2009 Nissan GT-R by AMS Performance Full Test and Video

Three seconds flat. That's how long it took this AMS-tuned 2009 Nissan GT-R to hit 60 mph from a standstill. Doesn't sound like much when it's just words on a screen, does it? Allow us to assist you with the miracle of perspective:

By our measure, a stock GT-R clocks that same milestone somewhere between 3.5 and 3.8 seconds (no rollout for any of these numbers; by now you know the routine). And zapping a full 16 percent from a 3.5-second run requires a lot more mechanical chutzpah than your average armchair tuner can muster in his garage — despite what he might tell you on the Internet.

What's more, we've driven a few fast cars in our day. Like, say, this one, which tried to kill us six ways from Sunday. Or this one, which was insanely quick but still far off the pace of this GT-R.

But this thing, in terms of ease of use, speed from one point to another and road presence, trumps them all. It is one honking fast machine. Faster, in fact, considering both elapsed time and trap speed, than anything else we've ever tested.

Wow
Just for fun, we'll walk you through AMS's recommended launch procedure, but first a little history lesson: Back when the GT-R first landed on North American soil it arrived with a launch control system akin to most others. Punch the right buttons in the right order, wood the brake, wood the throttle, release the brake and let the magic begin. Simple.

All was good and fine until one too many hoon hounds broke his GT-R's tranny in a fit of all-wheel-drive-burnout-induced lunacy. Nissan countered with a statement which excluded from warranty coverage any damage induced with traction control switched off — a threat it could enforce, in theory at least, via onboard data logging.

Hoon hounds whined, Internet forums buzzed and we could have sworn we saw the fiery inferno of the Nissan blogosphere from as far away as Wyoming late one night. But Nissan wasn't finished. Soon it released GT-R launch control version 2.0. The calibration arrived via a simple dealer ECU reflash and changed everything. Instead of raising engine speed to 5,000 rpm and climactically dropping the clutch, the updated launch control did quite the opposite. Now the system simply raised engine speed slowly to about 2,700 rpm and, upon release of the brake, fed in the clutch far less violently.

Naturally, many hooners ignored a dealer near them and continued to hammer their GT-Rs with impunity. Few transmissions actually broke. Other owners, including us, welcomed the update, which proved even quicker in our testing.

So Here We Are
And that, friends, brings us to this test. Martin Musial, president of AMS Performance, is parked beside us in the passenger seat, instructing us how to trick launch control version 2.0 into giving us just a little more oomph. The trick, he explains, is to pin the brake, pin the throttle, rapidly release the brake and stomp it to the floor again while holding the throttle wide open. In theory, this sends the engine speed skyrocketing to about 4,000 rpm where it stabilizes for a few seconds before the brake is released — for real this time — and the car, again, theoretically, leaves the line like a scalded ape.

There's a whole lot going on as its electronic brain prepares for the nutshot it's about to deliver.

In reality, there's a whole lot of nonsense going on inside the 2009 Nissan GT-R as its electronic brain prepares for the nutshot it's about to deliver to the car's stone stock all-wheel-drive powertrain. Accordingly, this isn't the most consistent technique.

Still, we did get it right. Once.

And the awesomeness of the launch it yielded was good enough for an unfreakenbelievable 10.6-second quarter-mile run at 132.1 mph. That's a full 1.2 seconds quicker and 15.3 mph faster than the last stock GT-R we tested and it's more than quick enough for every drag strip in the country to make you install a roll cage before grudge night.

Turns, Too
Fitted with wider-than-stock front tires and JRZ RS coil-over dampers at all four corners, the GT-R's handling numbers were both better and worse than stock. At 71.0 mph, its slalom speed was a good margin off the stock car, which we've measured as high as 74.0 mph. Still, it remained controlled, communicative and composed as it wound between the cones. Performance was better around the skid pad, however, where Black Godzilla circled at 1.01g. We've measured between 0.91g and 0.96g in various GT-Rs since the car's introduction in 2008, so this is certainly an improvement.

We won't pretend we've got any scientific proof for why this car's slalom results suffered and its skid-pad performance improved given its various changes, but here are a few possibilities.

It seems fairly easy to assume, given the stock GT-R's propensity for understeer, that improving front grip should make a measurable difference in lateral acceleration. AMS agreed and upped the front tires' section width. And because this car's balance at the limit remained largely like that of a stock GT-R, we're putting this improvement down to the wider tires.

The downward spiral in slalom speed is more difficult to explain. We found the JRZ suspension to offer somewhat better control than the stock setup in Race mode but with a smoother, less busy ride on the street. Still, this is a very high-end suspension which we'd prefer to think is capable of better-than-stock numbers. There's a lot going on here, however, like the fact that the car, during our test, sat far lower than a stock Nissan GT-R. Aggressive lowering likely compromised its bump travel, which never helps on our less-than-perfect slalom surface.

Or, perhaps, it takes more than slapping on an aftermarket suspension, wheels and tires to better every aspect of the tuning Nissan's engineers achieved in stock trim.

The Chassis Tricks
AMS pulled a trick in preparing this car that we've never witnessed in more than 12 years of reporting on modified cars. Going against the bigger-is-better tuner code of ethics, the crazy West Chicagoans kept the GT-R's 15-inch brake rotors aboard and downsized the GT-R's wheels from 20 to 19 inches — 19-inch Volk RE30s to be specific. In the process the car lost unneeded weight (the rotating kind, ya know), freed up some power and gained valuable tire options.

Speaking of which, front and rear rubber are no longer staggered: 295/30ZR19 Continental ContiSportContact 3 tires are found at all four corners. That's an additional 40mm of section width in the front and an additional 10mm in the rear.

But the weight savings continued. First, the obvious. There's a carbon-fiber AMS hood and trunk lid, which conveniently nixes the stock GT-R wing. The JRZ dampers are good for something like 20 fewer pounds than the stock parts. And those smaller wheels cut a claimed 60 pounds or so.

Now we'd be the first to call that last claim a steaming pile of nonsense, but we weighed the car ourselves on the same scales we've used to weigh other stock GT-Rs. And those cars weighed between 3,900 and 3,920 pounds. Black Godzilla? Try 3,777 pounds — a full 123 fewer. So, no, the wheel claim doesn't seem so outrageous now.

The Engine Tricks
Under the hood is the heart of AMS's Alpha 9 Package. Starting with larger air intake and compressor inlet pipes, there's also a larger intercooler, two HKS blow-off valves, 76mm intercooler piping and, oh yeah, two Garrett GT28 hybrid turbos with custom billet compressor wheels.

Those turbo housings were machined to fit the stock exhaust manifolds and spew exhaust gases into AMS 90mm downpipes. Another 90mm midsection mates to an HKS Legamax stainless steel rear exhaust. The downpipes are designed to accommodate catalytic converters, although they weren't fitted for our test. And, if they're honest, AMS officials admit this whole setup probably contributes some to the overall weight savings as well.

There's more: massive fuel injectors rated at 2,000cc/minute, two upgraded fuel pumps and longer-duration cams with Ferrera springs and retainers. Those last few bits, when tuned properly using the Cobb Access Port software and controller, are good for a 7,400-rpm redline (400 rpm higher than stock). In the end the combo nets 655 wheel horsepower on AMS's Mustang Chassis dyno — the same place where a stock GT-R yields about 410 hp.

The Take Away
For all this insanity AMS will separate you from roughly $125,000 — including the GT-R. Given that a 2011 Nissan GT-R will run up an $85,000 tab by itself you're looking at roughly $40 grand in parts and labor.

That's a lot of money. And it's not perfect. We noticed the occasional bobble as we'd rapidly open the throttle in certain situations. But, given the GT-R's relative newness in the tuner world and its ludicrous complexity — the engine and transmission calibrations are inextricably tied together — we'd guess these are growing pains which can and will be tuned away with time.

Not to mention...you won't be buying any Ferraris, Lamborghinis or even Corvettes that will run with this thing for that kind of money. Like we said, perspective matters.