There’s
bound to be at least some people who don’t know about this
car so let’s get right down to it and explain why it’s
sitting on the cover of this month’s F&M. What you see
here is a car that annihilated all contenders from across the UK
and beyond in this year’s Ten Of The Best competition. It
wasn’t imported in a high state of tune, it didn’t come
with a boot full of top tuning accessories and it isn’t owned
by a company with deep pockets. What we’ve got here is a bone
fide self made legend, and at the controls is one of the most down
to earth owner/drivers you’ll ever meet. Let’s grab some statistics on the car to begin with. At its heart there lives a Nissan Skyline R32 GTR with a few modifications. When I say “a few” I’m of course being sarcastic. It’s not just a K&N and a cat back Peco sitting underneath, Keith has pretty much changed everything on the car in some way shape or form. It’s not just the engine that’s been fettled either with the interior being non existent and even the doors replaced with imported fibre glass, super lightweight versions. It would have been rude for us not to go and visit Keith up near Aberdeen so we packed up the gear and set off in our freshly painted big ass van. The glorious sunshine pelted down on us all the way up the A9, we were on a winner for sure! A quick call to Keith to see how he was doing and all was well. We got to Banchory and parked the van up at a service station waiting for Keith to arrive as he’d just left work and was on his way along. Then the weather changed, clouds appeared from nowhere and we started to worry. Keith arrived in his massive transporter and we followed him along the road to the shoot location. The clouds were ganging up on us and things weren’t looking the best. Getting the car out of the transporter wasn’t an easy task but thankfully Keith’s right hand man, Byron was at hand to help lower the Skyline to the ground. The moment we got it in position and took the first shots the rain started to thunder down on us! Typical.
Although a disaster it gave us the chance to talk to Keith about his car, the history and its future. Keith’s not a stranger to the Skyline brand; he’s owned a number of them over the years but nothing that’s quite in the same league as the R32 GTR. This one was bought only a few years ago from Japan but it was trouble from the off. The trader over there tried to screw Keith over by overcharging, adding on fees and promising the earth. That’s one reason Keith never bothered including his name on the car when it’s out competing. Bet the guy is kicking himself now!
This year has been the pinnacle 12 months for Mr Cowie and his car and he’s not finished yet! “I’m going for an 8 second car now and I think it’s very achievable, I just have to learn to get it off the line properly” he explained. “There’s a an Australian called Mario, he’s a multi millionaire and he’s running an 8.2 with loads of NOS, a 12,000rpm engine and turbo’s that could swallow mine whole. His terminal speeds at the end of the 1 / 4 mile are 164 and mine are around 160 without the gas”. On a relatively small budget (when compared to some of the larger tuning houses) Keith’s car is an amazing machine that has proved to be unbeatable in the UK and Europe. It’s not all down to the car though and Keith’s driving skill plays an equally large part in his successes. “A lot of folks think it’s just a case of revving it and dropping the clutch, but that’s just not the case” he told us. Nearly all the work on the car has been trial and error, it’s not as if there are loads of similarly spec’d Skyline down the road that he can go and have a poke around with. Finding the right parts for the car has been a tremendous learning curve but he’s had help from one of the most knowledgeable tuners in the country, namely Rod Bell of RB Motorsport. That is where all the engine work, testing and tuning has taken place over the years. One of the problem areas first encountered was with clutches barely lasting one outing. As you can imagine the clamping forces needed to put down over a thousand horses to the black stuff is something a little out there. Having murdered a load of clutches he decided to bite the bullet and fitted a 4 plate OS Giken clutch. It’s rated to over 1300bhp so should work well he thought. When the clutch was recently pulled out and examined it wasn’t even 3/4 bedded in yet! It just goes to show that the Giken stuff is worth its weight in gold. It’s even an easy driver on the road, “on a steep hill at say 1500rpm it’s no bother at all. Giken make a lot of parts for other manufactures that are rebadged, you’ll find their stuff under the brand names of Cusco and Tomei etc”.
To speed up gear changes Rod Bell has equipped the Skyline with the ability to flat change. There is a strain gauge fitted to the gear stick that activates when it senses 15 pounds or more of pressure. When this happens the system cuts the ignition for 30 milliseconds, which is just enough time for the gear change to taken place. All very clever stuff but Keith forgot all about it at TOTB this year and was doing his changes the old fashioned way – and he still won! Another area that Keith’s been busy with is in weight reduction, no he’s not been on the Atkins, the cars been the one that’s been loosing the pounds instead. The car came across from Japan weighing little over 1380kg but that was soon fixed when Keith removed everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. The doors were then replaced as I mentioned earlier and holes were drilled in the bumpers to remove even more weight.
You’d think that with such a high state of tune the car would be forever breaking down and requiring a lot of work. Surprisingly this is not the case with Keith’s Skyline. It’s probably due in large part to the expertise of Rod Bell and Keith’s own knowledge but bar a few mishaps it’s been plain sailing for the most part. Last year’s TOTB was probably the biggest fly in the ointment but Keith admits it was down to human error. “We pumped up the transfer split too much and that cost us dearly.” The engine itself seems to be bullet proof, after completing more than 3 hours of mapping at Bruntingthorpe then over 50 1/4 mile sprints the thing was stripped down and there wasn’t a mark on it, everything looked completely brand new. Rob spent 3 days going over the engine in minute detail and spent a day alone re-fitting the crank shaft. Building it too tight or too slack would have been disastrous so it had to be perfect then it was a case of 600 road miles to run everything in properly. As you know to compete in TOTB your car has to be road legal, that includes having an MOT, road tax and road worthy tyres. For the week running up to this years competition Keith drove his car around the countryside to Dundee and back which is a 100 mile round trip. This was perfect for running the engine in properly giving it lots of different driving. Fuel economy when pottering around is a very respectable 18mpg. A bit shit if you used it as the family runs but when you consider it’s an advanced 2.7 litre straight 6 you realise how good a figure it’s returning. Of course pressing the loud pedal results in the tank emptying at a rate of 5 and a half litres a minute!
Keeping that figure in your head you can understand why each event costs a small fortune to compete in. The fuel used by the Skyline isn’t Optimax with some octane booster, its proper race fuel rated at 106 octane and costing £235 for only 5 gallons of the stuff! “The fuel is the same stuff that the F1 cars used to run when they were turbocharged and we buy it from RT Race Fuels as we found their stuff is the best out there” Keith told us. The car runs fine on pump gas but the boost has to be kept at a minimum to fend off detonation. Adding to the cost of the fuel itself you’ve got the price of food and accommodation at events, entry fee’s and fuel money for the transporter. Keith reckons that £1000 is a low estimate for a single event and when you consider how many there are all over the country each year that’s a lot of money that has to be forked out so Keith is very grateful to his sponsors who help with the monetary burden and also to the company he works for as they are very easy going when it comes to taking days off throughout the month. “After Ten Of The Best a lot of race tracks and strips were demanding that I come along and compete as I was the champion. I asked how much they would pay me towards my costs as they’d be making money off me being there and they all took a big step back which was a bit unreal” Keith explained. So now that Keith is the undisputed champion on the drag strip there are hundreds of other racers out there all wanting to take the crown from him but the crazy Scotsman isn’t going to be sitting back resting on his laurels. He’ll be paying a few more visits to Rod Bell over the coming months and who knows what kind of monster we’ll see when it returns next season… RB
Motorsport:
Byron,
The Unsung Hero:
Engine Performance Transmission Suspension Brakes Wheels
& Tyres Exterior Interior Thanks |
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