Sounds like a mis-shift and not having the revs matched for third gear. I went to go from 6th to 4th and accidently put it in second on the interstate doing 80 when I first had the car. Fortunately I was downshifting to accellerate, and not slow down, so I punched the gas when I downshifted. The bad news is I pegged the RPM's, the good news is, I didn't spin out of control, which I certainly would have done had I not been on the throttle.

When you downshifted and let out the clutch, were you pressing on the gas, if so, then it probably wasn't a downshift problem, if you weren't on the gas, then it might have been a downshift to third, which at idle would have basically locked up your wheels and caused you to spin out.

Did you feel the car grab(make you want to lurch forward) when you downshifted?

 

....at 50 or 60, it's doesn't take that much to hit the brakes and come to a stop....... I read the story, I just don't get it. Slamed into a wall, went across 4 or 5 lanes of lanes of traffic, fishtailing and going into the median.....something just doesn't sound right. At 50 or 60, I can hit the brakes and stop before most of that happened I would think.....but, it wasn't me in the car so I couldn't really say. Hope the 2 of you are ok.

I had a similar situation happen to me in a camaro but I was on a wet road with bald tires, ended up hydroplanning on a bridge, the car spun around 4 times. I still stopped before I hit anything. No claim to skill on this, it was many years ago and it was all LUCK that I didn't hit anyone else or the retaining walls on either side of the bridge. The sun was shining on my a$$ that day!

 

Glad you are both ok ?

Was the road wet ? Did you possibly hit an oil spot ?

The slide you describe seems very hard to do on a dry quality road surface at the metioned speed; I mean slipping over 5 lanes from 55-60Mph...

O wait... or do you mean you hit the wal at 60 ??? How fast where you going when you shifted ???

Danny

 

Your last explanation was somewhat incomprehensible

If you start from the beginning and fully explain what happened exactly, you might receive some better input.

 

I feel your pain.

 

Had to be a mechanical malfunction in order to lose control under those cirumstances. After a mechanic looks it over he should be able to tell you what broke.

That is of course assuming your being 100% truthfull.

Only other thing I can think of is you down shifted and punched it which caused the wheels to break traction for a sec. and instead of going with it you panicked and hit the breaks which put you out of control. But at 50-60 mph seems you would of stopped rather quickly if you did hit the breaks. <shrug>

Either way Im glad you guys are ok.... BTW, If something did break you should have a nice lawsuit

 

Something smells funny. Let the black box tell the story. Let us know what it tells your insurance company.

 

Sorry to hear about your loss of the Z, but glad that you are okay.

I also have the ClutchMasters Stage 1 clutch and flywheel (installed by Peformance Nissan in Duarte, CA) and have had no problems. I have to say that I doubt it was the new clutch/flywheel that caused the problem.

 

what happen to VDC?
VDC should of cut throttle way before its dangerous
if i feel the car isnt right... i'd stop and ask

 

He has base 350z, so no VDC

 

No black box

 

can you look into the cars ecu to tell what the last driving conditions were. speed, throttle position, things like that. I would think that it stores that into memory because it can figure the mpg you are getting. anyways, if someone knows. please help

 

Man you down shifted to the wrong gear.. probaby hit third. I also experienced fishtailing one time at the track. I had my TCS OFF and when I was getting ready to shift to 4th gear I got into 2nd on accident and that myfriend caused me to fishtail.

 

This is my thought as well. Missed 5th gate downshifted into 3, compression skid and didn't put the clutch back in. Even itf the clutch went back in a compression skid maybe caused a problem that driver couldn't recover from.

My friend did this in his Camaro and it was one fun ride, Not !

 

are your tires bald???

 

Do you have full cover bro, will you be getting another Z?

 

Wow, that sucks. Good luck with the insurance.

 

Has anyone considered that he may have engaged the correct gear (5th) but the transmission engaged 3rd gear due to some sort of maladjustment with the clutch and flywheel?? In other words he went to 5th but the gearbox engaged 3rd ?? It is possible the install of the clutch was done in a way that the drivers input is not correctly applied. I hope we are given an overview of waht happened. This could be very useful to the rest of the Z community.

 

^+1

It does sound like the tranny went into a lower gear and if a miss-alignment with the clutch/flywheel could have caused this I would for sure be mentioning it to Ins.

 

Hmm if he was only doing 50 or 60 3rd would have still been ok on a good rev match shift or slipping the clutch. A lane change plus a hard downshift to third will send you flying for sure if you are not ready. No LSD either does not help.

Since you had a clutch kit I am sure you know how to rev match and downshift . . .if not you should learn. Its makes driving so much fun.