On a side note I guess I found my motivation to work on the car and it turns out it might’ve been an itemized to-do list which allows me to maximize the use of my little 30min-1hr excursions to the garage. It seems to keep me focused on the individual items that need to be done instead of sweating the big puzzle.

Instead of trying to fish the harness back out of the firewall, I decided to unhook everything from the engine and just work in the engine bay. Fortunately, everything went smoothly and after about 20 minutes of work, I had the harness routed in a very neat path along the firewall and behind the ABS pump. It’s barely even visible when looking in the engine bay.

Besides that I was able to mount the clutch bleeder valve, install a few heat shields, tighten down the bolts that I left loose while positioning the engine and start work on installing the radiator and fans.

The radiator went in easily, but the fans are requiring a few modifications. Nothing major, so I should be able to get that completed one night this week.

If this isn’t enough to keep the engine cool, I’ll work on adding additional ducting, but I hope to avoid that weight if possible.

Seriously, this thing could hold it’s own if it were installed in a semi. For a comparison, here is a picture of the 240sx transmission next to the T56. I suspect there’s at least a 40lb difference there, see for yourself:Off-site picture

The first round of Weight Reduction resulted in a fairly easy 200lbs being removed from the car. Keeping in mind, that I removed a substantial amount of 1-5lb items that add up when removed all together. There were some items that were removed for racing that I plan to return to the car during this project. Like the radio and front speakers.

Anyway, in order to maintain my 2700lb weight goal and keep the car streetable, I’m going to have to “pay” attention to the details. The quotes around pay is obviously there to signify that this round of weight reduction isn’t going to be cheap. Fortunately, I stumbled upon a set of z32 rear uprights for a good deal. The difference between these and the stock pieces is that the stock pieces are steel and these are cast aluminum. There’s about a 3-4lb difference per side, plus it’s weight that the shocks have to control, so it’s a great place to remove it.

Here are the uprights after I spent an hour cleaning them. One needs some additional time with the wire brush, but the battery died on my drill, so that’ll come later.

In addition to those uprights, I also found a good deal on a Largus Swaybar, which is larger then my current Suspension Techniques Swaybar. It’s also hollow, so it’s considerably lighter. I haven’t installed this yet, so I don’t know the weight difference, but will include that once I have it.

Future weight reduction will be centered around the following items:
- Fiberglass or Carbon Fiber hood.
- Fiberglass or Carbon Fiber trunklid.
- Potentially a lighter steering wheel.

With those components, I expect to take out another 30lbs of weight from the car, but those pieces get expensive real fast, so I will only get them if I can find a great deal on them.

Stock Weight – 2828 (with 3/4 tank of gas, floor mats, spare tire, tire tools, etc….)
Est. Current Weight – 2608.5
Weight Savings – 219.5

coilovers – 16 savings over stock suspension setup
spare tire – 31
jack/tools – 6
antenna – 2
mats – 8
header – 15
exhaust – 30
secondary horn – 1.5
fan/pullies – 9.5
intake – 4
fog lights – 5.5
cruise – 2
battery – 16
Flywheel – 9
Radio/speakers/amp – 8
gas (¼ tank instead of Full) – 56

First step is to remove the carpet from the trunk, and then you’ll see the access panel for the fuel pump. It’s held in by four 10mm screws. Remove those. You should now see the cap for the fuel tank. There’s probably years of dirt and grim on it, so clean that off at this step.

Next up, unhook the three hoses and the two electrical connectors. With those out of the way you can remove the large plastic nut that holds the cap in place. Supposedly there’s a tool for this. I just used an oil filter wrench, like this one <PICTURE>

Once you have that removed, lift the cap slightly, being careful not to drop anything into the tank. There should be two electrical connectors and a hose connected to the cap. Unhook the connectors and then follow the rubber hose into the tank. You’ll reach a metal bracket that you should pull straight up on. This is the bracket that the fuel pump is attached to. <PICTURE> Remove it, and be careful not to turn it over. There’s likely fuel still inside the pump.

Oddly enough the upgraded Walbro pump is significantly smaller then the OEM pump. Cool, more flow and less weight!! I love having my cake and the icing.

Remove the OEM pump from the bracket and replace it with the WALBRO pump as indicated in this picture: <PICTURE> Now you’ll need to cut the OEM harness near the factory pump and attach it to the connector that was included with the new pump. I used solder and heat shrink tubing here, even though the kit included crimp-on butt connectors. I’m not a huge fan of these, especially in this “environment”.

Now you can reinstall everything by just reversing the steps above. The large o-ring around the cap should be replaced with a new one.

First, I’ll start with some links
Tex Racing Catalog
Circle Track article on rebuilding T10s

My gearing:
1st: 2.64:1
2nd: 1.75:1
3rd: 1.33:1
4th: 1:1

Looks like it’s a ‘W’ gearset according to the catalog linked above. My stock rear end is a 4.08 final drive, which absolutely will not work with this transmission. I have already picked up a 3.54 final drive from a 350z that should make the gearing a little better for my application. However, I’m still looking for the 3.3 from the automatic 350z.

I still haven’t decided if I’m going to use this transmission. The lack of overdrive has me concerned that it will keep me from picking this car to drive to work, like I had planned on doing. On the flip side, this transmission would save about 50 lbs over the alternative (T56), so it isn’t something that’s easy for me to overlook.

With that said, I opened it up tonight to get an idea of what the gearset looked like. Without any oil, it shifted fairly smoothly and didn’t seem to have any binds. Of course I didn’t shift it too much since it was dry of oil.

Here are the internal pictures: