Life is full of difficult decisions: Chicken or beef? Super-size "it" or super-size your stomach? Mac or PC? Xbox or PS3? Fake or real tittays? Beer or beer? Tricky, but these are nothing compared with the toughest question faced by Michael Korsinczky: R33 or R34 GT-R? It must be the mother of all decisions - but it's also one that everyone reading this would like to make. These straight-six bullet trains have become one of the true legends of the motoring world. And not solely because of lengthy racing histories dating back to the silent film era; this is purely because they're massively fun to screw with.
Nissan's beast lends itself perfectly to a level of modification that is, in real world terms, totally unnecessary but very necessary. Japanese tuners have shown that there's room for well over 1,000 ponies under the hood - and that's a truly beautiful thing. Michael's Godzilla quandary came down to the choice between a highly-modified R33 and a near-stock R34. Not an easy call to make, but boys will be boys, and he couldn't resist the prospect of having far more power than was needed, um, for just about everything. So he got both.
I think we can all agree that he made the right call. GT-Rs have been getting heavier in their old age, and made it all easier for Michael to go balls-out with the R33 instead because it's already been lightened, tightened and super-tweaked, perfect for use as his street and track weapon. He's owned a host of hot Japanese metal before - a 400hp Mitsubishi 3000GT (GTO in Aussie); a 470hp Nissan 180SX (mmm, drifty); even a 600 horsepower Abflug Supra. So how do you beat a back-catalogue like this? Simple, add 1000 horsepower.
The 1995 V-Spec got a happy ending stroking courtesy of an HKS 77.7mm crank with matching rods and 87mm pistons, slotted into an N1 block, transforming the RB26DETT into the new "RB28". The 2.8L is tucked up neatly under a GT Auto ported and polished head sitting on top of a 1.6mm thick HKS gasket, tied down with ever-effective ARP head studs. Tomei cams run the valvetrain, with matching Type B springs and titanium retainers. HKS 1000cc injectors feed the beast off a custom rail that's in turn fed by a dual Bosch 044 pumps, through Dash8 piping and a Sard fuel reg. Spark comes courtesy of an HKS Twin Power ignition system and Splitfire coilpacks.
Force-feeding Japanese girls may be a hobby for some, but this chick is quite special and has very particular tastes. Back to the HKS catalogue for the insanely huge T51R SPL ball-bearing turbo, as well as a Veilside 100mm throttle-body and JUN intake manifold. The other side is a massive ARC 5-inch titanium exhaust, and an HKS GT2 external wastegate with its own 4-inch dump pipe. A MoTeC M800 makes sure all of this gear is behaving itself, as well as providing anti-lag and launch control. It all adds up to an impressive 972 horsepower, at the wheels, when it's sucking up 1.8 bar (26.5psi).
A PPG 'dogmission' five-speed gearbox boasting a large input shaft was chosen, with an ATS triple-plate carbon clutch and lightweight flywheel playing middleman to a NISMO Pro 1.5-way limited-slip diff and an ACP carbon tailshaft.
Slapping this kind of grunt to the ground is vital in a big horsepower car of any sort, and Michael likes to spend a lot of time blasting the GT-R around circuits like Queensland Raceway and on the state's fantastic roads (yes, Californians and most likely the rest of the US, it's 100% street-legal. When we last spoke to him, he'd just stripped 100kg of weight from the vehicle to further improve its already sledgehammer-like performance.
By Matt Greenop
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