Nissan LEAF NISMO RC Shakedown

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astrorob

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 21, 2011
Messages
192
the camera angles here are not the greatest... but the sound is sure cool. unfortunately there's a 30s ad on the front of the clip.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/14662606/highlight/176151
 
here is a much, much better video, with no ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LifOs6WG3MY
 
A new review from TTAC, with an onboard cam video.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/11/capsule-review-nissan-leaf-nismo-rc/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
This car reminds me of a really nice exotic kit car with a VW motor. Why not do better on the drive, they certainly could! It likely does not suffer from the artificial harsh throttle restriction imparted on the LEAF from a stop. Imagine a Nissan Z race car ICE with a stock motor at the track. :lol:
 
that carbon fiber dash does not look very soft either, and I bet the ride is very harsh.. I would not accept one of those as a gift.. no Sir!
 
I absolutely love the Nismo Leaf RC. It's a fabulous showcase of the current EV technology and what it's capable of when taken to the limits. It definitely shows the direction that Nissan is looking at when it comes to some of their future EV plans. That said, it's a good thing that they are keeping some of the performance numbers under wraps and also limiting the comparison of it to a racing series (the March Cup) that they own as well. As good as the Nismo Leaf RC is, it would get it's clock cleaned if it ever went up against an equivalent ICE car (even some K-cars) that was purposely custom built for track use by the performance tuning division of a major automotive company (i.e.: Mazda's Speed, Toyota's TRD) or manufacturer associated tuning shops (i.e.: Prodrive, Mugen). Ultimately the only thing the general public understands is how one car performs against another when it comes to racing, regardless of what it runs on.

A brilliant start by Nissan. I hope in maybe 2 iterations from now something will come from Nismo that will make the rest of the world stand up and take notice to EVs as far as performance.
 
Fully Charged takes a soggy ride - jump to 6 minutes in:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY9GsYGDj8w[/youtube]
 
AndyH said:
Fully Charged takes a soggy ride - jump to 6 minutes in:

Do we know what the RC's are in England for? Racing series or R&D? I sit up when Nissan's electric sports cars are in the land of Lotus.
 
The nismo looks sharp. Nissan would be wise to crank up the sportiness of the production Leaf when they start producing the Leaf in the good old USA. Flatten the headlights and bumpers. Add options for an upgraded power train, more hp and more battery capacity.

Sporty 4 door nismo leafs will sell like hotcakes. I'll upgrade to the Nismo Leaf or the Infiniti g35 EV, or the Tesla Model S if Nissan waits to long.

For now I'm more than happy with my Leaf but we need everyone in the country to drool on themselves and stare with envy when EV's drive by so everyone will want to buy one. I know Nissan can make gorgeous and sporty cars. I fell in love with a Nissan Z I parked by today but I told myself that I could never have it because it is not electric.
 
mwalsh said:
"Down into second, clip the apex...." Oh, wait.....no snappy gearchanges. :lol:

Interesting foresight. Because I got to hoon the Nissan LEAF Nismo RC this last weekend, and the snappy gearchanges are one of the two things it turns out that I really missed.

Friday found me at the Nissan 360 event in El Toro, CA with the primary (well, frankly, ONLY real) objective of trying this car once and for all for myself. After the obligatory sales pitches from various Nissan executives I quickly headed to the Performance Track determined to be one of the first to drive, before the masses found their way there. Turns out that I really didn't have to worry - the majority of the Chinese journos in this wave seemed to be far more interested in the street vehicles. Between myself and a handful of hardcore autocross enthusiasts, we pretty much had the track to ourselves for the whole day! I got so much time in each of the manual 370s, I re-injured a sprained ankle with about a month of healing on it. But the pain today was worth the thrills then!

Before I get to the car, let me go over the track. It was a .7 of a mile, predominantly 2nd gear course (though you could go to 3rd on the starting straightaway, if you felt like it). The diagram below is pretty true to how the course was laid out, with a major exception - where the starting straight goes into a chicane with a right-hand entry, the actual course had a more difficult left-hand entry, which appeared to have been designed to slow you down quite a bit more than the right-hander would have done.

So how was the Nismo RC to drive? Well, if I'm being honest, it was a little bit disconcerting. While plenty fast, there wasn't any engine braking, as you might expect. But there wasn't any regenerative braking either. And to get the amount of mechanical braking you needed you really had to stand on the brakes, quite a bit more than I would've thought in a race-car. So I found myself being quite tentative into the corners for want of trashing Nissan's valuable car. Ashley Oldfield, winner of the Nissan GT Academy competition and my co-pilot for the day, was kind enough to blame it on my shoes, telling me that I couldn't hope to get the right kind of feeling in a street shoe and that I was doing better with each run. But the bottom line is that I actually had much more fun with the Nissan 370Zs they had available. It turns out that, on a second gear course, there really is no substitute for a car that actually has a second gear (and engine braking)!

Nissan posted some video of Toshiyuki Shiga taking the car out. So I'll let it demo how the course ran for now, while I see if there is any better footage out there. You'll see that first left-hander at around 1:16 in the video. In the Nismo RC, you needed to be off the throttle and on the brakes between the "3" and "2". In any of the manual 370s, you could blip the brakes and change down from 3rd to 2nd, letting engine braking get you the same result. If I'm being honest...that was a lot more satisfying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa12cG5BSmA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 

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Here's some in-car footage of the 360 course from a Nismo 370Z. This guy stays in 3rd all the way through the first chicane and then goes down to second going into the sweeping left-hand corner. I wouldn't have done that:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd3S1WZT3Bw[/youtube]

And the same view from the Nismo RC:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7aNfl6_BMo[/youtube]
 
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