hey man, thanks a lot for that link, yes I've seen it. you have to realize there that your probably looking at well over $100k into that z build not even including the original z itself... that hollinger 6 speed is ~$12k alone for just the gearbox & is really more of a racing unit, not so great on the street... for ~$14k you could also get an os giken sequential 6 speed too which is a bit more street able... these options are just way over my budget. the stock 6 speed from the later stageas with the VQ #1 wouldn't do me any good because that's still the wrong bell housing for an HR motor & second of all from what I've read those 6 speeds aren't all that strong either... nothing like the getrag unit which ended with the r34 cars in 02...
for now I've put all the tranny stuff to the side. just having it & planning for it is a big help in reaching my goals for this car but I've got more than enough other things on my plate atm, I got the tranny to help my overall end result, not to wind up causing even more delays & distractions from my main primary goal of finishing my turbo build & getting it running, I really don't even want to touch the tranny until I get a good grip on everything else... probably won't even touch it till I get the thing running first.
also, as an update... I think from day one, when I first realized the headers I built were ruined, one of my big problems was in figuring out how the hell I'm going to possibly be able to rebuild headers like this again without being able to build them around the motor itself, like I did the first time... I mean at the time my motor was already fully installed & my car was all put back together & I even towed the car back home... I really thought the whole header nightmare was done & over with, headers are done...the first time I built them the motor went in & out of the car many times to build everything perfect & I positioned the turbo's with brackets, all lined up & symmetrical & where they would fit best in the engine compartment, then built the headers around the motor, I'm working in pretty tight clearances to get everything to clear & also keep everything symmetrical & lined up straight...
I knew I could never afford to put it back in the shop again, remove the whole engine again & then start from scratch... I tied up a bay in my shop for close to 2 months the first time & that was hustling through & just getting it done, was extremely hard for me & I was winding up pulling after midnights for weeks on end, simply couldn't redo all that...
I eventually figured I could build a jig to help duplicate these, so I did, I built a jig to locate the turbo head & the header flange & figured this, along with some measuring & eyeballing, I'd be able to duplicate them on the bench, then just test fit them on the engine in the car . sounded good & I didn't see much other choice but to attempt this, figured it should be doable...
well I now started to build my headers & let me tell you, it is absolutely impossible to get it really the same, ESPECIALLY considering the fact that now, I'm actually getting precise, square cuts... before was just a crude jagged chop saw cut, then grinded to the angle I needed for it to line up... but here I'm now trying to get all "proper" seams for better flow, not nearly as much "cheater" bends as I winded up with the first time, & have all nice & square joints... the cold saw with clamping jig insures I'm getting square cuts but now trying to do this with my jig was just turning into an impossible exercise in frustration.... I realized this past weekend that doing it with the jig I built is impossible.
since my header mishap & then thoughts of the tranny swap I have been on the look out for another spare motor, really my main intension for getting one was more towards facilitating the building of the tranny swap more than anything else, at that time I thought the jigs would be good enough to build the headers, but now, since I have found a spare motor anyway & the jig isn't working out as I had hoped, I now decided to take the spare engine I had all apart & bring that home, build it back together with the block, heads & front cover on a bench in my garage, & now, I can build them the right way, just like the first time, built right around the engine itself. I'm finally, after all this time, feeling confident & really good about this project again... it's been a year of frustration but I now finally think I really have what I need to do this & do it right... I'll be building brackets for the turbos right on that mock up motor then building the headers again, this time so much better than even the first time...
I built new positioning brackets for the turbo's. since I'm starting from scratch I revised there location a little bit, moved them up & forward a little, will help correct a few things that I thought were less than ideal like downpipe to intake tube distance, also I decided to shoot my intake pipe straight over the top of the radiator instead of having a sharp 90* bend right into the turbo inlet, a bit higher will help that too...
I've also changed the way I build the collectors a bit for a better merge
I had to make a new jig for these slant cuts & I had to remake a new blade guard to allow the cold saw to cut deep enough without interfering
