wstar's Journal

wstar · 04-25-2013, 09:41 AM

Or here's a better example from their tutorial vids: Race-Keeper Comparo Instructional Screencasts | Race-Keeper

VDC_OFF · 04-25-2013, 09:47 AM

looks awesome, but whoever put on the numbers was dyslexic.

3rd pic looks like a new profile pic

wstar · 04-27-2013, 10:09 PM

So I started tearing things apart yesterday, and I'm just about done with destructo-mode and it's time for put-it-back-together mode. All in one go I'm upgrading basically all of my cooling components (radiator, oil/trans coolers, all the hoses, bypass heater, etc) and gutting the engine bay side of the HVAC, and doing the Z1 engine mounts while I'm in there (trans mount later, it's a separate simple project).

Anyways, thought I'd post an in-progress update. My engine is now Cylon-approved:

With the radiator, AC compressor, and alternator out of the way, swapping engine mounts is really, really easy. The only tricky part (as Spohn mentioned) might be finding an appropriate point or two to jack the engine upwards from safely. In my case I happen to have that AM Perf baffled oil pan, which is machined from a solid aluminum block and really can't be bent, so I just put a 2x4 under the oil pan and lifted the engine up with a floor jack on that.

wstar · 05-16-2013, 08:32 AM

I was a little worried I bit off more upgrades than I could chew between track weekends this time around, but it looks like I made it, fingers crossed. Later this evening will be my first real street test-drive on all the new setup, it's all buttoned back up now and it's been through a little static stress-testing in-place on the lift. A few notes I can put out now without having really driven the car yet:

7AT Fluid Swap without Dealer, and to non-Nissan fluid

I had a dealership change my 7AT fluid last time, around 20K miles in, right after I added the small (series-1 and very short) trans cooler from Stillen's kit. Now that I'm just a hair under 40K and upgrading the cooler, I did another swap and did it myself this time.

The new cooler is a Setrab Series-6 19-row (the one used in the 19-row oil cooler kits commonly for this car - where mine came from). I've switched from Nissan's factory Matic-S to the Motul Multi-ATF that Z1's selling. It's one of the very very few aftermarket ATFs to claim Nissan Matic-S compatibility, their marketing materials on it talk specifically about being suitable for latest-generation semi-autos, and I trust their brand at this point, so I expect this to go well.

As for the whole dreaded issue with Consult-III temps for fluid change: through some mild experimentation I think I figured out this isn't as bad as it seems. To recap the service manual: you can only swap 3/9 quarts at a time via the drain/fill holes, and a "full change" in the SM is three of those swaps (which leaves 28% old fluid in the mix, that's ok). I'm probably more like 10 quarts with the add-on cooler/lines. After the final fill-to-overflow cold, you're supposed to fire it up, warm up to a Trans Temp of ~104F, roll through the gears in-place, raise the lift, and open up the overflow again to let it spill down and get the level set at that temp.

With an IR thermo, you can get close enough for government work. If you shoot the IR thermo at close range on the bottom pan metal near the overflow/refill port itself, you'll read ~5-10 degrees F lower than the actual fluid temp in the pan. So basically, warm it up until that spot on the pan reads around 95-100F. When you pull the plug and start draining if you carefully shoot the dropping fluid up-close, you'll see it around the 100-110 range, which is close enough (the SM allows for some variability there anyways). Keep in mind I was in a garage at reasonable ambient temps around 70-80F and little wind and the car was pretty cold having been on the lift for days and only fired up a few minutes at a time. YMMV in other conditions, esp if the pan/trans is already heat-soaked from previous driving.

Setrab 9-Series Oil Cooler fitment

Now I know why all the easy-install oil cooler kits use Setrab's 6-series coolers (in 19/25/34-row heights).... I went with a 25-row Series-9 which is considerably wider. It seems like a better airflow fit for our grill opening, since at 25-row you're not getting much more airflow height between the bottom edge and the crash bumper area. The reason most of the kits don't use a Series-9 is it really doesn't fit well at all with our stock radiator core support and that center strut that holds the ambient air temp sensor, etc. I had to do a ton of cutting and customization to make it work. I also added a top-mount by drilling holes in the backside of the crash bumper, so it's mounted (with anti-shock rubber) top and bottom for stability.

I suspect the Series-9 25-row is about as ideal as you can get, just be warned there's a reason the kits use the Series-6. Stock up on dremel cut-off wheels and be prepared to do major surgery and relocation of factory bits to fit the Series-9.

APRacing/Stillen brake kit notes

So far so good, I did ~200 miles of rotor break-in before the car went on the lift for other surgery a couple weeks ago. The one little note I wanted to add, since I discussed this stuff randomly both here and in other threads and never reported the final decisions: I've kept AP's pad clips in all 4 calipers in the end. Apparently it's functionally fine to leave them out for a track car, according to Stillen. I didn't think I'd care about NVH, so why not leave off an excess part that could cause a problem? Because the noise really is worrying. Without the clips the pads bonk around in the calipers a lot. I have a hard time telling whether that's just my clipless rear pads I'm hearing or maybe my suspension is falling apart in the rear because I forgot to torque down a bolt or something. At those kinds of ugly noise levels, IMHO the clips are worth it just to make it easier to diagnose other noises.

DR_ · 05-16-2013, 09:07 AM

I didn't have to cut/fabricate anything for the 25 row Series 9 Setrab to fit well. My guess is that you installed it with the L bracket facing towards the radiator while I installed it facing outside like the way GTM installs it.
This is not mine but it is similar.

wstar · 05-16-2013, 09:49 AM

Mine is on the "outside" of the core like yours. The big differences between my setup and that picture are:

1) I have my trans cooler on the driver's side and oil cooler on the passenger side (opposite above). The lines are more natural that way (shorter runs).
2) I'm using the same bracket pictured (the one from Setrab themselves), but I used one on the bottom and one on the top (to the back of the alum crash bar, with an extra piece of angle aluminum to mate them up). This limits hose routing options to some degree, but prevents the cooler swaying back and forth on the bottom mount under accel/brake.
3) I had to move my cooler further inboard (towards center post laterally) than that, by about an inch or two, to get the lines to route past it out the same side (one behind, one over the top, and both stock PS cooler lines running behind), and as a result it sticks past the center post an extra inch or two. Thus, had to cut away a fair amount of the center post's depth, including the bracket for the air temp sensor.

I ended up putting the air temp sensor in the upper center area between the G3 intakes, so now it's a "that pocket of air up by my intakes" temp sensor, which I imagine will read a bit higher with all the hot air from the various radiators.

Between the 9-series 25-row oil cooler and the 6-series 19-row trans cooler, there's only a tiny tiny gap left between the two now. Almost all airflow has to go through those to reach the radiator (well, the trans cooler lets some pass beside/above, but not much). I don't think you could fit 2x 9-series very well at all.

DR_ · 05-16-2013, 11:11 AM

I'm tempted to move my air temp sensor up to the intakes as well. I use that air temp versus the intake temp sensor to get an idea of how much heat soak I have and having the air temp sensor closer to the intake would give me a better indication.

Do you have a garage for the TMS event? I'll be in garage 44 and my dad is in garage 26 so I will likely be in one of those two areas. I've got new tires plus the bigger oil cooler so I am excited about this event.

wstar · 05-16-2013, 01:55 PM

No garage, just random paddock parking. I've never even looked into garage spaces at any of the TDE events, I guess I should find out about that someday. I'm excited too, but nervous about so many changes on the car all at once.

I couldn't wait for this evening, so I took it out for a stress-test drive over lunch. No leaks, and temp data looks pretty awesome so far. "Normal" street driving - cruising around 2.5Krpm in the mid-day heat, the car would settle at oil/water temps of 180 and 177. I found an empty back-road stretch and gave the car a close-to-track-conditions flogging for about 7 minutes straight and I was still at 200/194. A soon as I backed off the agression, the car cooled back down to its steady-state in a minute or two.

Only problem I noted during the test-drive was an oddly-specific transmission issue. In general the transmission is fine, but if I brake in 3rd gear down to fairly low revs (~3K) and then transition right back to hard gas, the transmission lockup slips, the engine revs up freely for half second, and then the trans finally locks up (and by then the engine's way past matching revs and the tires burn a little). I'll try it again this evening and see if I can characterize it better, maybe. My random diagnostic thoughts right now are:

1) That my filling procedure didn't really work for setting the fluid level correctly, and braking down in 3rd at low revs just happens to slosh the too-low fluid in a way that it can't get pressure to lock up 3rd gear when I nail the gas pedal again. I could break this down into two possible filling errors: (a) that with all the air I needed to work out of the lines/system, my fill just wasn't going to be accurate until I really drove the transmission on the street a bit, in which case going back through the final step would fix it, or (b) technically, I don't think the service manual says to stop the engine when doing the final at-temperature fill/bleed. My best judgement was that turning the engine back off was implicit in the instruction to lift the car, etc, but maybe I really do need the engine running to set the fill correctly.

2) That I've damaged some seal/valve/solenoid whatever from track abuse at the last event and this is the first time I've noticed since getting home and then having the car on the lift forever.

3) Could be with the free-er revving engine (no more AC), I've crossed some threshold where I need to up the line pressure a bit more to catch it? I may play with line pressure in general for debugging this later.

I'd think if it was just a fill problem, I'd be able to reproduce the same slip condition in 2nd or 4th, which I was unable to do with a few attempts earlier, just 3rd. Could be specific to odd gears though (many internal passages/components are odd/even-specific), and it would be hard to reproduce the same type of condition in 1st or 5th.

I really wish I could get on the Nissan Batphone and find out for sure whether the final level check on the transmission was meant to be with the car running. Maybe GTM would know...

ChrisSlicks · 05-16-2013, 02:34 PM

Most likely a combination of 1 a) and b). The auto trans I've done this on required the engine to be running and transmission in N or P when you do the level check via drain plug. If the engine is off too much fluid comes out.

Fantastic Z · 02-23-2014, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

No garage, just random paddock parking. I've never even looked into garage spaces at any of the TDE events, I guess I should find out about that someday. I'm excited too, but nervous about so many changes on the car all at once.

I couldn't wait for this evening, so I took it out for a stress-test drive over lunch. No leaks, and temp data looks pretty awesome so far. "Normal" street driving - cruising around 2.5Krpm in the mid-day heat, the car would settle at oil/water temps of 180 and 177. I found an empty back-road stretch and gave the car a close-to-track-conditions flogging for about 7 minutes straight and I was still at 200/194. A soon as I backed off the agression, the car cooled back down to its steady-state in a minute or two.

Only problem I noted during the test-drive was an oddly-specific transmission issue. In general the transmission is fine, but if I brake in 3rd gear down to fairly low revs (~3K) and then transition right back to hard gas, the transmission lockup slips, the engine revs up freely for half second, and then the trans finally locks up (and by then the engine's way past matching revs and the tires burn a little). I'll try it again this evening and see if I can characterize it better, maybe. My random diagnostic thoughts right now are:

1) That my filling procedure didn't really work for setting the fluid level correctly, and braking down in 3rd at low revs just happens to slosh the too-low fluid in a way that it can't get pressure to lock up 3rd gear when I nail the gas pedal again. I could break this down into two possible filling errors: (a) that with all the air I needed to work out of the lines/system, my fill just wasn't going to be accurate until I really drove the transmission on the street a bit, in which case going back through the final step would fix it, or (b) technically, I don't think the service manual says to stop the engine when doing the final at-temperature fill/bleed. My best judgement was that turning the engine back off was implicit in the instruction to lift the car, etc, but maybe I really do need the engine running to set the fill correctly.

2) That I've damaged some seal/valve/solenoid whatever from track abuse at the last event and this is the first time I've noticed since getting home and then having the car on the lift forever.

3) Could be with the free-er revving engine (no more AC), I've crossed some threshold where I need to up the line pressure a bit more to catch it? I may play with line pressure in general for debugging this later.

I'd think if it was just a fill problem, I'd be able to reproduce the same slip condition in 2nd or 4th, which I was unable to do with a few attempts earlier, just 3rd. Could be specific to odd gears though (many internal passages/components are odd/even-specific), and it would be hard to reproduce the same type of condition in 1st or 5th.

I really wish I could get on the Nissan Batphone and find out for sure whether the final level check on the transmission was meant to be with the car running. Maybe GTM would know...

I've gotta say your build thread has been VERY cool to read and skim through this morning

I quote this particular post in your thread (in reference to the other relevant pages) as it really was one of the more educated findings about servicing the 7AT and it's fluid. Seems that most owners and newer members just ask how to change the fluid and aren't willing to dig for the right information. In finding 1) you mention a pressure loss in 3rd.

Well, since I've owned my Z this has happened to me ONLY twice. Both times I was flogging the car and as you mention the trans free revs and then catches at a MUCH higher than necessary RPM. That leads me to believe I am probably experiencing a low fluid level but, draining/filling at this time might not be a bad idea. Would you not draw the same conclusion?

wstar · 05-16-2013, 02:38 PM

Ah! It seems so foreign to me to set a fill level while something's running, but I guess this is also the only transmission of this nature I've ever seen. Maybe I'll try that this evening. Thanks for the directional hint

wstar · 05-16-2013, 02:54 PM

Oh another random note from the test-drive: I don't have the Z1 trans mount on yet, just the engine mounts. You can definitely feel the difference. I wouldn't say it's annoying or adds a huge amount of body vibration to the car, but if you're paying attention you definitely "feel" the engine more through the seat of your pants. I'd say throttle response (as in "reaction time of feeling the engine respond to a sudden change") feels a little snappier with stiffer mounts, but I also deleted the AC compressor at the same time and that's probably helping on that front a little as well.

Jsolo · 05-16-2013, 09:36 PM

I've done drain/fills on several gm trans's. The procedure has always been to check the fluid level with the car running, otherwise the fluid is concentrated not where it should be. I'd try the procedure in the fsm verbatim and see what happens.

wstar · 05-16-2013, 09:42 PM

I'm in the midst of doing so now, thanks guys

This is actually the first automatic trans car I've ever owned (and I'm getting old now), so I guess even if all auto trans are filled while running, I'd never have known it. I guess it's karma for second-guessing the service manual, too.

My initial check (fill to overflow) with it running at around the right ballpark temp, I ended up adding about 1.5 quarts to get it up from the "engine off" overflow level to the "engine on" overflow level. I have no doubt that's enough to cause problems.

It took me a while to swap bottles and whatnot and by then the temp was about 10 degrees past where it should be. So I capped it early while it was still flowing out a bit, and now I'm letting the car cool back off again so that I can do the final overflow level-setting at the right temp. Later tonight I'll go for a midnight test run to Denny's or something and see if it's still slipping in 3rd.

Also, I finally got the Z1 trans mount installed earlier while the car was cooling off the first time. Really, really easy to install, even on a stock car with everything attached. You just need a way to get the car up in the air (normal jackstands at a mid-high setting would work), and a bottle jack to hold, not truly lift the rear of the trans itself. The rest is just 8x fasteners to drop the crossmember, drop out the old mount, then reinstall it all, drop the bottle jack, drop the car. I'll see how that feels on my midnight run as well.

Rusty · 05-16-2013, 10:41 PM

sub'd.

04-25-2013, 09:41 AM	#1 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	Or here's a better example from their tutorial vids: Race-Keeper Comparo Instructional Screencasts \| Race-Keeper __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

04-25-2013, 09:47 AM	#2 (permalink)
VDC_OFF A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Houston (Pearland) Age: 46 Posts: 1,205 Drives: 2011 370Z M6 Rep Power: 18	looks awesome, but whoever put on the numbers was dyslexic. 3rd pic looks like a new profile pic __________________ DRIFTING JOURNAL \| Follow me on Instagram \| Facebook \| Houston Halos

04-27-2013, 10:09 PM	#3 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	So I started tearing things apart yesterday, and I'm just about done with destructo-mode and it's time for put-it-back-together mode. All in one go I'm upgrading basically all of my cooling components (radiator, oil/trans coolers, all the hoses, bypass heater, etc) and gutting the engine bay side of the HVAC, and doing the Z1 engine mounts while I'm in there (trans mount later, it's a separate simple project). Anyways, thought I'd post an in-progress update. My engine is now Cylon-approved: With the radiator, AC compressor, and alternator out of the way, swapping engine mounts is really, really easy. The only tricky part (as Spohn mentioned) might be finding an appropriate point or two to jack the engine upwards from safely. In my case I happen to have that AM Perf baffled oil pan, which is machined from a solid aluminum block and really can't be bent, so I just put a 2x4 under the oil pan and lifted the engine up with a floor jack on that. ChrisSlicks, DR_, Megan370z and 1 others like this. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 04-27-2013 at 10:13 PM.

05-16-2013, 08:32 AM	#4 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	I was a little worried I bit off more upgrades than I could chew between track weekends this time around, but it looks like I made it, fingers crossed. Later this evening will be my first real street test-drive on all the new setup, it's all buttoned back up now and it's been through a little static stress-testing in-place on the lift. A few notes I can put out now without having really driven the car yet: 7AT Fluid Swap without Dealer, and to non-Nissan fluid I had a dealership change my 7AT fluid last time, around 20K miles in, right after I added the small (series-1 and very short) trans cooler from Stillen's kit. Now that I'm just a hair under 40K and upgrading the cooler, I did another swap and did it myself this time. The new cooler is a Setrab Series-6 19-row (the one used in the 19-row oil cooler kits commonly for this car - where mine came from). I've switched from Nissan's factory Matic-S to the Motul Multi-ATF that Z1's selling. It's one of the very very few aftermarket ATFs to claim Nissan Matic-S compatibility, their marketing materials on it talk specifically about being suitable for latest-generation semi-autos, and I trust their brand at this point, so I expect this to go well. As for the whole dreaded issue with Consult-III temps for fluid change: through some mild experimentation I think I figured out this isn't as bad as it seems. To recap the service manual: you can only swap 3/9 quarts at a time via the drain/fill holes, and a "full change" in the SM is three of those swaps (which leaves 28% old fluid in the mix, that's ok). I'm probably more like 10 quarts with the add-on cooler/lines. After the final fill-to-overflow cold, you're supposed to fire it up, warm up to a Trans Temp of ~104F, roll through the gears in-place, raise the lift, and open up the overflow again to let it spill down and get the level set at that temp. With an IR thermo, you can get close enough for government work. If you shoot the IR thermo at close range on the bottom pan metal near the overflow/refill port itself, you'll read ~5-10 degrees F lower than the actual fluid temp in the pan. So basically, warm it up until that spot on the pan reads around 95-100F. When you pull the plug and start draining if you carefully shoot the dropping fluid up-close, you'll see it around the 100-110 range, which is close enough (the SM allows for some variability there anyways). Keep in mind I was in a garage at reasonable ambient temps around 70-80F and little wind and the car was pretty cold having been on the lift for days and only fired up a few minutes at a time. YMMV in other conditions, esp if the pan/trans is already heat-soaked from previous driving. Setrab 9-Series Oil Cooler fitment Now I know why all the easy-install oil cooler kits use Setrab's 6-series coolers (in 19/25/34-row heights).... I went with a 25-row Series-9 which is considerably wider. It seems like a better airflow fit for our grill opening, since at 25-row you're not getting much more airflow height between the bottom edge and the crash bumper area. The reason most of the kits don't use a Series-9 is it really doesn't fit well at all with our stock radiator core support and that center strut that holds the ambient air temp sensor, etc. I had to do a ton of cutting and customization to make it work. I also added a top-mount by drilling holes in the backside of the crash bumper, so it's mounted (with anti-shock rubber) top and bottom for stability. I suspect the Series-9 25-row is about as ideal as you can get, just be warned there's a reason the kits use the Series-6. Stock up on dremel cut-off wheels and be prepared to do major surgery and relocation of factory bits to fit the Series-9. APRacing/Stillen brake kit notes So far so good, I did ~200 miles of rotor break-in before the car went on the lift for other surgery a couple weeks ago. The one little note I wanted to add, since I discussed this stuff randomly both here and in other threads and never reported the final decisions: I've kept AP's pad clips in all 4 calipers in the end. Apparently it's functionally fine to leave them out for a track car, according to Stillen. I didn't think I'd care about NVH, so why not leave off an excess part that could cause a problem? Because the noise really is worrying. Without the clips the pads bonk around in the calipers a lot. I have a hard time telling whether that's just my clipless rear pads I'm hearing or maybe my suspension is falling apart in the rear because I forgot to torque down a bolt or something. At those kinds of ugly noise levels, IMHO the clips are worth it just to make it easier to diagnose other noises. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 05-17-2013 at 01:13 AM.

05-16-2013, 09:49 AM	#6 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	Mine is on the "outside" of the core like yours. The big differences between my setup and that picture are: 1) I have my trans cooler on the driver's side and oil cooler on the passenger side (opposite above). The lines are more natural that way (shorter runs). 2) I'm using the same bracket pictured (the one from Setrab themselves), but I used one on the bottom and one on the top (to the back of the alum crash bar, with an extra piece of angle aluminum to mate them up). This limits hose routing options to some degree, but prevents the cooler swaying back and forth on the bottom mount under accel/brake. 3) I had to move my cooler further inboard (towards center post laterally) than that, by about an inch or two, to get the lines to route past it out the same side (one behind, one over the top, and both stock PS cooler lines running behind), and as a result it sticks past the center post an extra inch or two. Thus, had to cut away a fair amount of the center post's depth, including the bracket for the air temp sensor. I ended up putting the air temp sensor in the upper center area between the G3 intakes, so now it's a "that pocket of air up by my intakes" temp sensor, which I imagine will read a bit higher with all the hot air from the various radiators. Between the 9-series 25-row oil cooler and the 6-series 19-row trans cooler, there's only a tiny tiny gap left between the two now. Almost all airflow has to go through those to reach the radiator (well, the trans cooler lets some pass beside/above, but not much). I don't think you could fit 2x 9-series very well at all. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 05-16-2013 at 09:51 AM.

05-16-2013, 09:07 AM	#5 (permalink)
DR_ Track Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Dallas Posts: 981 Drives: Touring/Sport M6 PG Rep Power: 18	I didn't have to cut/fabricate anything for the 25 row Series 9 Setrab to fit well. My guess is that you installed it with the L bracket facing towards the radiator while I installed it facing outside like the way GTM installs it. This is not mine but it is similar.

05-16-2013, 11:11 AM	#7 (permalink)
DR_ Track Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Dallas Posts: 981 Drives: Touring/Sport M6 PG Rep Power: 18	I'm tempted to move my air temp sensor up to the intakes as well. I use that air temp versus the intake temp sensor to get an idea of how much heat soak I have and having the air temp sensor closer to the intake would give me a better indication. Do you have a garage for the TMS event? I'll be in garage 44 and my dad is in garage 26 so I will likely be in one of those two areas. I've got new tires plus the bigger oil cooler so I am excited about this event.

05-16-2013, 01:55 PM	#8 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	No garage, just random paddock parking. I've never even looked into garage spaces at any of the TDE events, I guess I should find out about that someday. I'm excited too, but nervous about so many changes on the car all at once. I couldn't wait for this evening, so I took it out for a stress-test drive over lunch. No leaks, and temp data looks pretty awesome so far. "Normal" street driving - cruising around 2.5Krpm in the mid-day heat, the car would settle at oil/water temps of 180 and 177. I found an empty back-road stretch and gave the car a close-to-track-conditions flogging for about 7 minutes straight and I was still at 200/194. A soon as I backed off the agression, the car cooled back down to its steady-state in a minute or two. Only problem I noted during the test-drive was an oddly-specific transmission issue. In general the transmission is fine, but if I brake in 3rd gear down to fairly low revs (~3K) and then transition right back to hard gas, the transmission lockup slips, the engine revs up freely for half second, and then the trans finally locks up (and by then the engine's way past matching revs and the tires burn a little). I'll try it again this evening and see if I can characterize it better, maybe. My random diagnostic thoughts right now are: 1) That my filling procedure didn't really work for setting the fluid level correctly, and braking down in 3rd at low revs just happens to slosh the too-low fluid in a way that it can't get pressure to lock up 3rd gear when I nail the gas pedal again. I could break this down into two possible filling errors: (a) that with all the air I needed to work out of the lines/system, my fill just wasn't going to be accurate until I really drove the transmission on the street a bit, in which case going back through the final step would fix it, or (b) technically, I don't think the service manual says to stop the engine when doing the final at-temperature fill/bleed. My best judgement was that turning the engine back off was implicit in the instruction to lift the car, etc, but maybe I really do need the engine running to set the fill correctly. 2) That I've damaged some seal/valve/solenoid whatever from track abuse at the last event and this is the first time I've noticed since getting home and then having the car on the lift forever. 3) Could be with the free-er revving engine (no more AC), I've crossed some threshold where I need to up the line pressure a bit more to catch it? I may play with line pressure in general for debugging this later. I'd think if it was just a fill problem, I'd be able to reproduce the same slip condition in 2nd or 4th, which I was unable to do with a few attempts earlier, just 3rd. Could be specific to odd gears though (many internal passages/components are odd/even-specific), and it would be hard to reproduce the same type of condition in 1st or 5th. I really wish I could get on the Nissan Batphone and find out for sure whether the final level check on the transmission was meant to be with the car running. Maybe GTM would know... __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 05-16-2013 at 01:57 PM.

05-16-2013, 02:34 PM	#9 (permalink)
ChrisSlicks A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: North East Posts: 6,203 Drives: 09 370Z Sport M6 Rep Power: 655	Most likely a combination of 1 a) and b). The auto trans I've done this on required the engine to be running and transmission in N or P when you do the level check via drain plug. If the engine is off too much fluid comes out. __________________ Hotchkis ARB \| Stillen CAI \| Art Pipes \| Berk CBE \| Stillen AP Racing Brakes \| AE Performance Oil Cooler \| BC Racing ER Coilovers \| Doran Control Arms Last edited by ChrisSlicks; 05-16-2013 at 06:00 PM.

05-16-2013, 02:38 PM	#11 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	Ah! It seems so foreign to me to set a fill level while something's running, but I guess this is also the only transmission of this nature I've ever seen. Maybe I'll try that this evening. Thanks for the directional hint __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

05-16-2013, 02:54 PM	#12 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	Oh another random note from the test-drive: I don't have the Z1 trans mount on yet, just the engine mounts. You can definitely feel the difference. I wouldn't say it's annoying or adds a huge amount of body vibration to the car, but if you're paying attention you definitely "feel" the engine more through the seat of your pants. I'd say throttle response (as in "reaction time of feeling the engine respond to a sudden change") feels a little snappier with stiffer mounts, but I also deleted the AC compressor at the same time and that's probably helping on that front a little as well. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

05-16-2013, 09:36 PM	#13 (permalink)
Jsolo Track Member Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: chicago Posts: 783 Drives: '12 G37 6MT Rep Power: 16	I've done drain/fills on several gm trans's. The procedure has always been to check the fluid level with the car running, otherwise the fluid is concentrated not where it should be. I'd try the procedure in the fsm verbatim and see what happens. __________________ G37S Sedan 6MT, Eibach swaybars, Invidia Exhaust, Weaker Clutch Pedal Spring For sale links

05-16-2013, 09:42 PM	#14 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3596	I'm in the midst of doing so now, thanks guys This is actually the first automatic trans car I've ever owned (and I'm getting old now), so I guess even if all auto trans are filled while running, I'd never have known it. I guess it's karma for second-guessing the service manual, too. My initial check (fill to overflow) with it running at around the right ballpark temp, I ended up adding about 1.5 quarts to get it up from the "engine off" overflow level to the "engine on" overflow level. I have no doubt that's enough to cause problems. It took me a while to swap bottles and whatnot and by then the temp was about 10 degrees past where it should be. So I capped it early while it was still flowing out a bit, and now I'm letting the car cool back off again so that I can do the final overflow level-setting at the right temp. Later tonight I'll go for a midnight test run to Denny's or something and see if it's still slipping in 3rd. Also, I finally got the Z1 trans mount installed earlier while the car was cooling off the first time. Really, really easy to install, even on a stock car with everything attached. You just need a way to get the car up in the air (normal jackstands at a mid-high setting would work), and a bottle jack to hold, not truly lift the rear of the trans itself. The rest is just 8x fasteners to drop the crossmember, drop out the old mount, then reinstall it all, drop the bottle jack, drop the car. I'll see how that feels on my midnight run as well. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 05-16-2013 at 09:46 PM.

05-16-2013, 10:41 PM	#15 (permalink)
Rusty A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Fayettenam,Pennsyltucky Age: 70 Posts: 35,571 Drives: 2011 Nismo GM 6M Rep Power: 2684440	sub'd. __________________ 浪人 - 殺し屋 "The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only" http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html

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