Got it done on Friday, here are my initial impressions.

Throttle seems more responsive during city driving though there is so much traffic in LA that I didn't really get a chance to work it out.

Cruising at 80 mph the RPMs were at around 3000. The higher revving took a little getting used to, but after an hour on the highway I didn't even notice anymore.

Mileage didn't seem to drop as bad as I thought it would. I averaged about 24.5 mpg on the way down to LA from Vegas (3.2 final drive) and the return trip I got 23.3 mpg with the shorter gears.

I'll report more impressions after my next run out to the drag strip, possibly this Friday.

 

Looking forward to your findings!

 

How much for the 3.5 gears including install? Did you get the whole pumpkin or just the gears? Thanks this may be my next mod. (maybe)

 

Glad to hear you got it done.
Did the install go as plan (Extra time, parts, etc.)?

How about the noise level? Did it increase?

<M>

 

Does your cruise control still work? I know this has been an issue with this swap.

Concerning the performance, a few weeks back I ran my G at the track with my 26.3" stock 17" boat anchors and then made a couple passes on my super short 23.8" tall BFG drag radials. The DRs increased my gearing by about 8% or approximately to a 3.45 gear. The increased gearing did the following:

1) Forced a 3-4 shift 150' before the finish line. No good because that shift takes time and means the car isn't accelerating in the meaty part of the powerband. With the 17s I was crossing the finish line just before tapping the rev limiter in 3rd.

2) The car was fractionaly slower in both ET and MPH with the DRs with no real change in 60'. I ran two low 14.5s@95.8mph with the DRs and I ran a a high 14.4@97.5mph with the 17s. The motor was pretty hot when I had to make the runs on the DRs so that might have effected the ET/MPH a bit, but even so, the car was trapping nearly 2mph slower with the DRs. Much of that I blame on the late 3-4 shift.


Have you gone to the track prior to the gear swap? I'm very interested in seeing your results. I thought the 3.5 swap would be a great idea because of the deeper gearing and VLSD. For my car, the gearing didn't seem to help things. I'm considering just doing a 350Z auto swap so I can get the 3.2 VLSD.

 

I'm not going to post how much I paid because I got a helluva lucky deal on the pumpkin swap. So in that sense everything went much better than I had originally planned. Hint: look for someone that has upgraded to a Nismo LSD.

Otherwise the new gears run about $500 and labor including rebuild is about another $500. If you manage to find a 3.5 pumpkin already assembled then the labor comes down to about $150 or 2 hours.

So I got into the shop first thing in the morning and was out by about 10:30, plenty of time to go and get my L-spec reflash from Technosquare.

There isn't any noise increase, sounds the same as stock except for the slightly higher cruising RPMs.

 

My cruise control did freak out on the way back from LA. It was working then all of a sudden the set light began flashing and the cruise control disabled itself. I'll have to do some experimenting to see what might cause this and if there is any way to work around it.

I think that you are right on about adding a shift to the quarter mile. It'll be interesting to see if I can trap any higher with the shorter gears or if the extra shift will neutralize the performance increase. I've got plenty of slips from previous runs and will do a comparison as soon as I get some new runs in.

 

so does the 350z final drive improve quarter mile times in the AT?

 

Not as much as I was hoping for. I gained only about .2 seconds, a far cry from the .5 that some of the Z guys were claiming.

 

.2 is still a lot isn't?

 

so wat parts do I need to make this happen and how much for parts and labor??

 

Give me a run down of the before and after slips, increment by increment. I'm curious to see where the gears are helping. .2 is a big difference to me too.

Did you ever get the cruise figured out? How fast are you going when it flakes out?

 

hey daveB, did u ever run your car when it was stock? Also, is that 14.49 with slicks or stock rims? Powerbrake?

 

is that wat are u refering to as the pumpkin final drive??


Also, if I have a 05 AT with the sports package (LSD), will I lose the LSD option if I swap this out?

 

Nope. I've only been once (4 runs) and I've never run stock, but the word around the site is the Z-pipe doesn't do much (maybe 1hp?). The 14.49 was on the stock 17" Sport rims and crappy Turanza EL42s. The car didn't even chirp a tire on launch. I don't really powerbrake. I stage the car and hold the brake firmly. When it's time to go, I mash the gas to the floor and almost instantly release the brake. It seems to work best this way.

Yes, you would loose your 05's LSD (it's in the pumkin), BUT most 350Z's come with LSD so you'd get it back. Only the Base 350Z 6MT doesn't come with an LSD.