It's been a busy few months for
Stealthzilla. One hefty running cost was replacing the 400mm Alcon front discs
at $2,165, and this time I matched them to a set of Endless pads front and rear
(supplied by R53 Engineering), which came to another $1,514. This, on top of a
$510 service, had to be done before a return to the Nurburgring with the boys
from trackdays.de. It was a bit hairy as it was mainly damp and eventually so
wet that they had to curtail the day after some numpty crashed and left a trail
of oil/coolant on the racing line for half a lap.
Nissan
has revised the throttle response for this GT-R, making it aggressive and
relentless
There was also another outing at the
Bedford Auto-drome for the last track evening of the year, but as it was dry I
could use more throttle. Unfortunately, this meant more noise and just before
the end of the event, the marshals apologetically had to pull me in and take my
noise approval sticker off as I was going over the drive-by limits. Before that
happened, though, Jethro Bovingdon managed to get a couple of fun laps behind
the wheel.
But perhaps the most significant outing was
a return to Millbrook to try my hand at CAT Driver Training's 'Drifting &
Over Grip Limit' course. I covered the drift day in detail in a recent blog,
but it culminated in a few exhilarating runs drifting Stealthzilla on
Millbrook's wetted steering circle. I was delighted to find that the GT-R could
drift in sustained power oversteer and that I could be trained to do it.
However, I did notice that there was a lot more wheel-spin on my drive home.
The
cabin remains driver-focused and comfortable
I initially put that down to having
heat-cycled the rear Michelin Pilot Super Sports beyond recovery. But a
conversation with Iain Litchfield. Who looks after World Touring Car star Tom
Chilton's Stage 4 GT-R (amongst others owned by various racing drivers) put
forth a different theory. Many months ago. Chilton managed to break the 4WD
clutch on his drive home from Litchfield after having had the Stage 4 power
upgrade fitted (the package Stealthzilla had run for a few years. producing
circa 620bhp). But he enjoyed the resulting RWD drift experience so much that
he's left it like that ever since.
There
are no new performance gains from the 3.8-litre V6 engine
Iain diagnosed that Stealthzilla's 4WD
clutch pack might have suffered the same fate. A recent day out at Castle Combe
for a Litchfield media day (in the company of Tom, as well as 2012 World
Touring Car champ Rob Huff and his Stage 4.5 Litchfield LM700) unfortunately
confirmed that he might be right, as any attempt to deploy the full 700bhp
repeatedly resulted in rampant wheel spin and a somewhat errant rear end.
Lacking Tom or Rob's car control. I don't
think I can leave Stealthzilla in this banzai mode permanently, so a
potentially expensive visit to Litchfield looms...
