Parts needed for Comp. Z Gearbox

[jmark]

Member Gira is looking for the following parts for his competition gearbox for his EP 240Z. Car is the SE Division Champ and bound for the Runoffs.

Syncro Sleeve 32606 14600

Shift Fork 32805 E9500

Anyone have these or know where they can be purchased?

http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=16773&cat=500&page=1

Thanks!

[jmark]

Anyone know where these parts can be found?

[jmortensen]

Uh, I MIGHT be able to help you out. 1st suggestion is Nissan Comp should have them or be able to get them for big $$$.

If your friend is feeling adventurous, have him take the parts to a Porsche shop and compare those pieces to the equivalent older 911 Porsche "915" transmission pieces. Readily available and I am 99.99999% that the synchro rings work. Never really looked into the other pieces, but I'd figure if the rings are the same the rest are the same too. When you say synchro sleeve, I assume you mean the toothed ring that slides over the synchro, not the synchro itself.

I know this sounds like a half-baked idea, but take it seriously. I'll lay out the whole Porsche transmission Datsun transmission history for you. This is cut and pasted from an email I sent to someone else not more than 2 weeks ago:

Here's the ENTIRE story: I had a couple roadster boxes with no cases that both had a bad synchro and both needed bearings and I was working as a Porsche mechanic at the time. I told my boss about it and he said bring it in, because he wanted to see what the steel synchros looked like.

I brought both transmissions into the shop and we did synchros enough that he had one from an older 911 laying around (its been years now, but I believe the transmission was called a "915" if I remember correctly). We compared the synchros and they were very nearly identical. The gap in the ring was about 2mm different, but the OD and ID and the width of the synchro itself was the same. My boss, who has been a Porsche mechanic for 25 years, was absolutely sure that the Porsche synchro would go in and function with no problems whatsoever. In fact he was sure that it was a Porsche synchro. So I called Nissan Comp and asked them if it would work. The guy I talked would only say: "The synchros carry the Porsche patent" and would not say anything more. I was now convinced that they were the same.

You can buy the synchro rings from Porsche and I seem to recall they run $100 each or something like that. There are also aftermarket synchro rings which my old boss would not use in his customers' cars. They ran $15 each at jobber cost. The guy at the parts place kept trying to convince my boss to use them. "We've never had a complaint" and "I've used them in my car" were his arguments, but my boss wouldn't do it. The aftermarket ones do look a bit different than the Porsche ones. The aftermarket ones are more of a cone shape, and the Porsche ones are beveled on both sides.

I was just trying to come up with some cash to rebuild the close ratio roadster box when Larry Butler and I went to a track day. He was at a serious disadvantage because he had the wide ratio early Z box in his 510, and instead of being fun to run around the track with him, it was kind of sad. We were neck and neck until he grabbed 3rd on the straight away then I'd drop him. I owed him anyway, so I gave him the roadster transmissions and told him about the synchros. Instead of buying new synchros he used some good synchros from both boxes and so he never did try the Porsche synchros.

This has been an ongoing argument for me for years, and what it always boils down to is people end up asking me "Did you actually run these synchros in a Datsun transmission?" and the answer is NO. But don't trust me, trust my ex-boss who has worked on these things for 25 years. Trust Nissan Comp. I was rehashing this argument with Dennis Hale and Larry recently and Dennis said that Don Potter used to use Porsche synchros when he rebuilt the Datsun boxes too. It will work, I am SURE of that.

So bottom line is if you do this please let me know, give me part numbers, etc. I know it will work but I'm tired of people I know going to go buy a gear cluster from Nissan because I never tried the Porsche synchro myself. I've also given this advice to people on the IZCC list, Hybridz, and West Coast Z Racers and to my knowledge no one has ever actually used the Porsche synchros yet. People are afraid of them for some weird reason.

Jon Mortensen

PS. USE SWEPCO 201 IN YOUR TRANSMISSION AFTER YOUR REBUILD. My boss believed in this stuff so much that if you came into the shop as a new customer and had redline or some other gear oil in the transaxle he'd drain it and put this in whether you asked for it or not. We used it in all of our racing customers' cars, and the boss used it in his own race 911:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/shopcart/CARE/POR_CARE_swepco_pg2.htm

This guy ended up sending his mechanic (who coincidentally is the same Larry Butler) to go and look at the synchros. Larry told me he thinks that they would work, but then they found out that the synchro through Nissan was only $55 so he bought the synchro direct from Nissan.

I've seen both parts right next to each other. The synchro assembly and the gear selector ring looks pretty well identical to me. The fork I can't speak to because I wasn't focused on it, but if you're going to use a Porsche synchro and selector, seems kinda obvious that you'd use the Porsche fork as well.

[jmark]

Thanks. I forwarded this to Greg. He will be looking into it.

[jmortensen]

No problem. It'd be really cool if it worked out, and then he won at the Runoffs...

[jmark]

I hope so Jon. I'll be there to get some pics of Greg's EP race.