2802NR

The most fitting sign I have ever found in my z

Very Cool!

It's really not hard to pull that trans, split the case and see what you got. I too was once scared of the inner workings of a manual transmission so I paid to have it re-built. When I had problems after my rebuild, I took it back to the driveline shop where it sat under their bench for over a month untouched. Took it back home, removed the case and saw the problem right away. the roll pin that holds 3rd/4th selector fork to the shift rod wiggled almost all the way out. Why? they re-used the old roll pins. . . probly didn't have any metric stuff at the shop I bet. Put in a new set of pins and it's been great ever since. that was about 6 or 7 years ago. I went a little deeper this year, replacing the 3rd gear syncro(balk ring) that had a hitch ever since the missed gear that pushed out that roll pin that day. Now it shifts better than it ever has. My point to this rant is, Don't be scared to atleast see what you have, I mean what do you have to loose? a 5spd that already has issues? could be something as simple as a 35 cent piece from the hardware store that the "professionals" still overlooked at an inflated price. The beauty of this trans unlike some, you can really play with the whole thing with the case off, shift it thru every gear while spinning. It made me realize how simple they really are.

If I had bought it from OBX I would have sent it back but I thought I was getting a screaming deal buying a new in box one for $25 less. the things we do to save money. . . I must say as far as on track use goes, all the work and money into my LSD was well worth it. Throttle induced slip angle is a beautiful thing. Pushin a little too hard towards that curbing?? giver moar GASS!!

The plenum I finally decided on measures roughly 3.5 liters, 125% displacement. Throttle body is a twin 48mm off of an LT1 corvette. I spent alot of time doing the math for all this stuff, I just hope my elevation (4600ft) doesn't hurt my design.

Holy cow it really has been 6 years since I started this project. Hard to believe it's taken this long to come back around but as I tore down my L yesterday to fix a dead head gasket, I finally had a chance to mock up this project that is nearing completion. I'm really happy with how things fit, it sits nice-n-low in the bay which gives me more room than I anticipated for some intake options, should I ever go forced induction. I plan on doing a little more clearance on the flange, then I have to come up with a jig for welding the injector bungs. After that I'll have it finish machined and hopefully I'll hear it breathing by the end of the summer.

Happy to report my diff is operating flawlessly. After a couple hundred miles and a full day of track abuse, all is well inside the rear end. I also wanted to note that my u-joint stub axles don't rub at all when I lift the throttle thanks to the removal of the dust shields and a little clearance work on the case, no internal spacer is needed.

I stand corrected. even with the dust cap out of the picture, the back side of the studs come very close to the case . . . think i'll grind some of the case till it resembles the other side. There is alot of meat there, not too worried about hurting it. The short axle has alot more clearance but i"ll probly smooth out that side a little incase they still rub which I bet they will. Anyone have any idea what the maximum compression of a spring washer stack could be? 1/4" max I'm thinking. I bought the rbryant kit and pre-loaded it by his instruction so I've got a full stack in there, no spacer. How much longer is a CV stub vs a ujoint stub? that would give me a ballpark figure of how much clearance is needed.

So is it that *** little dust cap on the stub axles that rubs the case? I cant see or imagine it being anything else. I think I'll just cut thru the 2 spot welds and remove mine as my new seals are different than the OG's and don't make much use of the dust cap anyway. I'll risk a little dirt getting in if it means no grinding noise every time I lift the throttle.

Got the OBX in the lathe today. Chucked on one side with a steady rest on the other, as zeroed in as it would get (the case half's weren't concentric either, about .002 thou out) and sure enough, about .0085-.0090 runout. Spent most of the afternoon shaving down the ring gear mating surface, that stuff gets pretty work hardened from the grinding process when manufactured. Anyone have any idea what material the case on these are cast out of? The chips kinda resembled magnesium the way they kept burning. Anyway, got it nice and straight, Bolted the ring gear back on, set it in the case, got it down too .002, most likely still the case halfs playing a big roll in this runout but it's barely within the FSM tolerance. The backlash represents this number also, measured anywhere between .0050 and .0071 at many points around the ring gear. The wipe pattern looks good, right in the center of the gear, where they ran for many years. I'm gonna go ahead and run this diff as it sits and see what happens. its barely within spec so it should be good enough for a street car. If any problems arise this group will be the first to know.

I was bummed when Autozone didn't have any greasable joints. Which leads me to my next point, Autozone has non-greasable u-joints for 280's. I have a set of R180 '72 240 half shafts in the shop too and they are seemingly identical to my 280 axles. Can't say I have personally measured every surface but I bet they are the same.

I was attempting a final install of my OBX today, till I had minor binding on one side of the ring gear and backlash on the other. Put a dial indicator on it, in a few different planes, the machined surface that the ring gear sits on appears to be running out at an angle with about .009 sweep. Once I get a bearing separator we plan on pulling the side bearings, chucking it in my friends lathe. Then we can zero it in and make sure that's the problem before a fix 'er finish pass is cut. I was a big fan of the OBX, bought a spring washer & bolt kit, reversed the direction of it, (mine was backwards) got the ring gear bolt spacers, I'm pretty damn confident that it was assembled clean and correct, followed the FSM, all that. Once I chuck it up I'll know for sure but I'm loosing hope for this thing and I haven't even laid two black strips of rubber yet. Sure, I don't have $1200 for a quaffie either but at that price I doubt a unit like mine would have ever made it past the machinist work bench, let alone the quality control guy. Updates in a week I hope

My project 280 from the beginning to present

jegs has 2 fel-pro options for under $40. i've personally never been dissapointed with that name, unlike any number of other gasket manufactures.

i cant remember for sure but i think it was a victor reinz that i got with my rebuild kit: total garbage as you can see in the pic. hope thats not why you found such a great deal. headgaskets are always worth a little extra money in my opinion. even if it is just piece of mind.