VHR + FD Gear Ratio upgrades - 3.9 and 4.08

Denny McLain

Should know next week as the gears that were ordered should arrive pretty soon.

It may be a bit difficult to find people to install the gears as two shops I approached knew nothing about the car and did not want to touch it. I'll contact the local dealer to see what they say and also a trans shop that a Porsche aftermarket tuner shop referred me to.

Gear installs are fickle almost falling into an art and I've screwed up installing them before so I won’t dare try. Even someone who writes automotive text books (Bob Norwood… on one of my cars!) has screwed up installs, so the install is critical. Also, going to make sure all the necessary shims are there as w/o the correct shims, the car can sit on a hoist for days waiting the correct parts.

My opinion gears are worth the hassle and if necessary will just let them sit in my garage until the right shop is found.

Have a spreadsheet to plug numbers into that computes average hp during a simulated 1/4th run. Haven’t crunched the numbers yet and curious as to how it comes out, but gears helps the car get into the powerband quicker and multiplies torque. The real deal.

Denny McLain

Just called Z1 and I like their style.

Instead of just shipping the ring and pinion, they bought a 370Z rear end to make sure everything was compatible before they shipped mine to me. Now, that's how it should be done!! My hats off and Kudos for them taking the time to double check and make sure something works not letting the customer be the monkey shot off into space to see if they come back alive or not. Smooth move on Z1's part!!!

Got a couple of quotes on labor. Ended up at the wrong shop the Porsche people referred me to and they wanted $600.00 to do the install. As mentioned, done it before and screwed it up before. If I remember correctly, think it was about four hours if everything goes well. The real red flag is I told the shop owner that $600.00 sounded a bit steep and he said: "but we are going to have to remove the exhaust". Auh.....the rear section is maybe a ten minute job once it's up in the air. C ya.

Finally found the right shop (it was across the street) and they wanted $400.00 to do it which is much closer to what it should be in my opinion. Guessing between $300.00 and $400.00 is the sweat spot. Being the Porsche shop uses them for their customers and their race cars..... I'll pay the $400.00 and smile as they probably do good work.