# Easter weekend drive, fault found



## alloy (Apr 29, 2005)

Having enjoyed my long Easter weekend at the family's holiday home on the Llyn peninsula, i got a great opportunity to fall back in love with my, now lightly modified, GTR over some fantastic country roads . The trip took us from London through to B'Ham before heading to Telford and getting on some fantastic A roads toward Bala and then continuing along more awesome A roads on to our destination, Abersoch. The journey really threw all of the best and worst bits of the British road network in my face. As we all know the GTR triumphs on dual carriage and motorways, it is such a good cruiser allowing progress to be made so simply, most of this journey was done with suspension in either COMF or Norm and i have to say i really don't see all the fuss about the suspension, it is very compliant on these sort of journey’s IMO. Next onto the A roads, and the plethora of torque i was able to dispense with a mere stab of the loud pedal was outstanding, made overtaking addictive  and as the roads traversed some of the welsh country side, the GTR took it all in its stride, car felt so assured of its movements(susp in R Mode) and really inspired confidence allowing me to press on. It was only the really twisty, or should i say continually twisty bits that the car gave back some of its prowess, i felt the car lacked conviction in the twisty bits where speed you were capable of was in the region of 30-50mph. I felt i was having to over work the steering, it wasn't so sharp to announce its direction through the corners, driver input versus the car's reaction was numb, much more so than perhaps when the car is stretching it’s legs and steering feels much crisper. Now i know these motors carry more than their fair share of weight, there's a fair bit of tyre to be turning and they aren't a lightweight sports car like a caterham, but this needs to be dialled out pronto! For the first time some of the mumblings of people that criticise the GTR started to come back into my head, again attacking my new found love for the GTR.

Now back from my Scumbaru days, the new age model felt a little like what i experienced from the GTR round the bends at low-medium speed. This was resolved with alloy droplinks and stiffer ARBs front and back, having had a look there seems to be some good press reported from upgrading these items on the GTR too, i'm not really keen to start playing around with springs and dampners etc as i say the ride quality is fine for me and being London based the ride height seemingly allows me to go about my business unscathed. 

However has anyone else experienced this lack of connection between driver input and car output? Apart from looking at the droplinks and ARBs are there any other suggestions as to how to perhaps crisp up the responsiveness of the GTR?


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## _shaun_ (Jan 16, 2007)

I think when 5th gear reviewed the GTR a couple years ago....(using Ben's GTC car) they mentioned this....that it's on the "mid-range" corners that it lacked a bit....

Plato did say that he was also just being picky though....

I had a nice drive at the weekend as well but the back roads were more long sweeping bends.....


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## alloy (Apr 29, 2005)

_shaun_ said:


> I had a nice drive at the weekend as well but the back roads were more long sweeping bends.....


Shaun, a long sweeper where you can apply speed is the GTR's bread and butter, its the mid-range twisty that it really troughs about. Something my EVO9 for example, never did...


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## _shaun_ (Jan 16, 2007)

It does excel in the sweeping bends...

Try watch that vid that 5th gear did....it was on the twisty bits that Plato was saying that you can't really "get after it" his words...

I suppose it is just under 2 tonnes so does well......maybe that's where uprated ARBs etc come in - as GTRSTAR suggest.....but do you want to start down that road? Where do you stop lol


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## alloy (Apr 29, 2005)

_shaun_ said:


> I suppose it is just under 2 tonnes so does well......maybe that's where uprated ARBs etc come in - as GTRSTAR suggest.....but do you want to start down that road? Where do you stop lol


It's not a long road to go down really though is it? It kind of matters to me how the car responds to inputs i give it....some outlay for potentially much better feel and response....you stop at the end, when you are happy with the car you have and how it drives ....anyway shaun don't you worry where it stops, you should be concerned about actually getting started


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## AndyBrew (Feb 2, 2011)

what geometry settings have you got, maybe a more track focused setup with more negative camber would help?


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## alloy (Apr 29, 2005)

AndyBrew said:


> what geometry settings have you got, maybe a more track focused setup with more negative camber would help?


Litchfields set it up about a fortnight ago, pretty sure. although i do have a memory like a siv, that it's already got 1.5 deg of neg camber...


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## _shaun_ (Jan 16, 2007)

alloy said:


> It's not a long road to go down really though is it? It kind of matters to me how the car responds to inputs i give it....some outlay for potentially much better feel and response....you stop at the end, when you are happy with the car you have and how it drives ....anyway shaun don't you worry where it stops, you should be concerned about actually getting started


LOL....true....I will get around to it...

Drift car is not as cheap to keep running as I thought and now there is (more) talk of trading in the R32 for an EVO X 

Is yours set up with the "race" settings?


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## GTRSTAR (Nov 26, 2009)

alloy said:


> However has anyone else experienced this lack of connection between driver input and car output? Apart from looking at the droplinks and ARBs are there any other suggestions as to how to perhaps crisp up the responsiveness of the GTR?


Good write up Alloy :thumbsup:

I've noticed the disconnection you speak of, The GTR is amazing on smooth open roads, phenomenal around the track, mainly due to the fact that to a great extent the GTRs handling actually depends on it's weight. That works fine in most situations but certain undulating twisty roads seem to catch it out, You can sharpen the car up no end by stiffening the arbs and suspension if you wish, however, I'm not sure if anything short of shedding 400 Kgs off the car will over come this problem, its one of the only drawbacks to the design, I guess you can't have it all


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