Whitney Edmister is a GT-R owner and racer. Not only does he drive this 2009 GT-R on the street, but he is racing it in the Redline Time Attack in the Modified Class. Whitney’s car is a great example of what the dedicated enthusiast can do with a well-prepared machine and a COBB Tuning AccessPORT!

When I started to upgrade my 2009 GTR for the track, I started out with the wheels, tires, and brakes. After just three track days on the stock tires, I had nearly worn them out. We wanted to have a second set of lighter wheels and tires for the track, and keep the stock tires on the stock rims for street use only. We upgraded the brakes with Carbotec pads, AP racing rotors, Stillen stainless brake lines, and Motul racing brake fluid. This completely eliminated brake fade and allowed crisp, hard braking, even toward the end of a 30-minute track session with rotors at 550F. All of our upgrades were installed by Palladin Advanced Automotive in Las Vegas.

The first suspension upgrade we did was to install the Cobb antisway bars. This allowed us to reduce the roll in the rear and eliminate the stock understeer. There’s nothing more frustrating than driving hard into a corner, braking hard, turning the wheel, and the car keeps going straight ahead, pushing wide through the corner! Now with slight oversteer, the front end carves right around, and the rear end follows. The reduced body roll and negative camber keeps the outside tires in contact with the pavement through the turn. Adding the JRZ RSpro suspension and lowering the car slightly gave us the stability and control we needed to drive the car to the limit.

We wanted to improve engine performance as well, but didn’t want to spend a lot of money upgrading the engine and tuning. First we freed up the exhaust with the HKS Legamax midpipe and catback exhaust. It’s a stainless system with titanium tips that is lightweight, high flow, and looks and sounds great. This took the exhaust from nearly silent to a beautiful, deep note. Next we installed the COBB Tuning AccessPORT and flashed ECU with the 91 octane, Stage 2 map. Immediately we noticed improved torque, acceleration, and boost, and a dramatic improvement in lap times. Next we upgraded to the 100 octane, Stage 2 map with 100 octane racing fuel. We were amazed that this second upgrade gave us another performance boost that felt just as significant as the first. Just installing the AccessPORT with or without a high-flow exhaust is the most cost-effective performance upgrade you can make to the GTR. According to COBB, we should be making 550hp with our configuration, but have not put the car on the dyno yet.

In Las Vegas, we ran the GT-R in the Modified class of the Redline Time Attack and was highly competitive despite just our few targeted upgrades. The car felt perfectly balanced with terrific acceleration and braking. When braking into the corner, the rear end felt light and the car turned in easily. The rear end came right around with slight oversteer. Once I was confident of hitting the apexes properly, I added a little throttle shifted Lose Weight Exercise to the rear, locking the car down, followed by hard acceleration through the apex into the next straight. At the end of the front and back straights, we were hitting speeds up to 135 mph. The track was highly techinical with hairpins, carousel turns, and even a chicane, but the GTR carved up the 2.4 mile road course. Our lap times continued to improve through the two days, with our best lap time of 1:50.0. It was a great weekend to race such a fast and capable car.