Forged Performance: One Lap of America 2012 Preview

ChadB@Forged

In the words of Sharif:

We are excited to give the community an update on our 2012 program for One Lap Of America. It’s hard to believe that another year has flashed into the history books but here we are just a few short days away from the start of this storied event. And storied it will be, as the 2012 OLOA event is shaping up to be the most competitive in history. The history of OLOA dates back to early 1970’s and was the brain child of then Car and Driver Senior Editor Brock Yates. What started as the no-holds-barred “Cannonball Run” has evolved into the modern day One Lap of America event where competitors are tasked with traversing the country driving from track to track and competing in Time Trial style events with a sprinkle of skid pad, autocross, and 1/4 mile Drag Racing. The rules are simple: Two Drivers, One set of STREET Tires, No Trailers or support.

As many of you know, Forged Performance has been on the leading edge of motorsports and track day GT-R preparation dating back to 2008 when the GT-R hit US shores. Over the year’s we’ve prepared countless GT-R for both full race and dual purpose track day use setting many records along the way, and we were truly honored when client and friend Catesby Jones chose us as his race shop. Catesby no rookie when it comes to racing and high performance driving having raced for decades. He has extremely high standards and expectations for his street and race cars, and we intend to exceed those expectations. In 2010, Catesby finished in 2nd place overall with Top Speed Motorsports narrowly taking the overall win in their Porsche GT2. In 2011, a pesky coupler issue resulted in the car finishing outside the top group but the car was an animal, and still on stock turbos. In the end, competition makes us all stronger and this rare mistep on my my part only sharped my resolve for 2012. I personally felt like I let Catesby down and I will never let that happen again. So in the off-season we formulated a plan to field a car, and a TEAM effort to produce a car that could compete against all comers while being supremely reliable. In August, the car was shipped back to Forged Performance headquarters and a complete post-mortum was conducted and a full surgical grade technicial analysis. We documented everything and began formulating the overall strategy for the car. For starters, we overhauled the suspension, alignment, aero, and I re-calibrated the engine for a more linear throttle and power response.

So just how good was the car after this fine tuning session? Prior to inviting Catesby down to test the car, I performed some preliminary track testing at Road Atlanta and the car was vastly improved dare I say nearly perfect? 1:32’s with a damp track and traffic means we were heading in the right direction with our data analysis predicting a theoretical best lap of 1:31. Oh, and I forgot to mention we were on wastegate pressure (13psi) and stock turbos. Shortly after that, Catesby flew down to test the car himself at Road Atlanta and came to the same conclusion and ironically virtually the same laptime: the car was absolutely flawless, precise, fast and razor sharp in it’s handling.

Fast forward to just a month ago, when Catesby and I were chit chatting about the car, and the upcoming race. So there we were, with the event just 5 weeks away and with a setup that was nearly perfect and certainly capable of another podium finish. So what do two highly experienced and very competitive racing drivers do when they have a perfect car with 5 weeks to go before the race…we decided to change everything!

With our key competitor holding a 150whp advantage over us with their upgraded turbos, we decided to level the playing field in the power department. With everyone at Forged Performance sworn to secrecy, we immediately stripped the GT-R of it’s drivetrain: engine out, trans out done. We operated under the thinly veiled disguise of “preventative maintenance” since it’s pretty hard to hide the fact that the transmission and engine were suspiciously absent from Catesby’s very well known GT-R. Fortunately, we had a couple of our FP1R Racing 3.8L Shortblocks on the shelf, along with an assorted of Dodson transmission goodies in our transmission assembly room and our 40lb/min FP800 Turbo Upgrade kit. As many of you know, we are one of the few tuning shops in the country that does all of it’s engine AND transmission assembly in-house. Because of this, we had Catesby’s transmission completely overhauled with a Dodson 1st gear Upgrade, clutches, and all the supporting mods in a little over a day. Engine, trans, turbo, tuning all done in a bit over a week thanks to some seriously long hours and the maniacal attention to detail of Greg@Forged and Daniel@Forged…two of our brightest technicians and fabricators.

While the drivetrain was out, we also took the opportunity to freshen up our well used JRZ RSPro’s, and installed our latest aero pieces. Aeromotions helped by supplying us with their new 6 inch “grande” splitter…it’s very proud. And to improve downforce in the rear, mad-scientiest fabricator Daniel@Forged worked two long nights relocating the wing, and buiding an “experimental” sheet-metal trunk spoiler which greatly improves the downforce capability of the fully active Aeromotions wing. AA and MIT Graduate Gregory Mark are our secret weapon and one of the key reasons this GT-R saw 188mph on the back straight at Daytona last year with STOCK turbos. Lots of downforce when you need it, and minimal drag on the straights…who could ask for more?

After dyno engine break-in and tuning completed on our Dyno Dynamics dyno Catesby flew in for a final test and inspection. We conducted another round of testing last weekend. Catesby and I took turns beating the crap out of the new setup attempting to break and upset the new components. Despite our best efforts at breaking or overheating something, the car performed flawlessly as before, but with far more power exactly where the driver needed it. Although we can’t reveal our lap times, let’s just say we were tantalizing close to the numbers we set with our fully race prepared Time Attack car on full racing slicks a couple years ago. This was also the first official track test of the two newest Forged Performance produced parts: Our 2.5 inch Turbo Inlets, and the FP 3.0 Inch Intake Kit both of which are produced 100% in-house at FORGED2 from USA sourced raw materials. Look for press releases and details on those items after I return from OLOA.

Forgive me in advance, but we won’t be able to discuss power levels, suspension settings and so on, until after OLOA as our competitors are certainly watching. And our hopes are that you’ll follow our progress as the event kicks off on Friday at Tire Rack’s HQ in South Bend, IN with registration and the drivers meeting.

I wanted to thank a few key members of the Forged team that put in some very long hours, and plenty of their own personal time to build our best track/street GT-R to date. Greg, Daniel, Chris, Rob…you guys kicked butt put in the long hours to make this happen without even one hickup along the way. Bravo!

And of course, our sponsors that provided parts, technical support, and sometimes moral support!

Nissan Motorsports: Where do I begin….we wouldn’t be the company we are without their support over the years. A million thank you’s!
Cobb Tuning: 006 AccessPort with our own custom Road Course calibrated SD tuning
JRZ Suspension: RSPro’s….every Forged track GT-R rides on these and the results are uniformly awesome
Stillen: AP Racing J-Hook Rotors
Carbotech: XP12 Brake Pads
Aeromotions: Active Aero , Splitter and engineering support
HRE Wheels: Our 20 inch custom offset wheels wrapped in 315 section tires
WagonWerks: Best custom paint work in metro Atlanta..the car looks better than new!

We have a dozen small tweaks and touches to put on the car before heading out Thurs, but Catesby and I are looking forward to a week filled with fun, comradery, and high performance driving that is One Lap of America. Let the games begin!

PS: I will be live blogging and photo/video posting along the way, so check the Forged Performance Blog for live updates!







Spy shot..haha...wish I had Chad with me.

SPOHN

Nice write up and build guys. Best of luck to Catesby.

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