For most drag racers, traction can be the hardest part of the sport. It seems like All Wheel Drive would be a no-brainer for quarter-mile competition, but weight and complexity of sending massive power to all wheels have been a challenge until now. AMS Performance has been at the leading edge of pushing the AMS Nissan’s GT-R into uncharted territory. A decade of innovation has outgrown the original engine, so they engineered a new block, heads, and internals using the latest in CNC tooling. Last year in Detroit resulted in a 7.14 @ 212 mph.
Knocking at the door of a six-second pass is nothing short of amazing. And doing so reliably in a full frame street legal car requires many late nights and usually a fire extinguisher. Such was the case last weekend at the beginning of TX2K17. A small fire on the first shakedown pass evolved into an all-nighter, as they rebuilt the engine for another attempt. Usually, the first pass on a new engine is simply to get the drive line warmed up and verify a proper break-in. But since they are very confident in their own hardware, a full boost pass resulted in the quickest quarter-mile ever by an AWD car.
At first, the timing lights signaled a speed of 196 mph which is slower than before, but then it flashed an elapsed time of 6.93 seconds…. This is not a tube frame dragster with a fiberglass body. It may have sticky tires and a roll cage but it is a real Nissan GT-R. Only a handful of street legal cars are capable of going this fast, so our hats are off to the crew of AMS Performance for raising the bar. Stay with us for more updates from the race, and a preview of FL2K17 later this summer.
