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NISSAN R90


up by a NISMO R89C sporting a different aero package developed by NISMO aerodynamicist, Yoshi Suzuka. There were also two regular, privately entered, factory-supported R89Cs and a Nissan engine installed in a Courage chassis.


After the end of Group C, variants of the Nissan VRH35Z engine, shown here in the R89C chassis, were used in subsequent Nissan LMP and GT projects and also formed the basis for the Infiniti Indy Racing League engine


accident, but the actual reason why the NME car was retired from the 1989 race was down to another design issue that I should have picked up on but missed. The front top wishbones were machined from solid aluminium billet, which made them very strong. I even remember looking at them and thinking they might be too strong but, in the rush to get everything ready in the gap between the races at Dijon and Le Mans, there wasn’t time to do anything about it, so I decided they would probably be okay. When Julian had his accident, if the top wishbone had been fabricated in tubular steel, it would have just bent and it could have been replaced as the car could have been driven back to the pits. But because the machined wishbone was so strong, it punched a mounting point out of the tub.’ Of the other Nissans in the


race, the NISMO car made it up to fourth place before its engine failed, while the NPTI car had reached fifth when it suffered a terminal oil leak. In seven starts in the 1989 WSPC, the NME R89C finished five times, with a season-high third place at Donington Park, UK, where the car raced for the first time on carbon-carbon brakes and with a six-speed version of the Hewland VGC gearbox. It also, notably, had the rear wheel doors


www.racecar-engineering.com • Le Mans


removed, as their benefit was primarily at Le Mans.


REVISED FOR 1990 For 1990, Scriven and the Lola design team produced a revised version of the car called the R90CK. ‘I would have liked to have built a new, smaller chassis, instead of the full-width chassis, but we had to stay with the 89 tub,’ recalls Scriven. ‘I designed a new casing for the VGC internals that incorporated the bellhousing too, so it was a very large casting, and I made the lower outer casing as smooth


pretty much a case of taking the high-downforce elements of the shorter track aero set up, such as the dive planes on the front bodywork, and fitting slightly different tunnels. ‘In 1989, the top speed at Le Mans was around 245mph, but in 1990 we were looking at 205mph, which could be achieved by the basic car in a near normal set up.’ NISMO again represented


Nissan at the opening round of the 1990 WSPC, where one of its R89Cs placed third. The R90CK made its debut in round two at Monza, Italy where, as it


“We had two configurations for the car – low drag for Le


Mans and high downforce for everywhere else”


as possible so it became the centre body of the tunnels. That eliminated the bodywork in that area and, because it was in the airstream, it also improved the cooling of the gearbox to the point where we could usually dispense with the oil cooler. We also tidied up the aero’. Whereas there was a special


low drag aero kit for Le Mans in 1989, for 1990, with chicanes newly installed on the long straight, we worked on a medium downforce package, which was


would throughout 1990, NME fielded two cars. One placed seventh while the other ran out of fuel three laps from the finish. Ironically, at Silverstone later that year one car suffered a suspension failure, while the other ran out of fuel. Fortunes improved at round


four at Spa, where one car placed third before Nissan made a supreme effort at Le Mans in 1990. Five R90CKs were entered – two each for NME and NPTI and a spare car – backed


BRUTE FORCE NME’s lead car set a sensational fastest time in qualifying when Mark Blundell, with more than 1100bhp under his right foot, wrestled his R90 round the track 6.5 seconds faster than the opposition, on a lap during which his car was clocked at 236mph before the braking point for the first of the new chicanes. ‘Something happened with the wastegate control on the previous lap,’ remembers Scriven. ‘It either failed completely or it had jammed and was allowing large amounts of boost. As Mark came towards the end of that lap the Nissan engineers were saying, “We must stop the car immediately,” whereas the team just told him to keep going. The engine held together for the next lap and Mark’s time was pretty amazing considering the changes to the track. It showed what sheer horsepower could achieve but, even with that much power available, the driver still has to put the lap together, and Mark did a superb job.’


As it had in 1989, NME posted


the first retirement at Le Mans in 1990, its second car stopping at the side of the track on the parade lap with a transmission failure. ‘There was a small drive gear on the mainshaft that meshed with a similar gear on the gearbox oil pump,’ explains Scriven. ‘On this one occasion, when the gear cluster was put back in after a clutch change, these two gears went tooth to tooth, and being relatively light, the one on the pump broke. This happened after the warm up, so there was no way of knowing that the oil pump wasn’t working before the cars went off on the parade lap. With no oil circulating, the pinion gear melted off the shaft, and that’s why the car failed before the start of the race. It really wasn’t the fault of the gearbox, just one of those really unlucky events that happen.’


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