370z hard to drive?

shadoquad

Is it just me, or is the pedal position awkward for heel-toe as well?

Davey

Been a while since I tried since I got frustrated with its unwillingness to rev, but I want to say they're too far apart and the brake is too high to have it work unless you're on the brakes REALLY hard.

Shamu

I dont have any issue at all? Pedals are in great position for me. Its very easy car to drive on the street and heal toe is quite easy. However I grew up heal toeing old Porsches so my perspective may be warped. I have to admit though Im cheating on my feet and having an affair with SRM.

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Grant

JARblue

I tend to fat foot it more often than not... the gas pedal is definitely set back further from the brake pedal than any car I can remember driving more than once. Even when you're braking incredibly hard with the brake pedal mashed in, the pedal is still pretty far back. My knee ends up hitting steering wheel and/or column without some serious shift of my a$$ in the seat

I wouldn't know. Do you?

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Davey

Yes!

RC24

So after owning my Z for 5 days now, the clutch pedal has been the one thing that has been bugging the hell out of me. After searching the internet for the past couple days, I've found some information on how to adjust the engagement point, but nothing that made me feel confident in doing it. I saw B&W_Evader's post from a couple days ago that he had adjusted the engagement point, so I sent him a PM. His response is super simple, and doesn't need any pictures to figure it out.

B&W_Evader:
"Stick your nose under the dash and draw your attention up the pedal linkage. You will see a bar that goes into the floorboard. This is the bar that goes to the clutch master cylinder. You will see a clevis connecting it to the pedal and a lock nut that keeps the rod from turning. I just loosened the nut and screwed the rod in the whole way. You may not need to go that far but I had only about a turn of adjustment. I used a needle nose pliers on the nurled portion of the rod to turn it in. The posts I read said you need to watch that you don't take any of the switch positions out of place but I didn't have to do anything on mine."

In addition to the needle nose pliers, you will need a 12mm open ended wrench to loosen the jam nut.

Once I got under there and figured out how to work in the tight space, the mod took all of 3 minutes. From when I went out to the garage to when I was starting the engine to test drive it took about 5.

Huge difference, and now the clutch feels more "normal" to me (based off of the last 11 cars I've owned with manual transmissions) I took it around the block and didn't have any grinding issues or anything weird like that.

Just hoping this post will help some of you who are searching as to how to do this mod and haven't had any luck.

Magic Bus

Pictures?

kenchan

here you go.

this is wat i used.

blackcherry20

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Grand Sport Corvette Arctic White

JohnsZ

WHAT????? "open ended wrenches", "needle nose pliers", "Clevis'ssss", "lock nuts". I can't imagine doing any kind of work like this on my precious Z. I guess I'm just "old school" but if you have to change anything mechanical to this degree on a new Z, why bother buying it in the first place. You're making changes on an already awesome car where it won't even feel like a Z anymore. No car is perfect but the Z comes as close to perfect as possible IMO. Ever hear of something having "character"? The Z's got it...and then some! I wouldn't think of putting anything but a sponge and microfiber towel to my Z.

kenchan

john - it's a frikken spring held by an e-clip. anyone can do this. now get your spring from mike, get a flash light and a long nose pair if pliers and get that thing replaced.

a quick tip from me.... place flashlight in your left hand pointing backwards so that it looks like you have a knife in your hand ready to make a kill. then push down and hold the clutch pedal with your same left hand while holding the flash light in the same orientation. you will have good visibility of the clutch spring assy.

then use your right hand to pull the e-clip out of the helper spring assy with your long nose pliers. walla. it's very easy to do.

JohnsZ

Hey Ken....thanks for the tip but the last time I held a flashlight under a dash was when I was installing my 8 Track Player in my '55 Chevy. I think you get the picture.

seungklee

First time trying to manually heel-and-toe will frustrate the hell out of you because it did for me...lol. I kept practicing until my foot became natural and my foot just does it automatically now. So it seems hard because of the pedal position is straight up, long, and you have to hit it up there to do it smoothly, but as everybody says, practice makes it perfect. However, mine is still not perfect though, but getting there almost!

Z34Driver

While I didn't stall driving it off the lot, I do remember a few things that were strange about the clutch pedal / pedal orientation after first purchasing the car. Every time I would shift, I would accidentally still have my foot on the gas slightly when engaging the clutch. This would cause the engine to rev, like I was trying to blip the throttle to downshift, except this would happen when I was shifting up. Thinking about it now, this probably does have much to do with the orientation of the pedals / and strange clutch release point.

I've never owned a car worthy of the track, at least to me, so I've never really driven in a "Race" environment. So I guess for me, I just adjusted to the car and really haven't had any issues with driving it since the adjustment. I'm sure my size 14's don't hurt though, when it comes to reaching the awkwardly distanced brake, and gas pedals at the same time.