PART 1 - Info, Install, Impressions and 0-60mph.


INFO

I received the 350EVO ring and pinion on Friday of last week. BJ was nice enough to honor the pre-order price from way back in November. Thanks BJ! Product arrived in 1 day!! In the box was two gears, instructions, ring bolts and an extra shim for the pinion gear. Gears were numbered and marked to give the proper information to the installers.

My present mods are mostly suspension/traction because I am interested in what the car can do with stock or near stock power. I have the Technosquare ECU, Ultimate Racing Y-Pipe and Unorthodox Crank Pulley and K&N panel filter. I purchased the ECU to augment the 3.9 via the increased rev-limiter and plan no major bolt-ons in the near future as all my resources are going to track modifications.

For suspension/traction, I have 295/35/18-265/35/18 Toyo T1-S tires and 10.5/9" CCW wheels, Tein Basic Coilovers, Hotchkis Sways and the Kinetix Traction Arms.

INSTALL

I had Motorworks in Dekalb, IL do the install. They specialize in transmissions/driveline and repairs for imports. The price was $560 for labor and $50 for shims and bearings. The guys at Motorworks rebuilt the transmission in my Pathfinder and have proven themselves to be excellent mechanics.

The install took about a day and half, which is longer than usual because they had to order shims and bearings from NNA. I had the stuff overnighted to the shop so it could get done faster. I have a bunch of pics which I will post at the end. I also had the NISMO differential cooler installed at the same time.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

I think the EVO gear is even quieter than my factory setup, which had a noticeable whine at 60 in 5th gear. I wound through the gears gently as I pulled out of Motorworks and took it for a little spin to make sure everything was heated up. After that, I started to get on it. Straight line acceleration is definitely improved. But its subtle. The car winds up a little quicker, 7200 comes up fast. Its just that subtle. The difference is hard to feel with the butt dyno until you go around a corner.

Once the thrill of straight line acceleration wore of then I started to get on it in the corners. This is where the gear pays for itself! Holy Sh*t!!! The car takes off hard coming out of a corner. The best way to describe it is to imagine that someone has removed 350 lbs of fat from your Z. It just screams out of corners. This thing is going to be a handful at the track.


ZERO TO SIXTY

Once home, I got my datalogger and set out to my testing grounds. I have a Sony Clie and Pocketlogger. I get 5 samples per second so its relatively accurate.

I did five 0-60 runs with the EVO gear and the results are as follows in seconds from slow to fast;

5.63
5.57
5.44
5.34
5.28

Wheel spin upon launch was just a little bit easier than before. Very easily corrected. And second gear spun rather than sqawked. That can be reduced with more practice. These times were very easy to get. I did not practice. As I get used to it, I will log some more runs. I think 5.1 to 5.0 is probably within reach.

I've done fifty or sixty 0-60 runs this summer so I just took the set with my record in it, ordered from slow to fast;

5.90
5.68
5.67
5.55
5.44

My previous best was 5.44, that was after 50+ tries!

That is the first installment of my review.

Part 2 will come tomorrow when I go to Byron Dragway to see if I can lower my time of 13.6. I will report back with the results sometime tomorrow evening.


Part 3 will be in 2 weeks or so when I have a "real" track day at Blackhawk farms where I recently performed a trial time. I will compare my experience and time with the new gearing with that of the previous time trial.

Pictures to follow soon.

 

Thanks. Please keep us updated.

 

Great review (part 1 of 3)!

 

Great write up. So does this part go in the tranny or in the diff?

 

The ring and pinion goes in the differential.

 

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Do you have any more pictures of the housing and the carrier? These are the first I have seen and they look pretty stout. I'd like to see more pics to get a better perspective.

 

nice driving buddy, Those numbers are evn with a clk 55 amg convertible. nice, you actually beat what is supposed to be stock which is 5.4 good job. What flywheel /clutch set up do you have?

 

zillinoiz - which bearings did you need? I am having mine done Monday but dont see why anything other than seals/gaskets would be needed.....any part numbers?

thanks!

adam

 

 

Thanks, the numbers I remember were from the '03' reviews which had our Z's 0-60 time at around 5.6-5.8. I did the 5.44 on 295 toyo's so I probably suck. But I have pulled a 1.95 60' at the drag strip. So I can't suck that bad. I really think these numbers will come down with a little practice. I'm sure 5.1 is doable and possibly 5 flat. I'm thinking I'll go out tonight and test some more.

Oh yeah, I'm running stock clutch and flywheel. Tilton is definitely on the list, but I'm gonna need brakes to slow this puppy down!

 

Adam - actually they were crush sleeves. I will look up the part numbers.

 

Old and Busted -

 

New Hotness

 

Due to some personal issues, my 3.9 is gonna sit in the box for about the next month. Great to read your review. However, "subtle" was not the effect I has hoping for. Glad to hear it pulls hard out of the corners. I do a lot of racetrack events.

So LATE APEX, then hit the 3.9 !!!

 

Sign me up for part 2.

Looking for a review from a 5AT too.

 

I think it will be a great addition to your already amazing setup. The gear and titlon seems like about the best bang for the buck combo for n/a cars.

Droping 2 or 3 tenths in the 0-60 is nice, but its not like bolting a supercharger on. That's all I meant by subtle. You can definitely feel the difference.

I think the reason I could feel the acceleration in the corners more than in the straights, is due to the faster build up of G's. For me, accelerating with 5 more mph's through the corner gets my attention more rapidly than 5 more mph's down the straight. I'm not going to have to grow a larger sack down the straights like say if I had a twin turbo. But I am going to have to regulate my speed in the corners much more closely, as I have power to spare now.

So yes, late apex, squeeze the trigger, and hope you have the stones to make it!

 

Note: 55 mph in 5th gear = 2975 rpms.

 

6th gear @ 60 = ____
6th gear @ 70 = ____
6th gear @ 80 = ____

Thanks

 

My time in first gear seems kind of short already. Do you find that your first gear is used up even quicker??