I’ve always loved seeing OEM wheels on cars they didn’t come on – especially on cars from another manufacturer. When it comes to OEM wheel swaps, nothing is more popular than stock Skyline GT-R rollers, which offer forged construction, aggressive sizes, and good design. In this case we see a set of R34 GT-R factory wheels (18×9 +30) mounted on a GDB Subaru Impreza sedan.

There was actually a replica of the R34 wheels made called the Grenade GX01, but these appear to be the real thing.

By Mike Garrett

Twin charging is a new way to gain ultimate boost and less turbo lag. The following video illustrates one of the hottest GT-R’s from Japan with a twin turbo, twin supercharged setup. Ability to boost lag free with an awesome low and top end, twin charging is the ultimate in forced induction setups. Learn more about how this twin charging system works at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

Here is one nice ride I spotted last month when covering the D1-GP final in Fuji Speedway. This extremely low BNR32 belongs to Ryusuke Kawasaki, the editor of Drift Tengoku (Drift Heaven) Magazine, the only publication you will ever need to read if you are into sliding around in cars! Doriten (the nick name of the mag) first came out back in 1996. It was bundled along with an issue of Option, and it kind of stayed like that until 1999 when it was finally launched as a proper separate publication. Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Dino Dalle Carbonare

I figured it was time for some import tuner love in this week’s eBay Motors Showdown. The Veilside RX-7 is a magazine quality FD with $50k in mods according to the seller. And the Hakosuka Clone looks sweet and has lots of authentic JDM touches. Oh, and both of these rides are John Naderi approved. So, which would you choose?

GT-RR’s third signature build has come to a close over the weekend. This car was conceptualized to do only one thing, to make our client “R” as proud of a GT-R owner as possible. Unlike our previous two GT-R signature builds which aimed to be essentially all things to all people (show cars, magazine cover cars, track cars AND to please our clients), this car is a focused and direct ode to “R” and his desire to own his dream GT-R.

As such, I can say already (without hearing any feedback from anyone else) that this project was a success because “R” was happy! As “R” called it “perfect” and “10 out of 10″, I let out a sigh of relief that months of planning and building this car resulted in the very success I envisioned for it. Continue reading at The Real JDM

Via Jalopnik

Looking back, we still feel so grateful that last year we were given the chance by two of our clients to build them award winning GT-Rs for last SEMA. One of the biggest rewards of those projects has been the trust placed in us to take on new projects for new clients. This is one of those new projects, and I’m, as always, very excited about it!

Taking advantage of our strong partner network, our client “R” asked us to build him his own version of an ultimate GT-R and to do so on the East Coast of the US. We have been fortunate over the years to have built up an incredible partnership with who we feel are some of the best tuning shops, body shops and partners the industry has to offer and this project was a chance for us to put our partner network into action with a full build!

Recently I bought a brand new GT-R 2010 Premium Edition on behalf of “R” to begin the build. The goal was to buy and build a complete car to be delivered to our client “R” upon completion. You can see the stock 2010 GT-R pictured below. I snapped that picture about 10 days ago, last time I was in New York managing the build. Continue reading at The Real JDM

I’m a bit worried about SEMA this year. It seems like most of the good companies have pulled out of the show for financial reasons. Usually trade shows are some of the worst hit by the recession and this year SEMA looks ultra depressing.

I’m left with all of the really cool ideas/concepts of cars I want to make, but no booths to put them in. I really hope SEMA wont be as dissapointing as I’m afraid it will be.

As most of you already know, I built Toyo’s SEMA booth and ad cars two years in a row and now there’s no Toyo booth at all this year…

I think I might need to go one better this year and build a car for Tokyo Auto Salon instead of SEMA. I always wanted to build a car to compete on JDM home turf. That would be a really fun challenge. Plus I always wanted to run Tsukuba…hmm, now I’m dreaming up something worth while.

Is there any actually good news about SEMA this year? Anyone?

Thinking back on this summer’s epic All Star Bash weekend, I’ve begun to come to the conclusion that it just might have been the best American grassroots drifting event that I’ve ever been to in my whole life. Now THAT is a pretty strong statement – especially when you’ve been to as many grassroots drifting events in different states as I have. Of course, one of the things that naturally attracts me to the All Star Bash is the presence of some pretty awesome cars, most of which are S13s and S14s.

However, there was a certain non S-chassis that caught my attention – it was a white R32 Nissan Skyline with license plates from Washington state. It wasn’t until the end of the last day of All Star Bash that I met the owner of this car – Jon Jaffe from Washington’s own Team Instant Party. When we spoke at Willow Springs, it was hot, so I just gave him props on his car and a couple stickers, and went on my way.

Fast forward about a month – on my way back from the Formula D Seattle trip, BN Sports Raymond and I found ourselves chillin out in Bothell, Washington with Instant Party driver Roland Gallagher and his dad. On the day I was supposed to return to Los Angeles, I asked Raymond if we could stop by Roland’s house on the way to the airport so I could check out his car really quick and say what’s up. Shortly after we arrived at Roland’s house, Jon took a break from his workday to come over and say hello. Perfect timing. I wanted to get a closer look at his Skyline anyway! Continue reading and view more photos at MotorMavens!

We recently picked up a brand new black on black 2010 GT-R to build which is in progress out here on the east coast (more on that in a couple of weeks), and we’re finishing up our white GT-R build which is well known as the GT-RR / Toyo Tires car.

First off, just as planned early on, the white GT-RR demo car is designed to be a street driven and usable car. That is a general requirement for most of our builds, for good reasons since usability is a key component of a good build. As the car is wrapping up, we last installed the Top Secret cup kit in Los Angeles to give the car 3″ extra ground clearance at the push of a button. Then the car was sent back to New Jersey to finish things up with our partners out there. Recently the wild MS-R graphics were stripped off of the car to let it fly a bit more under the radar when blasting down the streets of the dirty Jerz.

What I have intentionally not been talking about for the past few months are the secret power modifications we’ve been doing to the car. Some things I feel should just not be talked about until results are proven.

So here we are, about to prove some results we’ve been working hard to achieve. The dyno video was from yesterday and I think we are very close to breaking the horsepower record for a street legal R35 GT-R on pump gas (with cats and stock engine internals).

What you are listening to on the video above is a tuning session, running on pump gas with catalytic converters installed. That exhaust system is full Amuse titanium and I’m just loving the way it sounds under full throttle! I’ve been used to just cruising it on the streets and it has been very quiet, but in this video the quietness of the exhaust is gone when under WOT! Hope you enjoy the video.

Anyone care to confirm the highest hp #s for a GT-R on street gas with cats installed? If so please let me know the hp and the dyno used (I’m looking for unadjusted numbers for fair comparison). I’d like for my next time posting to be a confirmation that we have the record for max hp in a streetable/catted GT-R since that’s been our hopes for this project.

More info on the dyno #s of our project will be coming…and if/when we are satisfied with the dyno #s and results. Then, at that point I’ll also finally announce the new parts we’ve developed and those parts will be available immediately.

Our goals for this build are just about to become realized…this project was never meant to just be a show car, this was meant to be the ultimate R35 GT-R in the world for a moment in time (and then afterwards to be enjoyed as a daily driver for many years to come).

PS – Shouts to Ernie Manasala from NOS Energy Drinks who was there yesterday to witness this beast in action. Shouts also (and especially) to Anthony, the owner of the car who is probably the proudest man in the world right now.