When it comes to GTR tuning here at the shop, there are a few questions that we’ve come to expect from just about every potential new customer. The first is “What will it do 0-60?”, and the second is “Why don’t you offer a more aggressive stock turbo PKG between your entry-level P600 GTR and the P800 GTR?” That second question, about the gap between the P600 and the P800, is what I’d like to address today.
The short version is this: pushing the factory GTR stock turbos beyond 600 hp is too close to “the ragged edge” for my liking. For that reason, I won’t do it. I’ll recommend that any of my clients who want more power move to an aftermarket turbo that’s capable of delivering the higher efficiencies needed for the reliable performance and longevity that we demand.
The longer version is that I don’t like pushing the factory turbos beyond their rated efficiencies. The stress on the hardware, combined with the excessive heat generated by the stock turbos at very high speeds, is far too high to be reliable in the longer-term. That just doesn’t sit well with me.
I’m not here saying highly-strung stock-turbo cars don’t work. Some people might do a few drag runs in a season and not have any trouble. It’s not a matter of “if”, though, it’s a matter of “when”. When the cars are asked to do a series of back-to-back-to-back runs, there might be problems. When the cars are pushed in a flying mile or get taken to a road course and run lap after lap, the lack of efficiencies can add up. When you go over that edge of efficiency in a GTR, the repair bill can get pretty high, pretty fast.
So, why is the question of pushing stock turbos over and above their “safe” rating still one that comes up so often in the GTR aftermarket? I think part of it is that customers are trying to find the most value for their dollar without really understanding the risks.
This brings me to something I touched on that in my last post about the Moscow Unlimited. I’ve always preached that our most important job is to act in the best interest of the customer. Some people will always ask for a few more lbs. of boost or a few more rpm, but it’s our job to advise them of the risks involved and, in some cases, decline their business.
Sometimes we never hear from those customers that we say “no” to again. They’ve either found a solution that works for them or, by now, traded out of their GTR into some other platform that we don’t normally work with. We’re happy for them. Too often, though, we do hear from the customers again. Unfortunately, what we typically hear is “you were right”.
I don’t want to hear that. It means that someone is going to be learning a lesson about the GTR stock turbos through their wallet, and it means the client is going to be spending a lot of money to fix a problem that they never should have had. It means the client may be turned off from performance tuning forever, and that’s not only bad for Switzer, it’s bad for the whole community.
When I first started working with the first R35 that came through our doors four years ago, we knew there would be hardware limitations in at least the transmission and turbocharger system. We had that car rigged up like a NASA shuttle, testing everything you could imagine. The end result was the first P700, then a P800 that saw mile events, drag runs, road tests, and literally hundreds of laps around road courses across the MidWest. The car is still burning gas, thousands of 800-hp miles later, and it’s now (as I type this) downstairs again, being converted into an Ultimate Street Edition GTR.
So, what’s the point of all this? The point is that I won’t allow a car to leave my shop knowing that it has an expiration date on it. We stand behind our builds, as many customers will attest to, and we can’t endorse a product that we know is a repair bill waiting to happen.
Thanks for listening. I’ve got to get back to work.
