Many may point to the 2004 Honda Legend V6 for being the car that shattered the gentlemen's agreement between woefully polite Japanese car manufacturers to not advertise more than 280PS (206kW), bringing the infamous "276HP era" of Japan to a close by flaunting 300PS on its spec sheets. However, eight years prior, a complete car was sold by Nissan's motorsports arm, Nismo, that not only packed a rebellious 400PS (294kW), but was also completely untouchable by the authorities for illegal modifications. It had a warranty, met emissions regulations, had even had a naughty speedo that would dare suggest the possibility of speeds above 180km/h (112mph) to its driver! I suspect the reason why not many remember this shocker of a car is the fact that only 44 of those very special R33s were sold, each costing ¥12 million when new—roughly three times that of a regular R33 GT-R. And its name? It's not the Skyline, or even a GT-R; it's quite simply known as the Nismo 400R.
But its name hadn't always been quite so blissfully simplistic; Gran Turismo 2 players may recall a very oddly named variant of the Nismo unicorn, the "Nismo 400R Preceiding Model", won from the 2nd 4WD Special Event in Seattle Circuit. Presumably a prototype of the 400R, the Preceiding Model had the exact same power and peaks of the production 400R, weighs exactly the same, comes with almost identical paint options, and to my hands, drove exactly the same, albeit with one arguably minor difference: the production 400R (and even a regular R33 GT-R for that matter) could rev to 8,400rpm, but the Preceiding Model was limited to just 8,000rpm. One might think that this would make the Preceiding Model immediately mechanically inferior, but both 400Rs make their 399PS at 6,500rpm, after which the powerband harshly falls off (Nismo claims 400PS @6,800rpm). That is to say, both 400Rs give their best acceleration when short shifted, and having a lower rev limit forces the game to shift the Preceiding Model earlier if driven in automatic, meaning that the Preceiding Model not only loses no speed to the production model when shifted manually, but is actually faster when both are driven with the game's automatic shifting!
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While the higher revving 400R '96 would eventually grace every mainline Gran Turismo game up to GT6, the Preceiding Model would seemingly be left to languish in GT2 as a forgotten footnote. However, when the Nismo 400R returned to the series in GT7's Update 1.40, those in the know were in for a bit of a shock. The 400R in GT7 now makes the full 400PS, albeit still at a lower than advertised 6,500rpm. Its rev limit was a "mere" 8,000rpm, and it was listed as a MY1995 car when 400Rs were sold only from 1996–1998. To the best of my very limited researching capabilities, I've only managed to find one 400R that's classified as a MY1995 car: what seems to be a prototype. It would seem as if the 400R we got in GT7 is the Preceiding Model, just without its weird suffix!
Of course, given the wealth of aftermarket tuners that could extract much more power from the 2.6L Inline 6 engines of the Skyline GT-Rs with relative ease, it's no secret that the RB26DETT engine left Nissan assembly plants comically under–stressed. While said engines in racecars had no problem dominating multiple race series, the road cars, capped to 280PS and 180km/h by the gentlemen's agreement, always had trouble keeping pace with much more powerful foreign sports cars like the Porsche 911 and Ferrari F40, and even domestic competition from Honda and Mazda were staking serious claims to Godzilla's crown. The 400R then, feels like a passion project from Nissan, almost as if they were slamming their fists on the table and proclaiming, "screw the "agreement"; THIS is what we can truly do with the R33, tuners take note!" Of course, to properly bring the fight to foreign makes, the 400R couldn't make do with just more power; it also needed to tighten up on the R33's handling to harness the eponymous 400PS. To that end, almost every aspect of an R33 GT-R was reworked to create the 400R: the suspension was stiffened and lowered by 30mm (1.18in) to 105mm (4.13in), the body was widened by 50mm (1.97in) to fit thicker 275mm tyres, its aero was further tweaked, the clutch was twin–plate, and the driveshaft was carbon. Hell, even its engine oil is bespoke! QoL features weren't overlooked either, as front bucket seats and H.I.D headlamps play a part in the transformation of a R33 GT-R into a 400R. The full list of changes is too ridiculously long to list in writing, but the change that most attracts my attention is that the RB26DETT engine has been bored and stroked up to 2,771cc, and no longer called the RB26; instead, it's called the RB-X GT2. Displacing 2.8L, this RB-X GT2 engine bears a cheeky resemblance to the engines used in the R33 GT1 racecars at Le Mans, and that is just so incredibly cool to me!
Being rare and expensive is nice and all, but how does it drive in Gran Turismo 7? Can it really take the fight to foreign sports cars now that the shackles of Japanese etiquette are off of Godzilla?
As the ultimate factory road–going R33, the 400R retains much of the same personality and traits of the 1997 R33 V • spec already in the game, just turned up to higher speeds. What little fans of the middle child R33 might love the 400R for its commitment to the bit, but anyone unconvinced by the V • spec might be left wanting. Like all road–going R33s, the 400R left the assembly plant without a sixth forward cog, meaning that its 400PS is stretched out long and wide across five awkwardly spaced gears, with some upshifts needing to be made earlier and later than others to give the car its best acceleration. The lowered rev limit of 8,000rpm may sound inconsequential for a car that wants to be short shifted, but on a few occasions across different tracks, I've found myself wishing for a higher rev limit so that I can hang onto a lower gear when fast approaching a braking zone, instead of having to do a short–lived upshift. Being able to rev just 400rpm higher would've saved the 400R so much valuable time around Tsukuba and Eiger, to list just two examples. The R33 GT-R has always been known to be quite the porker by contemporary standards, and instead of improving on that, the ultimate R33 furthers that theme of a heavyweight boxer by being 10 kilos (22lbs) heavier than the V • spec, weighing in at 1,550kg (3,417lbs), with an uncomfortable 58% of it resting over the front axles. While the stiffened suspension does give the 400R good initial turn–in response, it hates long, sweeping corners, and drivers will always have to watch for understeer when powering out of a turn. But all that understeer is not at all to say that the 400R is a stable car to drive; just like the V • spec, the 400R will unstick its rear end on both corner entries and exits if the driver isn't smooth and considered with their inputs, and there's still a slight bit too much roll in the rear end for my liking. Slides will very much have to be caught with the steering wheel before the ATTESA AWD system can kick in; this is still a machine from 1995, after all. And, unfortunately, like most road–going GT-Rs in the game, the 400R also suffers from what I'm calling the "1.49 bounce", where certain cars bounce in an exaggerated fashion when going over bumps following the v1.49 physics update, and that behaviour very much still persists in the current (at the time of writing) v1.52. Drivers will have to get the departure angle from raised rumble strips dead right, or the car is most likely going to hop off the paved track or even into a wall.
All those complaints having been levied, there's simply no denying how wickedly fast the 400R is even by modern standards; it must've felt completely otherworldly back in 1996. Excluding the unrealistically light Italian "supercars" of GT7, the only contemporary peer I can find in the game that would bring the fight to the 400R is the 2002 SR II Viper GTS, and only if the track has long enough straights. The 400R not only kept harassing a younger track toy in the 996 GT3, but would also keep pace with modern cars like the LC500, while matching the JDM sports cars on sale today like the 2023 RZ34 Fairlady and 2020 A90 Supra blow for blow, as though modern machinery were its natural competition instead of anything antiquated from the 90s! And many of the aforementioned cars aren't exactly easy to drive, either! Not that anyone would consider buying a 1.8 million credit LCD exclusive car for practicality, but the 400R rolls out of Big Bill Hell's car dealer at 542.50PP (v1.52), meaning that it's an easy plug–'n–play, auto–win car for any 550PP event that allows it, like the Japanese 550 Cup or even the Kyoto 1h Endurance. Just watch for the front tyre life if you do bring it to an event with tyre wear!
Me personally, I don't enjoy the way the 400R drives. It understeers. It oversteers. It's picky on the straights, and needs to be babied over bumps. It also sounds god–awful from the outside! Like most GT-Rs in the game, it's endlessly needy and taxing without ever feeling rewarding to push; getting things right just feels like avoiding disappointment, and getting things wrong is endlessly frustrating. To satiate a tuner fix, I'd heartily recommend the Amuse 380RS Super Leggera, which is readily available in Brand Central for one eighteenth the price of the 400R, and drives like a sublime wet dream. For smashing 550PP events, I'd rather take a (still super expensive) 2002 NSX-R, tweak its suspension and diff a little, and give it a slight power bump. Or, heck, the 2020 A90 Supra at 549.57PP would do that job just fine, too. And it's precisely because the 400R is so cool, yet so hard to recommend, that I truly wish PD made the 400R a prize car for the Master Licence Tests that were added alongside the car in Update 1.40; after all, the production 400R was a possible prize car (alongside the TRD3000GT) for achieving all golds in GT1's National A licence. It just seemed like such an obvious, open goal, but somehow nobody at PD thought to take the shot. The 400R is cool to look at and eye–opening on the track, but 1.8 million credits for what is, in my eyes, a trophy car, is just... ouch.
Ikamusume Porsche911(996) by Fast_R_61 (Edited)
#anime #itasha #ikamusume
#anime #itasha #ikamusume
That all being said, I'm happy for the Nismo 400R to be part of GT7, not only because it's an incredibly rare unicorn IRL, but it also opens up the possibility and likelihood that the Z-tune might one day join it. Now THAT is a GT-R I might be interested in :)
SPOILER
Did you know that the 400R has a direct successor? It's called... the Skyline 400R.
(Bad language in the English CC)
Bet you didn't know they made another 400R!
Vic has also made mention of the one–of–one Champion Blue 400R: a GT-R LM Limited converted to 400R specifications. But the 400R also came in another colour that's very special to GT-R fans: Midnight Purple. One of which, No. 37 (wink) of 44, has an owner that sure as hell isn't shy about running the car hard!
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