i have about 16k miles on my Z, i wanna get the JWT flywheel as my next mod and people keep telling me i should get a new clutch while im at it, truth is, i love the stock clutch and its practically new, i dont see a reason to pay for a new clutch when i really really dont need it, will installing the flywheel on my stock clutch be okay?

 

yes

 

inspect your clutch after removal. if its worn, replace it. if its not... put it back in. clutches are so cheap anyway... maybe just replace the disk alone if yours is showing wear... what are they like 100 bucks. i have personally never in my life reused a pressure plate, but if I did I would look into having it resurfaced (this might effect its geometry tho, maybe just scuff it up with a scotchbrite), especially if there was a lot of heat glazing.

just take the stuff out and use your best judgement or shows us some pics and we can tell you if its too worn to bother putting back in.

 

You got it. No reason to waste your money on a new clutch if you don't need it. I have the JWT flywheel on the stock clutch, and it's fine.

 

how easy is it to install a flywheel urself? do u have to drop the tranny completely out? because i am a guy always up for a project if its fesable. if you have to drop the tranny completely, then its out of the question. because i dont have access to a lift or hoist. thanks

 

Yeah, you have to drop the tranny out completely. That's the only way to expose the clutch and flywheel. (Pretty much the same with any car.) It's probably not the kind of job you'd want to do without a lift. The 350Z tranny is pretty darn heavy, too. It took two of us to lift it down from the car once we unbolted it. I'd say maybe 100 pounds when full of oil. Not something I'd want to deal with by myself at home.

However, my friend actually did a full auto-to-manual tranny conversion on his 240sx in his garage with nothing but jackstands, but he's crazy that way. It's also took him many, many days and weekends. Luckily he had a 2nd vehicle to drive around in the meantime.

 

many many days and weekends to do an auto to manny swap? thats 2 long. I did it in my drive way on one of my z31s. it took all of 2.5 days fron start to finish. all ya need to do is get the tranny on ur chest and bench press it. use ur knees and arms to position it and such. Good luck on your flywheel swap.

G87z
2003 touring
87 z31 turbo
87 z31 NA

 

Yeah, that's exactly how he said he got the tranny in. Bench pressed it. But the guy works a full time job and has other hobbies, too. It's not like he could spend 8 hours a day on his tranny project. He worked with a local pick-and-pull guy to source out all the parts from wrecked cars and put together a sort of kit which looked like it had all the pieces, but it ended up missing a few things here and there. He ended up having to go all over the place to scout out the missing parts, borrow tools from friends, etc. This was a very low budget project, since he had virtually no money to spend. I think he did a fantastic job given the extremely limited resources at his disposal.

For example, it would go like this: he'd be right in the middle of some portion of the project, and realized he lacked the exact tool needed, or his cheap tool broke, etc. So he'd call a friend to borrow the right tool, but his friend was out of town for the weekend. So, he just put it all on hold until the next weekend when his friend was back. There goes another whole week.