Nissan's front-mid engined, front wheel drive based wingless GT-R Le Mans

[565]

Well that's the speculation anyway.

http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/first-photos-of-the-nissan-gt-r-lm-nismo-le-mans-car-on-1680213405

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/newsjan15.html

Supposedly the front tires are wider than the rear, and the gas engine powers the front wheels, with the electric powering the rear.  Also at Lemans the car may run without a rear wing to reduce drag.

This seems like a crazy car, but if a crazy technology can win anywhere, it's Le Mans, where diesel engines ruled the top tier for about a decade.

[565]

Very strange looking indeed.

[Laconian]

Weird!

[565]

[hotrodalex]

I hope it does well. I enjoy when crazy technology rocks the racing world.

[mzziaz]

Batmobile!

[Secret Chimp]

Deltawing is still crazier

[Soup DeVille]

Is therre a rule in Lemans that this is exploiting, or do they think its faster on its own merits?

[12,000 RPM]

And people doubted me when I got the Civic.

Nissan should call this El DoRado

[565]

Now fully revealed.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/02/02/nissan-gtr-lm-nismo-le-mans-wec-official/#image-15

Also featured on the Superbowl commercial.

Words cannot describe how excited I am about this car, it looks insane.

[565]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Kzazvcc98

[hotrodalex]

Needs more high pitched wailing exhaust. But otherwise, very cool.

[r0tor]

Is therre a rule in Lemans that this is exploiting, or do they think its faster on its own merits?

General consensus is its done for marketing and because they didn't have a big enough budget to go head to head with Audi - so they engineered themselves an excuse.

[Galaxy]

That thing has some very interesting Aero.

[2o6]

General consensus is its done for marketing and because they didn't have a big enough budget to go head to head with Audi - so they engineered themselves an excuse.

Huh?


I can't picture this being cheaper to make than a traditional LM Car.

[SVT_Power]

Huh?


I can't picture this being cheaper to make than a traditional LM Car.

Even if it cost the same amount of money, they probably got a ton more media exposure than they would've even if they won with a "normal" LM racecar

[2o6]

The rear axles (if they're even used) are portal axles, and the whole design is very radical as a whole



I like to think that Nissan is racing a big Maxima, even if that's not really accurate

[r0tor]

Huh?


I can't picture this being cheaper to make than a traditional LM Car.

To beat Audi, you need to invest megabucks in engineering and development - they didnt

[2o6]

To beat Audi, you need to invest megabucks in engineering and development - they didnt

Huh?


How is creating a FWD LeMans car NOT engineering and development?

[2o6]

Is therre a rule in Lemans that this is exploiting, or do they think its faster on its own merits?

I guess the idea is that it's easier to get downforce out of the front of the car rather than dealing with the rear.

Apparently because the car's main drive wheels are up front, cornering speed is higher than a traditional LM car.




I'm excited to see how it does.

[r0tor]

Huh?


How is creating a FWD LeMans car NOT engineering and development?

The car is an undeveloped train wreck

[2o6]

The car is an undeveloped train wreck

You're the only person I've heard say that

[Soup DeVille]

The rear axles (if they're even used) are portal axles, and the whole design is very radical as a whole



I like to think that Nissan is racing a big Maxima, even if that's not really accurate

Lots of offset drive arrangements that wouldn't be called portal axles that it could be running: But I doubt they are driven at all actually; electric rear wheel drive system could very well be a motor-in-wheel arrangement.

[Soup DeVille]

I guess the idea is that it's easier to get downforce out of the front of the car rather than dealing with the rear.

Apparently because the car's main drive wheels are up front, cornering speed is higher than a traditional LM car.




I'm excited to see how it does.

I'll be interested to see that as well: but I don't buy the explanation about cornering speeds for one second: it will clearly drive a different line than the rest of the field though, and that could be problematic.

[r0tor]

You're the only person I've heard say that

Its missed many test sections and reportedly failed crash testing which means it can't race until it gets certified.

[Galaxy]

To beat Audi, you need to invest megabucks in engineering and development - they didnt

Generally yes, however Toyota had the largest budget in F1 back in the day and they never won a flower pot.

Its missed many test sections and reportedly failed crash testing which means it can't race until it gets certified.

It has since passed the test.

[SVT_Power]

Generally yes, however Toyota had the largest budget in F1 back in the day and they never won a flower pot.

A large enough budget is a necessary, but not sufficient factor to winning 

[565]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTGaUMC1gZ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njTkyZfcPGs

Nissan is being remarkably transparent with the whole project.  Everyone else is very secretive.  People are saying that it's just one big PR move, but in some way racing in general is just one big PR move. 

I think the thinking behind this car makes some sense, as Nissan pretty much said this car is just engineered for Lemans and not for the rest of the WEC series. 

The simple part is that lower drag = more straight speed at a track that's mostly straights and you spend 70-80% of your time on full throttle.  The places that aren't straights in the first 2 sectors mostly consist of 2 slow chicanes and a few very slow 50mph corners where downforce doesn't help much anyway.

The problem with running an extremely low drag setup in the past was that the cars wouldn't have enough front end bite to not understeer severely at the porsche curves at the final sector of the track.  The porsche curves are long sweeping steady state corners.  To deal with these you either need enough front tire (why all the LMP1s run square setups after the Acura did it), enough front end downforce, or in the case of the Nissan, enough front end weight bias. 

Also moving the engine to the front of the car frees up the entire rear of the vehicle to make room for large tunnels that run the length of the car, allowing them to make downforce more efficiently than with a wing.

I think someone mentioned the original plan for this car was front engine powering the front wheels, and a twin flywheel mech system at the 8Mj class pumping some 700hp to the front and rears using that portal drive shaft system that is currently in the car but not used this season.  Also apparently the plan was to run without a rear wing as well (all LMP1 at Lemans are required to have tail lights on the rear end plates of the wing to meet regulations, the Nissan does not, probably because the original concept did not have a rear wing at all).  The entire system output was supposed to be around 1500-2000hp.  The extra HP over the competitors hinged on the all mechanical flybrid system made by Torotrak.  Audi uses a flywheel too, but it that flywheel turns kinetic energy back into electricity to power motors with the expected losses in the conversion.  The Torotrak was supposed to harvest kinetic energy, store it as such in the flywheel, and release it back as kinetic energy to the front, and also the rears through a drive shaft and a set of portal gears to clear the big tunnels at the back.  As the energy was not being converted to electrical energy anywhere in the process, the only losses would be due to friction in the system.  Unfortunately that entire system basically doesn't work.

In their simulations this original front engined AWD concept ran something like 3:15's according to some reports  (course record was a 3:18 in the Peugeot 908 FAP HDI, and last year it was like a 3:23).  It's not hard to imagine if all the systems were indeed working, that this car would be immensely fast.  To start, it would be ridiculously fast down the mulsanne straights with less drag than the competition.  Then with the slow chicanes, the Nissan will engage the AWD portal gears to help put the additional 700hp of the flywheel to all 4 wheels, and then again at the launch out of the slow mulsanne corner.  As it approaches the porsche corners, indeed the lower downforce setup would be slower here than the competition, but as the Nissan carries the majority of the weight over the front wheels, turn in would be better than expected.  As the Nissan exits the porsche curves, again the AWD system helps maximize corner exit.  Another benefit is that the Nissan if it does encounter GT traffic would be affected less, as it's not very fast in the corners anyway, where the majority of LMP cars get held up by GT cars.

That I think was the concept.  Unfortunately the hybrid system has been full of problems, so they are basically running 1 flybrid wheel instead of two, and even that one wheel isn't working well.  With barely any hybrid power to release, they aren't running the rear portal gears at all. 

Overall I think this year will be just a testing year for Nissan for the chassis, and mostly importantly that brand new 3.0TT V6.  I hope that next year Nissan can bring the full 8mj 1500hp AWD beast to Lemans.

[565]

https://twitter.com/nismo

Nissan has been using twitter and the Periscope app to basically broadcast live images and commentary from their test runs.  It was a fascinating day today with the live broadcasts, and you basically felt like a member of the testing team watching them.  For me it brought back memories of when I worked on my college solar racing team.  They'll broadcast again tomorrow.

Also they brought out car 22, which is new.  And a new car 23 in all black, which looks amazingly badass.  I'm not sure what happened to the original car number 23, I think it's in Europe now.  Anyway they made 3 cars as promised.


Great photos from the testing day

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nissan-racing/sets/72157651928353276/

Two brand new GTR LMs






The carbon black version is proving to be so popular Nissan is likely to run it at Le Mans


EDIT:: Crap flickr won't let me link photos.   Boo.



The new red one is numbered 22




Now it has the rule mandated brake lights on the rear end plates as well (which the previous number 23 car was missing)



And it also has the indicator vertical light strips on the side to say what place the car is in.





By comparison this was the older number 23 car, the original, without the place indicator lights or rear end plate brake lights

[FlatBlackCaddy]

I want that trailer, would be great for moving the track cars around.