A musician's therapist (The $300 Z)

[Zetsaz]

3 hours ago, Ben280 said:

Really jealous of that diff. I probably need to do a similar thing shortly out here!

 

It's going to be good! I had to wait months for it, but it once it was ready to go shopping was very fast. Even with tariffs on entry it cost me much less than it would have from a vendor here in the US 

[Zetsaz]

Final update before road tripping tomorrow.

 

I was so bothered by the vibrations last night come back home from my niece's birthday that I decided to pull off the front diff mount and inspect. 

 

It looks like the bolt through the bushing was either loose or the upper piece of the mount was warped and didn't let the side squeeze right on the bushing. Bottom was rattling back and forth when I moved it after taking off the cross member.

 

3 hours worth of work later and putting the RT top mount on instead I tested and the vibrations are gone! I had to grind part of the bolt going through the bushing to pull it out because I couldn't get any leverage on the bolts going through the diff and they block each other.

 

For a moment I thought it was placebo, so I kept finding multiple loads and speeds that it would vibrate the most at last night and got nothing. The biggest difference is the lock mechanism on the seatbelts is never rattling anymore which was a huge annoyance. 

 

TL;DR - the T3 diff mount (not the cross member itself) is probably needlessly complicated and is just too many parts stuffed into a tiny space. 

[Zetsaz]

About 800 miles later. Running smooth. Temps with the new e fans were steady all the way. Only time they climbed a *little* was on very long uphill stretches. But it's to be expected when the turbo is getting loaded more and the return coolant line from the turbo goes straight to the thermostat.

 

Overall very smooth, and as usual the long trip gave me a variety of small things to start looking at. Definitely want to update the mounting on the exhaust, just a bit too much movement and occasionally tapping the back and making some noise. New mounting method and the bigger muffler will make it downright comfortable on long drives.

[Zetsaz]

Not much to update on the car. Slowly thinking of the next batch of improvements. The struggle now is it's mostly in a really good place, so short of spending huge money on something like a change over to a Haltech R3 to control everything there's not too much.

 

Current "smaller" considerations are the following:

 

-Cam swap to a "small" Steve Bonk turbo cam - the lobe center/lobe separation on mine is just too wide for what I want. Bonk cam would get me more responsive in the low to mid range, with probably only a small sacrifice at higher rpm where I spend almost no time anyway.

 

-Swap to my 3.57 r200 and rebuild with the OEM kit and OS Giken LSD I have waiting. Should give me better cruising rpm and supposedly better loading on the turbo for improved boost

 

-New tires (and new wheels?) My tire options are just so limited for tires or something a bit more street friendly than 200tw that moving to 16" wheels might be the best solution. I'm now thinking that most of my road noise complaints are actually the current tires being near the end of their life. They've been on for years now and I think it's time to finally switch them out no matter what.

 

-Switching back to the OEM style front diff mount with a Kameari piece, and possibly even the OEM mustache bar. There's a small chance the T3 bar is fouling against the spare tire compartment and adding to drivetrain noise, but it also just feels like unnecessary bling. Looks great from underneath, but might be wasted money.