Nissan GT-R Introduced with More Power

Nissan GT-R Introduced with More Power

Only a year after the GT-R's market launch in Japan and less than six months after its U.S. introduction and Nissan has proceeded to the sportscar's first major round of changes which include a power increase, suspension upgrades and a new exterior color. The most significant improvement concerns the GT-R's hand-built 3.8-litre V6 twin-turbo engine which has gained 5PS thanks to some fine tuning of its electronics, taking power output to 485PS, while torque remains unchanged at 588Nm.

The engine upgrades have also led to slightly better fuel economy figures with Nissan announcing an average fuel consumption in the Japanese driving cycle of 8.3 km/l (19.5 mpg U.S.) instead of 8.2 km/l (19.3 mpg US). In addition, Nissan has increased the GT-R's fuel tank capacity from 71 liters to to 74 liters.

Another update sees the improvement of the sportscar's ride performance with modifications to the suspension spring rate settings while the 2009 model will also benefit from a set of Dunlop SP Sport 600 DSST tires. Nissan claims that the tire was developed specifically for the GT-R and it "combines grip and durability, as demonstrated during its 'time-attack' lap of the Nurburgring", which yielded a time of 7 minutes 29 seconds.Less significant improvements for the 2009 GT-R concern the introduction of the Gun Metal grey colored Rays seven-spoke alloy wheel design for the standard and Premium Edition GT-Rs, while the Black Edition will be fitted with the same design but, appropriately, in black. Additionally, customers can now choose a new deep white pearl color called 'Storm' which replaces the original pearl white which had a slightly darker shade.