370z hard to drive?

butdamnbrian

i do think the clutch/transmission is difficult in this car.

i've never had issues matching revs or stalling, but the damn transmission rattles and shakes on clutch-in in first and second below 3000 rpms. all the time. regardless of smoothness or clutch depression speed.

it conditions a driver to always shift out of first and second at well above 3k rpms, but that's not always possible in traffic, and honestly.. should a driver have to do that? if you're in traffic and have to let off the gas in first or second and clutch in quickly, there are rattles and shakes under the car that have nothing to do with the quality of your clutch-work. sometimes those situations just happen in traffic. it's the one huge pet peeve i have about the z.

i understand this is endemic to 370z transmissions and it's a trade-off i'm happy to make in exchange for the serious performance of the car. but.. does it make the z harder to drive? i think so, definitely.

BrianMSmith

I had a Camaro SS with much more torque and power than a Z, much lower gearing than stock, and it was much easier to drive smooth.

The Z has a very tricky clutch to run smooth. Whereas the old SS had a good inch of pedal feel between off and on, the Z seems to have about 1 centimeter. And because the car has a light flywheel, it's easy to stall it. In the Camaro, you could just let out the clutch at idle and it would walk off smoothly. The Z needs some revs, but it's hard to get off smooth and not feel like you're doing a jack rabbit getaway. Keep practicing.

ImportConvert

To me, the Z felt like it had a MASSIVE flywheel and it was kindof hard to rev-match my downshifts compared to my mustang GT or my Trans Am. It "lagged" when I blipped the throttle, andthis made it tricky to rev-match for me. I am used to a 1:1 response from the engine. That is, if I touch the pedal, the rpms rise. No perceptable lag, action--reaction. The Z was like "blip...thinking...REV~!". Maybe that was the ETC, but it sure felt like the flywheel was a pig.

AlphaSnacks

^^^ An ECU flash fixes that, actually.

Footloose301

0_o

I think it's smoother when the SRM is turned off. However, I keep it on at all times. I have yet to stall the car

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PapoZalsa

The 370Z hard to drive? I want what are some of you guys are smoking!

Some others need to go to driving school!

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BGTV8

Man, I am with you .... the 370Z is a dream to drive .... if the guys on this thread aren't smoking something, I don;t know what is going on !!!

ImportConvert

What other cars are you comparing the clutch to? Having driven other manuals, the Z is not that great. My friend's 700whp civic had a more civil clutch in it.

shadoquad

Again, I've driven several other manuals, lighter ones, heavier ones, more power, less power...

The Z's manual is fine. It's not butterscotch awesome smooth, but it does the job. It's certainly not "sky is falling" terrible as some here are claiming.

ImportConvert

The transmission itself was just fine. The clutch/way it engauges are my only gripe with it. The gearbox felt just fine to me.

turbodog

Please excuse the length of the following post.

Well, considering that there are now at LEAST 11 pages of posts on this topic, it is clear something is not as good as one might expect in a modern sports car. While I had adapted to the clutch quirks in this car, I am not one to settle for what the factory provided if I don't like it. So, I investigated and made some changes and am 100% happier. My investigation revealed 2 flaws:

1. (as others also have noted) the engagement point is too high off the floor, causing one to have to modulate at the engagement point with one's knee up in the air. Not optimum. Can it be driven this way? Sure. Would ANY race driver (not that I am) worth his/her salt NOT change it in order to improve overall performance? No.

2. The return spring on the pedal is not a simple affair. It is a linkage to a spring unit which is oriented 90 degrees away from what you might expect (for space considerations, I'm sure). The relationship between pedal motion and spring compression is not linear. It is a sinusoidal relationship. A sine function 'rate of change' (slope of curve; energy needed to move the pedal) passes through zero and 'infinity' (changing from positive to negative at each of these points) as the input (clutch pedal position) changes. This friggin linkage goes through the 'infinity' point in the relationship right about at the engagement point.

If anyone does the adjustment detailed in the other clutch thread, they can experience this first hand. With the clutch push-rod disconnected from the pedal, move the pedal through it's range of motion, starting at the pedal fully 'up' position. Push, resistance, push, resistance, push SNAP the pedal goes to the floor and stays there. You have to pull it back up (with the master cyl push-rod attached, the clutch spring, fed back thru the hydraulics, pushes the pedal back up). Pull, resistance, pull, resistance, pull SNAP the pedal snaps up to the fully 'up' position. The SNAP occurs where? Right at the stock engagement point. Maybe this was on purpose... the pedal 'helping' inexperienced drivers to get their foot off the clutch pedal once the thing is engaged.

The net result is a distinct change in pedal response, right where I least want it. What to do? Well - fortunately- when the push-rod linkage is adjusted, the relationship of pedal-position-to-engagement-point is changed, and the spring snap-over occurs well past the engagement point, as I am taking my foot off the pedal.

As discussed above, a good driver can compensate for a lot of faults in the car (Fernando Alonzo in a 2009-spec Renault F1 car comes to mind as a possible pinnacle of that!), but don't overlook the fact that many faults (such as the clutch action in our 370Z) CAN be fixed.

B&W_Evader

I agree most with Turbodog.

1st I did the clutch helper spring, didn't feel a perceptable change
2nd I adjusted the pedal engage point, night and day difference

What I still think is still wrong with it...
1) Springs in the clutch plate are too soft giving it a choppy engagement. In my opinion, that's the jerkyness you feel getting off the line sometimes.
2) Pressure plate is too soft. You should be a able to get more snap out of it. Hell, my leg doesn't even get tired in stop and go traffic.
3) I'd like a lighter flywheel too. You shouldn't see a big change in RPM during engagement anyway. It's just there to make getting off the line easier.

I'm not going to take the transmission out to fix this stuff untill it needs to come out for some other reason.

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m4a1mustang

So I was at a stop light this morning when a guy in a 370Z pulled up to me. He rolled down his window and looked over at me, his face bright red and dripping with sweat, and asked, "hey, is that 5.0 easy to drive?" He was running out of breath and I thought he was about to pass out. "Are you OK?" I asked.

"Yes--" weezing like an asthmatic child in gym class he answered, "this car is just... so hard to drive."

And that, folks, is why I sold my 370Z.

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shadoquad

Prolly less work to just ride a bike wherever.

bullitt5897

How do you like the pressure plate in the 5.0? its gotta be a lot heavier than the Z... I remember my bullitt mustang had a killer pressure plate!!! it was insane to drive on a daily basis then again I did mod the hell out of it.

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