Let's Talk Big Power

Few serious car enthusiast will not have heard of the mighty Nissan Skyline GT-R and its power potential. Now, I know this is not a Honda but this particular R32 Skyline is one of HKS Japan's legendary drag-cars - one that is used by them to win countless drag races in Japan. In its heydays, this particular car is king - and why not. What you are seeing in that engine bay is an RB26DETT engine souped up to produce in excess of 840ps. That's the power level of a Formula-1 or CART engine ! Appropriately set-up for drag-racing, this R32 does the 400m in less than 8 seconds !

All this power was possible only with that utterly humongous turbine that you see. The guy in the picture is James, one of Aerotech's senior tech-guys. We asked him to put his face next to the turbine to give readers an idea of the size of that turbine. The mouth of the venturi is almost the same size as Jame's head ! And the intercooler takes up all the space available in the front bumper !

This car was brought in by the Malaysian HKS representative, Aerotech, for the just completed KL International Motorshow. I took the photos at Aerotech itself, a few days before the show. I count myself extremely lucky to be able to get up so close to the car to take the photos - in the show proper itself, the car was roped off. Oh, I almost forgot, that exhaust you see in the photos below is made of titanium....

Tetsuya Kawasaki is the regular HKS drag-race drive. Incidentally, this R32 is still not the highest powered Nissan that HKS has. The HKS Nissan 180SX and the R33 Skyline GT-R each produces around 1,100 to 1,200 ps and does the 0-400m in close to 7.0 seconds flat !