By now, everyone is well aware that Nissan’s R35 GT-R is suck-yer-face-off fast and its 0-100km/h time of 3.5 seconds is up there with the best. The only problem for owners was that, to achieve this time, they needed to engage the car’s launch control function…  beaut, except that it had to the potential to void the warranty.

The resulting storm of controversy surrounding the use of launch control, questions over the strength of the GT-R’s gearbox and Nissan’s performance figures, has raged on for some time on news sites overseas, and here.

Fast forward to today and with the release of the MY2009 update GT-R (pictured above), Nissan has revised the parameters in the ECU - including the launch control function. Vehicle Dynamics Control is now left on during the launch control sequence and the result is ‘launches’ that won’t lunch the drive-train.

The big question was how this would affect the GT-R’s blistering 0-100km/h time. The good news, I am happy to report, is that the GT-R is now faster than ever.

On February 15 a Nissan test driver clocked a smoking 3.3 second 0-100km/h time in a standard 2009 model GT-R at the Tochigi plant test track.

It’s good news all round then, we’ve got a faster car, VDC can be left on which will hopefully avoid warranty issues, and the drive train is being treated with more respect.

We’re already looking forward to future revisions to the GT-R. You get a powerful sense with this car that it will only get better with age.

[Source: GTRBlog]