The M30.
Tommy Kaira was already a renowned tuner in Japan since 1968, but in 1987 they made their first rebadged version of a tuned production car: the Tommy Kaira M19 (based upon a Mercedes 190). Starting from 1988 they changed focus and put themselves exclusively to modifying Japanese production cars, starting with the Tommy Kaira M30.
This car is often mistaken for the Infinity M30, which is actually a Nissan Leopard F31. The Tommy Kaira M30 was intially based upon the Skyline GTS-R R31 and later on based upon the Skyline GTS-t R32. This particular car is the R31 based M30. The car was tuned up to Tommy Kaira's specifications by lowering and stiffening up the suspension and swap the engine for a custom built RB30DE.
The engine was a work of art: they took out the RB20DE engine, removed the head and put it on top of a RB30E engine, and thus creating a RB30DE engine. Then the workshop increased the compression ratio, cams, port polish and all this raised the M30's power output from 159hp to 238hp! There were some limitations to this engine: the RB30E bottom is not as strong and refined as its lesser counterpars and created inbalance. This results in and engine that can't be revved over 7200rpm. On the other side it has massive amounts of torque.
Nowadays this trick is happily done by the Australians as well to upgrade their Australian built Skyline R31s (RB30E engines only) to a more decent power ouput. The only difference is that the Aussies do a much bolder job than Tommy Kaira: they swap over the newer RB25DET head to make it a more powerful turbo version of the M30 engine.
All other parts of the car remained the same as the factory spec GTS-R. This can be seen in the austere (or yet better: spartan) interior of the car. On the other hand: who needs luxury if you got one of the coolest Skylines ever?
Tommy Kaira was already a renowned tuner in Japan since 1968, but in 1987 they made their first rebadged version of a tuned production car: the Tommy Kaira M19 (based upon a Mercedes 190). Starting from 1988 they changed focus and put themselves exclusively to modifying Japanese production cars, starting with the Tommy Kaira M30.
This car is often mistaken for the Infinity M30, which is actually a Nissan Leopard F31. The Tommy Kaira M30 was intially based upon the Skyline GTS-R R31 and later on based upon the Skyline GTS-t R32. This particular car is the R31 based M30. The car was tuned up to Tommy Kaira's specifications by lowering and stiffening up the suspension and swap the engine for a custom built RB30DE.
The engine was a work of art: they took out the RB20DE engine, removed the head and put it on top of a RB30E engine, and thus creating a RB30DE engine. Then the workshop increased the compression ratio, cams, port polish and all this raised the M30's power output from 159hp to 238hp! There were some limitations to this engine: the RB30E bottom is not as strong and refined as its lesser counterpars and created inbalance. This results in and engine that can't be revved over 7200rpm. On the other side it has massive amounts of torque.
Nowadays this trick is happily done by the Australians as well to upgrade their Australian built Skyline R31s (RB30E engines only) to a more decent power ouput. The only difference is that the Aussies do a much bolder job than Tommy Kaira: they swap over the newer RB25DET head to make it a more powerful turbo version of the M30 engine.
All other parts of the car remained the same as the factory spec GTS-R. This can be seen in the austere (or yet better: spartan) interior of the car. On the other hand: who needs luxury if you got one of the coolest Skylines ever?
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Ax GTi Turbo
