OohShiny

Hi All - welp I just finished latest project - swapped the diff on my ‘03 Touring 5AT

Old diff: 3.357 gears / open diff (yes, open diff on a Touring - see below)
New-to-me diff: 3.692 gears / OEM VLSD - $262 w / shipping off ebay (!!)
Donor car: 2008 G37 RWD Manual Sport - 145K miles

While I was at it, I put a Nismo diff cover on the new diff and upgraded to the Z1 urethane bushings. Also bought the bushing removal tool from Z1.

I don’t want to tally everything up in case the wife sees this post (lol) but probably $500 - $600 all in including gear oil, rtv, various other tools I had to pick up.

Results

* Doesn’t feel tons faster off the line - but will take to drag strip to test. Stand by.
* Scratch that - drag strip closed for season now - ugggh !!
* Can do burnouts !! (maybe I could before? I never tried. I easily can now though LOL)
* Seems to downshift to a little higher RPM… maybe 4300 vs 4000 before?
* I can’t tell a difference in ride / acceleration feel with the new bushings
* Cruise control still works !!

Would I do it again ? Hmm … lol. If I find out in the spring that I shaved 0.5 sec off my ¼ mile, yes. I guess you might as well swap bushings while you’re in there. I wouldn’t upgrade diff cover unless you’re at the track all the time.


Tips / Tricks

* If i had a do-over, I'd take the swaybar off from the get go. The FSM calls for that in the remove procedure and it’s only 6 low torque bolts. Faster than trying to wiggle the diff around the swaybar imo.
* I had to freeze the diff vent tube the diff cover, overnight, then use a punch tool on the collar of the tube to pound it into the diff cover.
* You need various weird socket sizes to complete this job - a deep 17 mm for the nut on rear diff bushing, deep 34 mm to pound out front diff bushings, deep 7/8 and 1-1/4 for rear busing removal tool.

Other Notes

* This project took a LONG time. Various interwebs posts suggested that this was a 4 - 6 hour job. This took me more like 20 hours. I have a Stillen dual exhaust on this car, which blocked access to the diff. So I had to take off both the exhaust and the rear sway bar, to get the diff in and out. And, as an ‘03, there were a lot of rusty bolts that needed a lot of persuasion to turn.

* Despite being ‘03 350Z vs ‘08 G37, diffs swapped seamlessly. Both of them had the circular, 4 bolt flange for connecting to drive shaft. Driveshaft and diff mated like butter - no pounding or cutting or swearing. I think the diffs with the 3 lobes, are from AWD or automatics.

* I have an '03 Touring, but the original diff, was open. There are a few sites / forums / videos out there that say that if you have a Touring trim level, you have VLSD. (like see this thread here). Mine definitely didn’t. I think you need to also have the sport package ( incl Brembos) to get the VLSD. Mine also did not originally come with Brembos ( but have since upgraded ).

Installed diff, before I hooked exhaust back up:


VLSD operation verified (lolol):



Peace !!

iideadeyeii

iTrader: (6)

I have a touring and both my wheels spin. No brembo's 2003 6spd
If it's the first time you are every doing something always times what is says online by 2, but 20hrs uhhhhh, lol
The clutch on my Quattro Audi took me about 10hrs, that was brutal and done in one day, don't think I'd do one ever again without help.

travlee

iTrader: (8)

isn't this like the 3rd thread you started on this?