Café Racer Joe Rodriguez's "daily driver" may
be a Boeing 747-400, but what really gets his adrenalin pumping is his other
daily driver: a 200-mph, right-hand-drive Nissan Skyline road rocket! While it
may look like any number of generic mid-1990s Japanese tuner-tweaked sport
coupes, it is anything but. Thanks to its highly boosted turbo Six, J-Rod's
all-wheel-drive Skyline R33 GT-R thrives on a steady diet of V8 and V12
exotics. It pumps out a mind numbing 900-plus horsepower at the flywheel and
puts 750 hp to the pavement.
The R33 Skyline was produced from 1995 to 1998 in a
variety of models, with the GT-R being the highest performance version. It came
with all-wheel-drive and the RB-26 engine, a 2.6-liter inline twin-turbo Six
producing approximately 300 hp and 271 foot pounds of torque with an 8,000-rpm
redline. Weighing in at 3,373 pounds, the Brembo-braked Skyline generated .94
lateral g's with a drag coefficient of 0.35 with its adjustable rear wing set
at 0 degrees. A stock GT-R could go to 60 mph in under-five seconds!
For those not familiar with Japan's legendary racecar in
street clothing, one only has to check its heritage in Endurance racing. Even
after many rule changes created to dethrone it, the venerable Group A Skyline
proved to be unbeatable through the 1990s.
The Skyline continued to astound on racetracks in Europe
and Asia, with its drivers dominating podiums wherever it ran. By this time
Group A had been replaced with the GT and N1 Endurance series, and in the
latter the GT-R racked up some 50 major wins. In Australia the Skyline earned
the nickname Godzilla, because of its take-no-prisoners performance. It was
inevitable that motorsport's governing bodies would soon find ways to legislate
the formidable GT-R out of contention. And they did.
In the late-1990s, the Skyline's mystique was boosted
when an R33 GT-R it took the production car lap record at the daunting and
demanding Nürburgring in Germany. A near-showroom spec R33 blasted around the 13-miles
and 172 corners of the Nordschleif circuit in 7 minutes 59 seconds. It was an
incredible accomplishment.
In the day, Skylines were right-hand-drive and not
certified for export to the USA. The have since been replaced by the Nissan
GT-R supercar which you can buy here and once again gives more expensive
Italian and German exotics a run for the money.
The powerplant in J-Rod's Skyline has been blueprinted
and fitted with Tomei pistons, rods, camshafts and valve train. A Greddy manifold, mated to a highly boosted single
high-tech Precision Turbo, replaces the stock intake. Its modified fuel system
employs a pair of Bosch 044 fuel pumps and 120-pound fuel injectors. A 3.5-inch
exhaust runs from engine to tailpipe. The stock engine controller has been
replaced by an AEM engine management system and the Six now turns 9,200 rpm and
makes peak power at 8,500 rpm. Maximum torque comes in at 6,500 rpm.
Longtime Skyline enthusiast Joe Rodriguez was recently
clocked at 194 mph in the standing mile on a blistering hot day in the
Everglades. The timed runs were conducted at the Dade Collier Training &
Transition Airport (TNT), also known as the Everglades Jetport. Open by permit
to general as well as commercial and military aircraft and for special events,
it was originally designed in the 1960s to accommodate Boeing's SST. Program.
Located in the Everglades between Naples and Miami, It was to be the world's
largest airport with six runways and the latest in high-tech services. When the
SST was canceled due to increased opposition by environmental groups, TNT
became a "white elephant." Prior to the advent of sophisticated
flight simulators, TNT was used for pilot training.
Today it is a fully functioning airfield with a single
10,000-plus foot paved concrete runway, tower and services. But you won't find
any flights going into or taking off from TNT listed on Travelocity or Expedia!
"If the weather had been cooler, I know we could've
gone 200 mph. It has a potential top end around 220 mph, but one mile isn't
long enough to get up to that speed. With the kind of torque we're putting to
the pavement and a drag coefficient of 0.35, 200 mph is in my sights,"
said JRod.
"I've run some 0-60s in the 2s and clocked 10.66
seconds in the quarter mile with stock tires. On drag radials I expect to run
low 10s or high-9s. Best of all, I can drive it to our Café Racer
lunches!"