Stainless Rear Plate Between Engine and Transmission

[Captain Obvious]

As a recent project, I had a new rear plate made for between the engine and the transmission. It's laser cut out of 304 stainless, and it turned out fantastic! Just the thing for bling! Since I'm putting it on a 280, I modeled it after the later version with the triangular shaped hole instead of the earlier 240 version with the round hole in the middle.

The parts fische says the manual trans 240s used P/N 30411-E3000, while everything after that used P/N 30411-A8600. Also note that the 240 version was superseded by the 280 version, so according to that documentation, they are interchangeable.

Here's the new shiny stainless bling plate next to the original with the failing plating:

Mounted on the back of the motor:

Pic of the front of the transmission to see where the holes are:

And here's the plate up against the tranny face. Just hanging in place with bolts and drill bits:

Any interest in having more of these made and offering for sale?

[Dave WM]

Very nice!

[crayZlair]

Any weight difference between the new and the old? Just curious.

Edited October 30, 2020 by crayZlair
puncuation

[Patcon]

Yes.

[Captain Obvious]

9 hours ago, crayZlair said:

Any weight difference between the new and the old? Just curious.

Hmmm. As simple as the question seems, I'm not sure what you're asking.

Are you asking "Is there a weight difference between my new stainless piece and the old triangular holed carbon steel piece? If so, then (ignoring miniscule differences in density between stainless steel and carbon steel) the answer is "No, they are the same."

But if you are asking "Is there a weight difference between my new stainless piece and the older 240 version with the round hole?", then the answer is "Yes, mine is lighter because the hole is larger."

Here's a pic of a rusted up older 240 design with the round hole in the middle:

[crayZlair]

5 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

Hmmm. As simple as the question seems, I'm not sure what you're asking.

Are you asking "Is there a weight difference between my new stainless piece and the old triangular holed carbon steel piece? If so, then (ignoring miniscule differences in density between stainless steel and carbon steel) the answer is "No, they are the same."

 

 

Assuming that the steel is the same gauge (thickness).............................

[Captain Obvious]

At that level of detail, my stainless plate is (nominally) four thousandths  (.004 in) thinner than the plated original. So I guess it's a performance increase too. Not sure how much weight difference that would result in, however.   

[Racer X]

Nice work Captain. 

Way back in 1989, I made one out of aluminium for the race Z. I did it as part of the diet to get the overall weight of the car down. Don't recall the actual weight savings, but it added to the roughly 200 pounds I took off the car.

Since I was running a stock class, I painted it black and never fessed up to until now.  🤫😅😅😅😅

 

 

 

[zKars]

Now make one that has material only where the thickness of the  lip of the transmission touches the engine block, around the perimeter, and of course the area around the starter and under the block where it “sticks out”. All the rest of the material is doing nothing.

You could even punch the lower area below the block full of small holes and claim that the air circulation created with the spinning fly wheel helps with engine cooling. Especially when water gets in there from the road and gets splashed around inside the clutch area. Ok, maybe that’s not a great idea.....

Other than that, cool! 

[Racer X]

1 hour ago, zKars said:

Now make one that has material only where the thickness of the  lip of the transmission touches the engine block, around the perimeter, and of course the area around the starter and under the block where it “sticks out”. All the rest of the material is doing nothing.

You could even punch the lower area below the block full of small holes and claim that the air circulation created with the spinning fly wheel helps with engine cooling. Especially when water gets in there from the road and gets splashed around inside the clutch area. Ok, maybe that’s not a great idea.....

Other than that, cool! 

Well I did make the triangular opening larger, moving out to the limits of the block/bell housing mating surfaces, but left the outside looking stock.

[Captain Obvious]

11 hours ago, zKars said:

 All the rest of the material is doing nothing.

LOL. All the rest of that material keeps squirrels out of your bell housing. Haha!!

Racer X, I bet everyone at every level of racing bends some rules and stresses others beyond the limits of bending.    Your secret is safe with us. All 30,000 of us.  Haha!

[dutchzcarguy]

The plating did'nt fail on my 280zx plate.. It's the same plate for 280z - 280zx then..

 

As it's a daily driver this was good enough for mine.. (If i had preped it a bit (sanded) it would have come out perfect.