Having posted a few R35 GT-R features so far I thought it would be interesting to see how the most affordable supercar on the planet is actually put together. It's not often that manufacturers let you wander around their production lines, but Nissan has nothing to hide and gave us an in depth tour of how a car of this caliber comes together.
It all begins at the Yokohama plant, where the mighty VR38DETT is put together. The GT-R's engine couldn't have been assembled in a better place as this is where the RB26 and S20 engines of the two previous generations of GT-Rs were made. Away from the automated production lines where the MR motors are built, destined for use on smaller Nissan and Renault vehicles, is a separate climate and humidity controlled room. This is where a team of takumi or "specialist" skilled workers create the most powerful production car engine Nissan has ever built.
As soon as the prepped VR38 engine block enters the clean room it is placed on a rig and a single technician takes care of building it from start to finish, as he moves around the various areas of the room where different build steps are carried out. It reminded me more of an F1 workshop than a run of the mill car factory, perfectly exemplifying how much Nissan have put into the GT-R project. It takes about 200 minutes to built one engine and at the time of the visit production was set at 27 units per day. With the GT-R now on sale in Europe there is a good chance engine production may have increased to meet demand.
Here is a technician showing us the aluminum intake plenum, a part that has been carefully designed to provide a balanced flow of air to each of the VR38's six cylinders.
Once each engine is produced it is placed on a bench dynamometer where a series of power and torque checks are carried out. At the same time each engine is put through a brake-in cycle which lasts 60 minutes, something that needs to be done to guarantee it will perform as it should straight out of the box. From the Yokohama plant the engines are packaged and sent to one of Nissan's biggest plants up in Tochigi-ken, which is precisely where we headed next!
Like the engine, the Borg and Warner GR6 dual clutch transmission, arrives already built to the Tochigi plant. It is all one piece with the rear differential housing, while on the opposite side you can see where the two propeller shafts will be connected to.
Both the front and rear subframes assemblies are build off the car on special rigs. Here you can see the rear being put together along with the gearbox, suspension arms, hubs and brakes.
Once everything is put together the front and rear suspension is laser-aligned and then lifted from the rig and brought to the production line to be fitted to the car.
发表于 2009-7-30 03:09
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