How do you make a bold statement these days, especially when everything’s been said and done before? That’s something we ask ourselves everyday. But ask that very question to Nobuyuki Morita and you’ll get a different answer.
You see, at Street Special Garage Yawata, they’re all about that gateway drug to the motorsports world: drag racing. In their shop, there are countless customer cars waiting to be prepped for straight-line duty; even Morita-san’s personal project—a 500hp four-door R30 Skyline with a custom twin-turbo setup—is a beast we’d like to see finished later down the road, and that’s a story for another day. You need to know more about this R32 GT-R, a project that has seen its fair share of time attack racing, and while it can clock in a 57-second lap around Tsukuba Circuit, you’ll be surprised to discover that it can also nail a 9-second e.t. with ease. A GT-R that can do it all? Oh, do tell…
The early days of Garage Yawata were spent drag racing, and to this day, a big part of their customer base still love to blast down the 1320. The shop’s demo R32 started off this way back in 1993, built up to do the rounds at places like Sendai Hi Land. Over the years, it has run a variety of different configurations, always remaining street-registered, and achieving a best time of 9.3 seconds on street tires. With a shift in popularity moving over to time attack, Morita-san knew he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show what Garage Yawata was capable of. The idea was to make a statement by building a car that people would instantly identify with the shop. Doing this called for a complete strip down of the chassis to shave weight and to also stiffen the aging shell with a custom 7-point chromoly rollcage. To free up space for the intercooler, they relocated the radiator from the engine bay—but since the rear mounted radiators are a bit passé, he moved it inside, right on the passenger side and a special shroud seals it up, protecting the massive twin intakes cut out into the doors.
Like we said before, function is an important factor when Garage Yawata builds any car, and with this GT-R, the statement comes into full play. We’ve seen cars like the Autech Tsukada GT-R run the radiator in its trunk, and the Auto Gallery Yokohama BNR32 use the passenger door as an exit for the exhaust and wastegate dump pipe but nobody has ever placed a radiator right next to the driver! The front bumper with its gaping intakes and oversized metal canards lead way to the widened front fenders; its side skirts a nice contrast in black. Bronze 18-inch TE37s are the wheel of choice and run sticky Hankook Ventus TD semi-slick tires. A car like this would be far from complete without a striking paint scheme, achieved here by a pearl red highlighted with plenty of flake.
Boost is something Morita-san likes, and lots of it—so does the RB26DETT. In order to generate 1000hp, he bolted on a big T88 turbo from Trust. But before it could be pushed to 2.5-bar of boost, the engine had to be rebuilt—a N1 Nür-spec block was sourced, then outfitted with forged Garage Yawata pistons, Tomei connecting rods and a balanced billet crank, upping displacement to almost 2.8L. Tomei parts were also used to build the cylinder head, like larger valves, upgraded valve springs, retainers, lifters and also more aggressive camshaft profiles. With the radiator out of the way, the extra space allowed Morita-san to place the intercooler closer to the engine, which actually helps improve throttle response since there’s less piping involved. To help give an extra kick at either the dragstrip or a long straight on a road course, a 100-shot of nitrous is on deck. The drivetrain had to be upgraded with all these power adders onboard, so a HKS triple-plate clutch was installed into a sequential OS Giken transmission to distribute it properly to the wheels.
For handling, custom-valved dampers were built in-house for the GT-R, allowing the almighty power of the RB26 to be deployed efficiently, especially as it travels under full acceleration to the finish line. With single-digit time slips realized, the brakes had to be changed, and Endless was called upon for larger 6-pot front and 4-pot rear calipers.






With roots that run deep in drag racing, it’s obvious to us that the Garage Yawata GT-R is a very unique car. It’s enough to make us want to find a stoplight battle of our own (but please, we encourage you to find a local and legit method instead) and light those tires up. They filled us in on a little personal mantra of theirs: style is dictated by function. It’s a bold statement if you ask us, and one that Garage Yawata can call their own.