World’s fastest time attack GT-R built in SLC

When Cole Powelson, founder of LYFE Motorsport, first started building his 2010 R35 Nissan GT-R he had one goal in mind, to build the fastest time attack GT-R in the world.

Building of the car started in April 2015 when Powelson tracked down an untouched GT-R that had never even been on a show room floor, but there was a catch. The car had been severely damaged by salt water while it was being shipped in a container during hurricane Sandy. The crew at LYFE Motorsport adopted the slogan #SalvageTitlesMatter.

After many days, weeks, and months of modification, along with a lot of research and development into making one-off parts to transform the GT-R into a full blown time attack racecar, the entire team at LYFE Motorsport was ready to get their creation onto a race track.

It made its debut in Sydney Australia in October of 2015, just months after they first started working on the car in Salt Lake City. The car ended up setting the fastest lap time at the event, and it showed that the entire team’s hard work had paid off.

They continued to test and tune the car throughout the 2016 season to get ready for Pikes Peak in June, which even after a wreck on the track, they were able to borrow parts from another team members personal GT-R and finish the race. But that wasn’t the biggest highlight of their season.

In August they faced off against industry giant HKS and their R35 GT-R in Fontana, California at one of the biggest time attack races in the world. The winner would be named the fastest time attack GT-R in the world, which was already held by HKS.

Lap after lap HKS and LYFE Motorsport both posted up blistering times and were neck and neck throughout. But tough times were about to hit the Salt Lake City based company and their car.

Near the end of the race the LYFE Motorsport GT-R had tire problems but no other spares to replace the ruined tires with. Luckily someone else in the racing community lent them tires so they could finish the race.

“The time attack community is awesome,” Powelson said. “We were able to find tires when we had none.”

They turned up the power on the car and hoped the tires would hold on until the race was over, and they ended up beating HKS by just more than three quarters of a second, and they were given the title of fastest GT-R in the world.

LYFE Motorsport’s GT-R is covered and full of custom made body and engine parts.

It has a full carbon fiber body that was built in house by LYFE Motorsport, and the intercooler and exhaust system is also one-off, that was built by them as well. The car utilizes a pair of Garrett GTX3076r turbochargers along with a pair of Turbosmart wastegates and blow-off valves that help the 4-liter stroked engine produce 1136 all-wheel horsepower.

The engine has a custom set of CP pistons and Carrillo connecting rods inside of a stock block as well as a set of Kelford camshafts to help handle all of the horsepower, along with a Motec fuel management system that is backed by triple walbro fuel pumps and a set of 2000cc injectors to supply all of the fuel.

The power is put to the ground with a very nice set of Ohlins TTX full-body coilovers and stopping power is provided by a much larger than stock set of Brembo brakes on all four corners.

Powelson plans to continue to push the limits of the car and make it faster in the seasons to come.