Meanwhile at NISMO Omori Factory...

So finally - an update on the actual work being done at NISMO Omori Factory. Takasu-san and Ochiai-san were kind enough to arrange for some photos to make their way to me.

No wheels, no suspension, no drivetrain...

As you may recall, I was NOT happy with how my car was left outside for (probably) the good part of a half year near the Pacific Ocean by Worx Autoalarm. Not only was that not good for the paint, but also the undercarriage as well.  So what I have had Nismo do over the past few months is to take a painstakingly close look at everything on the underside of the car, remove rust, re-protect and then replace parts that had become rusted as well.

From this angle, looks pretty clean!!

Front axle area. Some rust removed and fresh undercoating applied. Interesting as the undercoating isn't black...

Rear axle area - dangling Ohlins and all!

My diffuser and the old rear subframe stacked up in back. Wonder whose OEM wheels those are though

All the parts taken off my car, starting with the wheels up there in the front

Here's a closer look...driveshaft is nearly new of course...

Note they wrapped the Brembo calipers in white plastic to prevent the paint from getting accidentally scratched. I also see some banged up Nismo bracing - I'm inclined to replace any worn ones with new ones. Likely easier and quicker than getting the old one repainted and then the bushes replaced.

Look at this.  Not sure whether to be mad at Nismo for not making these parts more rust resistant, or whether the salt winds near WORX (as they are literally several dozen meters from the ocean) accelerated the rust. Unacceptable!

I'm debating whether to bother with reinstalling a new set of these NISMO Rear Member Braces back on, or live without them.  I recall that when they first came out, Koyama-san at Nissan Prince Tokyo Motorsports Factory told me that these would have a detrimental effect on lap times on the track. When I mentioned it to the guys at Nismo... apparently others have also mentioned/asked about Koyama-san's theory at Nismo.  But anyway I'm debating because if I don't plan to track it in the future...?

The old front axles

Another problem, according to Takasu-san, was that the old front axles needed to be serviced, but they were proving to be difficult to take apart (seized assembly?). In fact taking them apart and servicing would cost MORE than simply getting a rebuilt part and using that.  So he had gone ahead and ordered rebuilts, but wanted my Ok to use them.

Here is Takasu-san unboxing the rebuilts

Have to say these look just as good as brand new. And cheaper? Oh yes.

There were some other items that Nismo got creative on (with my permission), which I will describe in upcoming posts.  

I like how even though they won't be touching the interior, they still use protective covers on the steering wheel and seats. No way I can even accuse them of leaving dirt on any interior surface!

I just noticed the industrial grade carpet under the car. Might have to do this too...

So, I am happy to report that FINALLY, the car is one step closer to being returned to me. Although yes the timing has worked out perfectly for me. By telling them not to rush the work, my car was kept in a safe place while my house was rebuilt. Now, the next step is to have the garage floor coated in an epoxy coating, after which begins the hunt for functional and good looking garage cabinets. Let me know if you have any ideas! (I'm thinking glossy white garage floor but with gray steel cabinets. Boring?)

Real Life History: The Nurburgring Car in the Flesh!!

So anyone who's an R33 GT-R fan knows that the 33 was the first production car to lap the infamous Nurburgring in under 8 minutes - 7'59" to be precise. (FYI, the BNR32 did so in 8'20" but it was a struggle with the car understeering heavily and the brakes not up to par...)

As a result of the 7'59" lap time, Nissan engaged in a media campaign which highlighted this 21 second difference, starting with this TV commercial:

And here is the promotional video that was shown at Nissan dealerships all around the country when the car went on sale:

I've never been interested in any of the pre-production GT-Rs, 33 or otherwise, until now.  That's because this week at the Nissan Gallery at Nissan's Global Headquarters, I spotted this being displayed (cars that are stored in the Nissan Heritage Collection at Zama are rotated on a 2-3 week basis):

Initially, I have to admit I was more interested in the Z31 - haven't seen one since I was a teenager back in the USA.

 I thought the 33 was just another AL0 silver R33 GT-R...

But wait a minute - what's up with the red brake lamp in the bumper??

That's when I decided to read the plaque up front and...

HOLY TOLEDO!

So this is the ACTUAL CAR that did the 7'59"!! Factory test car, chassis number 000055!

I posted these photos to my Facebook account, and I think some of my R33 Facebook friends were just as excited - some of them were asking for more close up photos... so I went back down later and took the following. (Note, I did NOT open any doors or step over the barriers - hey I follow the rules!)

You can make out the padded rollcage showing in the left A pillar and front of the roof lining.

Better view of the rollcage - and barely used seats. Note the degradation of the door rubber though.

Best view of the rollcage set-up

Ok but I also heard rumors of other mods other than just body rigidity improvements (plus a cage would be needed presumably if they crashed on the track so it makes sense from that perspective too). So I walked around to see what I could find. Obviously not allowed to pop the hood, but I have an idea for that in the future...

Brakes look like the OEM 4 pot Brembo calipers

Note how the caliper paint looks messed up, as if they spilled too much brake fluid when bleeding the brakes. However the Brembo logo is still white, which means the caliper didn't get as hot as I had on my car - better driving by the pros probably lol.

Underneath the car - I did look under the FRONT side as well, but it looked very OEM. The rear underside, however, was interesting:

Note the oil cooler on the right

And this exhaust. Looks OEM - 2 pipe muffler, but from the down pipe to the muffler itself that looks like about 90mm...!

And what about mileage? How much has this car run?

Oh, the 300km Speedometer is interesting...

10,416 kms!

And if you look closely, looks like they installed extra padding for the driver's left knee and right knees. Check out this post and you will see it.

Anyway, I'm still curious about what other mods this car had. From what I could see, looked pretty stock except the exhaust pipe suggests not all is stock in the powertrain. Maybe a personal visit to the Heritage Collection is in order soon.

Meanwhile - here are a few more photos for Z31 fans. Pretty cool car, considering at the time it was sold I thought it was a bloated, tech loaded and slow car.

That turbo scoop and pop up lights are pure awesome!

T-Roof, leather seats... and auto transmission. Yeah, rich housewife's car

Please, someone tell me what this "Bodysonic Amplifier" is!!!

Actually, thanks to Mr. Google I know what this is. Very cool feature! Ah, the 80s....

PS - I found an article about Gan-san and his trip around the Nurburgring in a 33...enjoy!

Thomas Mangum's Midnight Purple R33 GT-R - Spec Check and Driving Impression! (Part 2)

So once I had checked out the exterior of Thomas Mangum's 3H tuned R33 GT-R and talked about the mechanical bits, it was time to go for a drive.

First however I did a quick check of the interior.  Thomas' car has some interesting bits, although as interiors tend to be even more expressive of individual taste than exteriors (because interiors aren't as visible), my thoughts here might be a bit more subjective than usual.

Even though Thomas' car is a 1995 Series 1 (zenki), he has changed out the interior for Series 3 (kohki) bits - this means instead of the usual blue accented seats and door cards, he has the red accented seats and door cards.  To be honest, somewhat incongruous given the lack of a passenger airbag. But a minor "gripe" I guess (I suppose I'm a purist...)

Note red dotted door card. Momo steering wheel with the Nismo horn button.
You can also see his Greddy OLED boost controller mounted to the left of the steering column.
Those with sharp eyes will see the Bee-R rev limiter mounted below that.

Obviously an immediately obvious difference from my car are the white faced NISMO gauge clusters.  While I thought it would prove distracting, oddly enough it didn't bother me at all! In fact I can see how this might be better during the day, at least from a visibility perspective.

No airbag is giveaway for Series 1... got some interesting carbon-like pieces there though.

Looking closely, you can see 3 different carbon fiber patterns.  The main fascia is actually an extremely rare, OEM option, carbon fiber print-like fascia.  The carbon pattern on the shift surround however is a clear print, and the driver's side door switch panel is carbon wrapped. Not for me, but an interesting collection!

More interesting however are the Nissan OEM optional knee bolsters:

For right knee

These parts rarely pop up on Yahoo Auctions, and so usually the sellers ask for lots of yen. Clearly good if you value bracing yourself during hard cornering over hearing the output of the driver side door speaker...

For left knee

Finally, this was cool - a genuine Top Secret shift boot! With the shifter capped off with a Tomei shift knob:

The NISMO plaque is an add on...

SO...putting aside the interior aesthetics and my subjective commentary on it, how does the car DRIVE?

Ok well the first thing I noticed was the Series 3 transmission Thomas installed - in a word, superb. I was blown away by how the shifter is so direct and precise - of course not in the league of the NSX I drove a while back, but way better than the gearbox I had in my car (before GETRAG).  In fact, even compared to the GETRAG now installed in my car, being totally honest with myself, I'd have to say I prefer how this feels - a no-slop, no-slack, extremely direct gearbox - not as heavy feeling as the GETRAG either.  Thomas told me he has a short shift kit but it must be the NISMO Quick Shift (with a 25% shorter stroke), I previously had the NISMO Solid Shift (only 10% shorter stroke) but it did not feel like this!

Second thing I noticed was how hard and stiff the suspension was as I drove around town. Usually this is something that one notices as a passenger, not as the driver.  "Don't worry" Thomas said with a grin from the passenger seat, "You'll see how it all smooths out on the Wangan."  The car is running Greddy S Spec Full tap dampers, with spring rates of 10 kg-m front and 8kg-m rear - this is a custom set up he selected, seeking the best balance between livability on surface streets and control while blasting on the Wangan. And he was right - when we later took the car on the expressway, the car not only felt stable, smooth and responsive, but the balance was superb.

Speaking of balance, one area which I thought could be improved was the brakes. This car runs F50 Brembos up front on 355 millimeter BIOT 2 piece rotors (Endless brake pads), and the OEM rear Brembos using custom brackets on 350mm VQ36 Skyline rears rotors (Project mu pads).  If you recall from when I installed the R35 brakes on my car, old thinking was the need to have bigger rotors up front with smaller in the back. More recently the thinking is that, having the rear rotor almost as large as the front can only help and in fact contribute to more stability. Nissan apparently realized this during the production run of the RB26 GT-Rs, which is why the last R34s had larger OEM rear rotors.

In fact this set up is now a popular conversion in Japan, giving great stopping power at a very reasonable price,  although you will need 18 inch wheels (which most people upgrade to anyway) as this combo is too large for the stock wheels.  Stopping from speed wasn't a problem in this car, but not sure if it's the inherent front brake bias, or the different pads, or the lack of a digital G-sensor (its function affects the braking as I discovered), but I just felt there was too much emphasis on the fronts - not necessarily a bad thing but subjectively not what I am used to anymore.

Finally, two areas where this car has a very different personality from my car - the handling and the engine power delivery.

Driving around town, the handling didn't seem too different from most GT-Rs I've driven. And it wasn't that different when making lane changes on the expressway.  It was when I was making a sweeping right turn at about 60kph, getting onto the expressway, when I noticed how the rear end of the car felt more planted and direct than mine.  Hard to describe but it was almost an oversteer effect, meaning that the fronts could focus on getting the car through the curve as quickly and neutrally as possible.  Thomas believes this is a result of having SuperPro bushings all around, I think it might be his rear camber at -2 degrees (according to Thomas) as well as how he has rear roll center adjusters installed.  It also might be his disconnected Super HICAS, although I've driven other cars with locked out rears and suspect the camber angle as most likely the reason for this rear end agility.  Anyway, this experience has inspired me to start thinking of upgrades to my car in the same way!

Finally, the engine.  Obviously I was curious about how the V Cam was going to affect things. Since I hadn't driven his car BEFORE he installed the V Cam, I can't give a direct comparison, but with the larger 2530kai turbos, I expected that the car would have suffered from turbo lag and then boom!  When I asked Thomas, he did confirm that before he'd find himself having to shift down from say 5th to 3rd, to raise the RPMS, in order to get enough torque by engaging the turbos (which came on full at about 4500 rpm he says). Not only did this cause him to end up working with a very small rev range (before having to shift up) but the sudden increase in torque would cause his rear end to violently swing out on occasion.

Driving it now, the V Cam is programmed to kick in smoothly and provide enough torque down low such that the transition from the V Cam to when the turbos kick in is seamless.  In other words, the engine feels like a much larger engine with a gradually increasing torque from lower RPMs reaching a maximum torque value somewhere in the 5000rpm range.

I've heard that with V Cam, it makes the smallish RB26 feel like a larger engine - and now I get it.  At least on the bottom end, Thomas' car DID feel like it had a larger naturally aspirated engine. Of course once the turbos kick in it still has the GT-R flavor.

Finally, while I did not drive the car at night, Thomas later sent me this photo to show off his LED upgrades to the gauges. This guy is REALLY into purple....

And so the purple motif continues even at night...

Thank you very much Thomas for the opportunity - it's given me some inspiration for my car but also  reassurance that my car is in good shape as well.

Stay tuned as I have some minor tweaks coming up very soon!

Thomas Mangum's Midnight Purple R33 GT-R - Spec Check and Driving Impression! (Part 1)

So recently my friend and fellow R33 GT-R fanatic Thomas Mangum invited me to drive his Midnight Purple machine.  I jumped at the chance – it would be a rare opportunity to drive a high spec car (and one with the HKS V Cam, too!) and compare against mine. 

When I pulled up to his house, I initially took some photos before jumping into the driver’s seat.   Thomas seemed embarrassed by how dirty his car was, but that couldn’t be helped as it’s parked outside and as a daily driver a car cover doesn’t make sense (for most people...).   Nevertheless the car was in good shape, nothing a nice wash and wax wouldn’t fix.

Purple disc rotor caps to match the Midnight Purple car. Nice touch. F50 Brembos with Biot 2 piece rotors!
Wheels are ENKEI RS05RR in 18x11J(!!!) with offset of 16.

A bit of trivia about these wheels - these were one of, if not THE first, sets of the RS055RR that Enkei made for the Skyline GT-Rs. How do we know? Because when Thomas and I went to Tokyo Auto Salon  that year, we noticed that the displayed wheels had some stickers that these wheels did not have. When we inquired, we were told that the first batch did not have the stickers, and further all the ENKEI reps there said they had never seen or known of a GT-R with them before! (ENKEI later mailed him the missing stickers!)

Essentially this is a custom made front bumper - I've never seen another quite like this.

I recall when Thomas asked me if I had ever seen this front bumper before when it came up for sale on Yahoo Auctions a few years back... obviously the answer was no. It seems to be a very clever design, incorporating cooling abilities along with the front canard aerodynamic effect.  It apparently was a one-off design for one of the JUN Auto racing cars [thanks to our friend Matt Rearick who remembered seeing the same item on Yahoo, and the description!] which meant that Thomas had to get clever to incorporate turn signals in order to make it street legal.

AutoSelect Tower Bar. ARC Cooling panel (no longer made).
Aluminum catch tank and UK GTROC Aluminum fuse box cover

I'm proud to say I did my bit to contribute to this engine, as the fuse box cover was something I gave Thomas a long time ago... Note also the relocated power steering pump fluid reservoir.

Aha! V Cam. I can only dream at this point. With a NISMO surge tank too!

Yep. I was eagerly looking forward to how differently this car would drive with the V Cam, given the HKS 2530kai turbos the car is running.

Carbon fiber hood (or bonnet in the Commonwealth?)

He has some interesting custom mods so I took photos of those. For example:

Custom carbon piece to direct air towards the intercooler. If well done, stuff like this adds to a car's allure and personality.

I've already pointed out the clever use of side turn signals used upfront. Here's another custom application:

Another interesting tidbit - oil cooler located here!

Due to the design of the bumper, Thomas couldn't place an engine oil cooler in the usual place (that is, under the left front lights in the front bumper). So naturally, he put this Greddy one up front behind the grill to ensure lots of airflow. Reminds me of the old NISMO set up (albeit that was underneath and behind the front lip spoiler).

Speaking of spoilers:

Genuine NISMO dry carbon 2 piece blade. Looks like the previous owner liked to advertise that fact.

For the back, he found a used NISMO 2 piece dry carbon spoiler blade.  He restored it best he could but you can still make out where someone had applied a NISMO sticker. (and yes, the blue car in the back ground is the ISF I'm slowly modifying...lol)

90mm AMUSE titanium exhaust. 

Thomas' car is equipped with this Amuse R1 titanium exhaust, which obviously maximizes exhaust flow and doesn't even pretend to really have any "muffling" capacities. This thing is LOUD!

Thomas later sent me a list of the specs of his car. For example, some highlights of the engine/powertrain are:
- N1 block bored to 86.5, N1 oil pump, N1 water pump
- Carrillo rods, Mahle pistons (both save weight)
- balanced and straightened crank by NAPREC
- NISMO crank and conrod bearings
- NAPREC high response head kit (ported, etc.)
- NISMO 600cc injectors/NISMO fuel pump
- R35 AFMs
- Tomei Powered oil pan baffle/metal head gasket (1.2mm)/timing belt
- Trust/Greddy Type R intercooler
- Okada Plasma Direct ignition coils
- HKS hard piping kit
- Advance 130A alternator

This is all managed by a custom flashed ROM that piggybacks on top of the OEM ECU. Thomas estimates about 600 horsepower. 

So how does this all add up, really? I’ll give my honest (good and bad) impressions on how the car drove, as well as photos of some interesting interior bits, in my next post...

Ok So I'm a Brand W**re

I'm not a very good photographer, nor have I ever claimed to be even half good.  But, once in a while the subject looks good and the lighting is perfect.

Like this, taken with my iPhone 6 last Sunday. Enjoy!

How the R33 GT-R Improved Upon the R32 GT-R (Part 2 - Engine, ATTESA ETS-PRO, and Super HICAS)

Continuing from the previous post - (How the R33 GT-R Improved Upon the R32 GT-R (Part 1 - Aerodynamics and the High Traction Layout), the following items seem more mundane and evolutionary, versus revolutionary.

Also, these are areas that have been widely discussed in the English press and so the big improvements may not be new to you - however, I still discovered items of interest, as described below.

First, however, this video - this was a promotional VHS video sent to Nissan dealerships upon the launch of the R33 GT-R, to be shown to prospective customers - it's Nissan's explanation as to how the R33 had improved on the R32 (yes it's all in Japanese, but the visuals... and engine noise... and the amazing acrobatics while being driven hard at Nurburgring (at about 8:50 onwards) are worth it!):

Not surprisingly, the video describes or mentions, in addition to the items in this post, most of the items I wrote about, not just in the previous post but also much of what appeared in the design trivia posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

Engine:
Basically the same, except boost was raised in response to Nissan test drivers who wanted more torque and response.  This resulted in 1.5 kgm more torque (to 37.5kgm) and more horsepower, although due to the gentleman’s agreement, power continued to be listed as “280ps.” Engine management (and thus response) was improved as the engine ECU was changed from 8 bits to 16 bits for more detailed engine control, response and reliability.

Side note: Something that Nissan did not publish, however, is the claim that the standard R33 GT-R RB26 blocks are actually more rigid than the R32 ones, due to slight changes in the block design (i.e. improving the ribs in the block). [Note: Even though this is published in my sources, I have never heard this claim before. I would take with a grain of salt.]

Drivetrain: ATTESA ETS-PRO

With the BNR32, in addition to high speed corners being tricky as the car generated lots of understeer, there were also times where traction was not satisfactory.  So the goal with the BCNR33 was to have it behave exactly as you wanted it to.

Yes, everyone knows by now that the R33 GT-R V-Spec model came with the electronically controlled Active LSD, while the standard BCNR33 did not. This leads many to believe that the standard R33 GT-R uses the same ATTESA system as the R32 GT-R… which is true for the hardware, but NOT the software.

Hiroki Sasaki, in charge of ATTESA-ETS in Nissan’s Chassis department, explains that the problem with the R32 was that it understeered badly, it simply would not turn.  They researched the issues, and ended up changing (the software on) how the torque split is done.   As a result, the R33's handling is more precise. The R33's ATTESA ECU is able to take into account more road and speed conditions, using higher capacity (higher limits) sensors, to better tune the car's response in light of the driving conditions and compatibility with the tires.

For the ETS-PRO, they initially borrowed the Active LSD that was already being used in the standard (2wd) R33 in a quest to maximize real wheel traction. However, initial testing did not go well, so the engineers spent a lot of time experimenting.  They finally got it to work well, but this also was due to improving body rigidity and tire performance, finally better.

Here are a few photos of the active rear diff - note that it has the finned cover, which the standard differential does not.

From: http://www.eonet.ne.jp/~t-e-s/bcnr33lsd.html

The end result is, ETS functions in both R33 GT-Rs to make the car much more FR-like than the R32.  And, with the ETS-PRO, the active LSD allowed Nissan engineers to say the the V-spec is “the GT-R we really wanted to build, with superlative performance.”

Brakes: all cars, both V-Spec and Standard trim, came with the Brembo brakes that made their debut on the R32 GT-R V-Spec models. I occasionally hear about the odd R33 GT-R that doesn't have Brembos on it... unfortunately, those were stripped of the Brembos before being sold to the unsuspecting new owner.

Super HICAS:  The R33 adopted the electrically driven Super HICAS versus the R32’s more primitive Super HICAS which was hydraulically driven, heavier, not as precise and did not utilize a yaw sensor. See my technical note about this from an earlier post.  HICAS appears to be a touchy subject - many people claim that "HICAS kicked in" to explain why they lost control of their GT-R.  I believe this is the result of people not understanding how HICAS works, and not understanding what else could cause handling issues - HICAS is an easy culprit to blame, especially given the number of hydraulic HICAS equipped R32s, the fact that many tuners sell lock out bars, and the apparent complexity of the mechanism itself.  I'm doing research on this issue, and I hope to be doing a future post on this topic, soon.

Putting it All Together:  Along with a more responsive intercooler, all of the changes mentioned above and from the previous post resulted in a car that Nissan engineers claimed was more responsive and faster than the R32 GT-R, as demonstrated by the significantly faster performance at Nurburgring (in Japan, the advertising copy was “Romance of minus 21 seconds”).

Here is the "romance of minus 21 seconds" commercial:

Hiroyoshi Kato, Nissan's main test driver, explained that (due to all the technical improvements, especially the ones mentioned on this page) "the R33's performance completely surpasses the R32s... the first we went to Nur (with the R32), the Nissan team was completely intimidated with how Porsche was testing, but by the time we had the R33, in our hearts we believed we could kick Porsche's ass." (Quote from "Nissan Skyline GT-R R33/R34, Neko Mook 1377")

By the way - here is Nissan's official profile (in English) of Kato-san: Nissan Legends - The Man Who Found His Calling -Hiroyoshi Kato.

Next - time for some mods for my car (finally)! 

Sacrilege??

Over a year ago, when I embarked on the sound deadening project I had bought several spray cans of this:

Looking at reviews online in Japan, this product (the "Beat-Sonic Noise Reducer") was generally acknowledged as the best, not only in sound dampening ability, but also as a general undercoating (to prevent rust) in cars.

Luckily, as they don’t use salt on the roads in the winter, and also because I frequently wash my car, there are very, very few spots of rust on my car.  The few spots that I have spotted were surface rust on the car when I first bought it (mostly easily removed), and I haven’t seen any new spots since.  So really, there really is no need to apply an undercoating, so long as the car is in Japan and relatively well maintained.

Here is the worst of the rust.

I was hesitant to spray this on for a few reasons – one obviously is weight, but the other was, would this material be removable in case there was a spot of rust that got out of hand and that panel had to be repaired?  Again, is it really necessary for me to do so?  Sacrilege to unnecessarily paint my car??

In any case, I thought I reached a happy compromise by deciding that I was going to spray ONLY on the inside of the fenderwells, behind the wheels, where I suspect most of the road noise was getting through (because the floor had been lined with the sound deadening material already, on the inside) AND because I planned to spray the stuff ONLY on the plastic fender liners.

So, I jacked up the car, took the wheels off, then liberally sprayed on some Simple Green to break down any dirt there.

And yes, I also took the opportunity to clean the wheels, especially on the insides where there was some brake dust.

Hard to clean as those calipers leave only a few millimeters of space

Oh, and yes, what a great opportunity to clean the R35 brembo calipers!

This dirt had been bothering me for a long , long time...

Ahhhhhh....

I then used my trusty Vapamore steam machine to REALLY get things clean.

Before:

After (and after I started wrapping with newspaper):

I then covered up all the important components with newspaper, and began to spray on the undercoating.  But then realized that, I might as well go for the metal too (which, I believe, already has a CLEAR looking (but now yellowish) factory undercoat in some places)

So here is how it looked after spraying on the undercoating.  In addition to rust protection and sound deadening, I realized then of another advantage – of making the inside of the wheelwells look dark, thus enhancing how the wheels look.

And the result? Nice and CLEAN and BLACK....lol.  Oh, and also as the pitted plastic liners are now covered with the deadening, hopefully they will be easy to keep clean now.

As to whether the coating had an effect on road noise, in my judgment, "yes" but only slightly. Then again with the Tomei Expreme exhaust uncorked, it was a bit hard to "hear" the difference over the exhaust note, but during the Izu Skyline run, it just seemed that under some circumstances, the car DID seem to have a bit less road noise...

The background is all black....