297mm solid discs at the rear, all looked after by an ABS brain. Based on a sophisticated version of unequal-length !r upper and lower control arms, with additional links and knuckles, the design allows the dampers to provide tight control and to operate in a linear fashion – one inch of wheel movement gives one inch of damper travel. Whatever the merits of the system, it showed that the boffins were trying everything they could to get the car through bends as quickly and predictably as possible.Īfter all the techno-wizardry of the transmission and steering systems, the suspension is fairly straightforward, if extremely good at its job.
#R32 rims racing drivers#
How successfully this works is open to debate, but some drivers who race the cars reckon that it’s best disabled. To further help stability and turn-in, Nissan’s engineers came up with the Super HICAS rear-wheel-steering system, which was designed to improve the car’s turn-in characteristics and balance through a turn. Then, when the lateral G kicks in, the torque split is returned to the usual rear-wheel bias to aid cornering performance. As the control I unit picks up the differences in signals coming from individual wheels, it applies pressure to the multi-plate clutch to vary the torque split between the front and rear. This is achieved through the use of an electronically-controlled hydraulic unit that operates a centrally-mounted multi-plate clutch. The ATTESA E-TS system monitors lateral acceleration, as well as wheel speed at each corner, to work out where to send the power – and how much. Then, as the bend opens up, and with all four wheels once again in line, to apply progressively more power, allowing the ATTESA E-TS to deploy the torque through the wheels with the most grip. Racing drivers at the time found that the fastest way to get a GT-R through a corner was to brake heavily on the way into a bend to unsettle the rear and provoke it into oversteer, so that the rear of the car begins to come around. The ATTESA system reduces the power fed to the front wheels to make the car behave like a purely rear-wheel-drive car, with its better turn-in characteristics and nicely-balanced handling. The clever bit is the way that the car turns into a corner. But, when road conditions dictate, up to 50 per cent of the power can be filtered through to the front wheels as necessary. In normal driving conditions, 100 per cent of the Skyline’s power is sent to the rear wheels, allowing the front wheels to cope with steering and braking, unhindered by the need to provide drive, as well. Snappily known as ATTESA E-TS – which is short for Advance Total Traction Engineering System All terrains Electronic Torque Split – the system was a major step forward compared to other four-wheel-drive systems, most of which employed a permanent 50/50 front/rear torque split. Tyre technology wasn’t as advanced as it is today, and asking a pair of rear wheels to do anything other than spin up and shred rubber was a none-starter with that amount of beef going through them. This would allow the car to fully utilise anything up to 550bhp coming from the new RB26DETT 2.6-litre DOHC twin-turbo engine. Nothing has dominated its particular area of motorsport to the same degree, so that’s probably why the Skyline GT-R is such a performance icon today.Ĭentral to its design was a sophisticated four-wheel-drive system. GT-Rs dominated the Japanese N1 category from the moment they started competing, and they won other major events, like the Nurburgring 24 Hours (in Group N) and the Spa 24 Hours (in Group A and Group N). To give you an idea of its successes, the GT-R took 29 out of 29 wins in the Japanese Group A championship over four years. To say it was a success would be a gross understatement, and to list all of its achievements would be an article in itself. When the Nissan Skyline GT-R BNR32 appeared back in August 1989, it had been conceived with one goal in mind: to win in Group A motor racing and put Nissan at the top of the pile occupied by cars such as the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth and the BMW M3.
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