I hear ya. I have a guy I've been frequenting for about as long. Sold him my '94 Firebird, which he still has, and he's always been fair on price.

Easy to lose sight of it, but this is a BIG mod in terms of parts and labor. Kudos to you for taking this leap.

 

Going right now to pick up my car.

It's a miserable day... nothing but cold rain. But I don't care. I'm pretty psyched.

 

Turn traction control off, put your big boy pants on, and let her rip John. We are all waiting

 

Yeah, but it's raining. Like, a lot. And it's going to be raining like this all through the weekend, damn it. However, there are still lots of impressions to be had, and opinions starting to form.

#1 - Holy ****, the bottom end just came alive!
#2 - The car is totally drive-able.
#3 - I need more seat-time.

That first mile, and that first moment, when you pull out into the road and row through the gears... OMG. It was pretty shocking. Insofar as being a "performance" mod, this is huge. However, by no means does it makes this car un-driveable. I just have to learn new limits and new shift points, and learn a new set of muscle memory responses on how much throttle to give the car. Because what I'm used to... that's not going to work anymore.

Driving around town in the <50 mph zone, the car is a freaking jack-rabbit. A monstrous, almost scary, jack rabbit. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can always calm down and row up to a higher gear. And at highway speeds, it just feels normal, although revving clearly higher than before. 2500 rpm at 60 mph.

And Lego wanted to know cost. Bushings & gears installed for just over $900. So in big round numbers of parts & labor, this is a $2k mod.

 

Nice! Glad it worked out, although too bad about the weather.

 

It's going to be a while before I get the seat-time for impressions. This afternoon was about a 10 mile drive home, in traffic, in the pouring rain and me running out of tire tread. About 2 miles of that on the highway.

Throughout it all, I was punching the throttle whenever I could. Each time I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach when you realize you're actually going faster than you thought you were. That's a heck of a feeling, so it's going to be a while for the new-normal to set in.

TC would kick in a lot, but you learn how to adjust.

 

Im gonna need you to get a good in cabin video of this rowing. Sucks its raining, but then again not like you drive your car all that much anyway

 

2500rpm @ 60mph is only about 300 rpm more than stock. I would've expected more.

That is awesome to hear that drivability seems to be good still. I know it's early but that's promising.

 

Are you recalibrating your speedometer to account for the change in gearing?

 

Nope. IDK why that wasn't on my radar. Either I looked into this once, and discounted it, or I never considered it. What do you know about this, 4DRZ?

 

I just drove the kids to an event and dropped them off. Roads are still wet, but the rain has stopped for now. I was on very familiar back roads and hills, and I had an interesting thought. Because there's so much more pull now in the bottom of 3rd gear, a lot of the turns I would typically drop into 2nd are easily handled in 3rd now.

Here's the interesting thought: dropping into 2nd for a low-speed turn is usually somewhat brutal, because 2nd gear is too much grunt. In other words, I might actually be taking turns *slower* than before, in 3rd gear.

Because I can now.

 

I was just reading this article in Road & Track and thought of your differential: How to Fix Speedometer - Adjust Speedo and Odometer for New Tires

I don't know where the sensors are in our cars or if they would be affected by this type of mod or not. The fact that Infiniti stupidly mounted the ABS sensors to the rear differential makes me think they could have easily never considered anyone changing the gearing. But if they did, the rear axles spinning faster than stock would make the car think it is moving a lot faster than it is.

Again, I am not sure if that is the case or not with our cars, but I thought I would bring it to your attention so you don't have to freak out about speeding tickets if that is an issue.

 

Nice! this is exactly why I perfer my 5at over the 7at...i can only imagine your 4.08s

congrats and i hope you have some fun with it when the weather clears up

 

This is really useful info...mines definitely off cause my wheels ...i didn't even realize it could be fixed diy style

 

Sounds like you're more than impressed w/ the gear change, glad it worked out and your multiple setbacks made that excruciating wait that much more rewarding.

Sounds like an epic upgrade!