When I'm not banging on the keyboard meeting deadlines for an upcoming issue, I take joy relaxing in front of the boob tube for hours at a time in a total state of vegetation. Decisions, decisions... what to watch? Should I choose to see Tony Soprano on HBO whack off another mob boss or tune in to the mating rituals of herbivores on the Discovery channel? Surfing through the channels one night I was stopped dead in my tracks as CNN News ran a completely useless but intriguing poll on men and their cars. Surveying 1000 random women, polls showed men who owned BMW's are 37-percent more likely to have sex. Think about that folks. A chance of performing some horizontal dancing with the opposite sex. So where does that leave us Importtuner guys? For many of us, it means using hand lotion 37-percent more often than European car lovers, but imagine what would happen if these poll-sitting women came across the coveted "jewel" from the land of the rising sun-a Nissan BNR34 Skyline GT-R? It's a good assumption these prada-toting females would have a revelation. Their eyes would become dilated with passion, skin would become flushed and their panties would drop in a heartbeat, perhaps never again to set eyes on another metrosexual sporting those overpriced European models.
In a small suburb of Ikeda City in Osaka, Japan, Nagisa Auto, otherwise known as NAMS [Nagisa Auto Motor Sports], has taken a potential chick magnet-their 2000 BNR34 Skyline-to a new level. Sky's the limit for NAMS. They have become a top contender in Circuit Racing and Time Attack in the past two years. In a short one year period and with a $200,000 investment in their car, NAMS has taken their factory Skyline and conceptualized it into a formidable race car.
The RB26DETT twin turbo motor is nothing short of a marvel in automotive engineering. With potential horsepower just waiting to be unleashed, Nagisa Auto's owner and chief mechanic, Naoya Sugihara, performed a complete teardown of the engine, replacing the factory components with a full array of HKS products. The connecting rods, pistons and piston rings, are all under the HKS branding. Using a 2.8-liter HKS stroker kit (full counter balancing), the engine has been punched out from the factory 2568cc liters, bored 86.96mm and stroked 77.7 mm, obtaining the new 2768cc displacement. With the engine apart it was no surprise Nagisa took the factory head and increased its overall horsepower potential with a full port and polish job done in house. Naplex oversized valves and Vanadium seat rings are under the orchestration of HKS 272 (Step 2) intake and exhaust camshafts (10.2 duration), and dialed in with a pair of HKS cam gears. Valve float is virtually eliminated thanks in part to the HKS Step 2 valve springs that are on call when the R34 flirts within the 10,000-rpm realm. Intake charge is routed from the massive air-to-air front mount intercooler to the TRUST (GReddy) plentium manifold with six velocity stacks integrated within the system. Ingesting a healthy dose of cold air into the intake is a Naplex race throttle body while an HKS blow off roars to life with every release of the accelerator. On the hot side of the engine, NAMS implemented a Tanabe 4-to-1 exhaust manifold, mated to a monstrous TRUST T88-34D turbine. Spent exhaust fumes are expelled via a Tanabe 100mm stainless steel down pipe and exited out the 100mm rear tail section through a custom titanium Tanabe exhaust.