5spd swap into a Q

[Sopdadope]

Of course it's wellknown now that my Q has been out-of-comission for the past few weeks. I've been converting the active suspension, doing the brakes, endlinks, bushings, you name it. The other day my mechanic was swapping out the A/T in a Pathfinder and putting in a manual transmission.

He told me that the transmission on the Q was very similar to the Z and Q's as well as most 90's RWD Nissan cars. Before I got the chance to ask, he wanted to know if I ever thought about putting a 5spd in my Q. He's pretty wellknown among local Nissan owners because he's swapped 240sx and 300zx trannies. According to him, on a scale of 1-10 dropping in a stickshift for a Q would be a 7. Here's a few of the things he'd have to do:

1- cut sections of the exhaust2- take off entire drivetrain3- remove crossmembers4- relocate foot e-brake to a convention hand-brake (according to him, super EZ)5- the hardest part, modifying a cutout from inside the car for the slave cylinder6- possibly removing the brake master cylinder

The one lingering question revolves around the flywheel but he assured me the Q flywheel and 300ZX have identical bolt-patterns.

Price of rebuilt Q A/T= $2,600 (local)Price of rebuilt Z 5spd= $1,200 (local rebuilder)Weight of Q transmission (he never weighed in but says it's identical to Pathfinder transmission's he's seen which weigh 350 pounds with transfter case)Weight of Z 5pd= 209 pounds

Who said all mods weren't practical?

[Q45tech]

And what do you use for a ECU since there never was a Q engine mated to a manual.The Pathfinder transmission is not the same it uses a R03R01A.Anything can be done.

Myself I want a 6 speed ZF automatic.

[PalmerWMD]

Will the ECU refuse to function if it sees no TCU?

If so couldn't someone like aaacomp, reprogram the ECU to not " miss" the TCU?

Or isn't it more, that the TCU sends stuff to the ECU about when to retard throttle during autoshifting etc so work on the ECU may not even be neccesary?(the above is, hope mixed with idle speculation)

I really hope someone would do the first swap.A manual transmission would be a trmendous upgrade of the Q, and economical to boot!

Fred...

[AZhitman]

Not much room for a clutch pedal.

Might be fun to do with a "beater" Q to see how it'll function and how much actual cutting will impact aesthetics...

Why an e-brake? Sounds unnecessary to me.

[PalmerWMD]

Ebrake's are real handy for starting a manual on hills.

Fred...

[Sopdadope]

And what do you use for a ECU since there never was a Q engine mated to a manual.The Pathfinder transmission is not the same it uses a R03R01A.Anything can be done.

Myself I want a 6 speed ZF automatic.

If there's no way to work around the ECU, I'll take the money I saved with the 5spd purchase and get a run-of-the-mill SDS stand-alone (great, great system for the price) which I've become accustomed to. Getting the stand-alone management would open a pandora's box of performance....but we'll get into that later....

Of course they're not the same transmission but bear close resemblance, but the Q transmission appears shorter and less bulkier. I was just using it as a reference.

I've always see hand e-brakes are more useful and more aesthetically pleasing than pedal e-brakes. Besides, four pedals is one too many.

My transmission is running strong still but I can tell there is a definite decline in it's performance over the past year even with flushing and pan dropping. I can already picture this thing croaking next year, especially with the way I beat my car.

[Q45tech]

I kept close records on my 2nd transmission [first changed at 55k- in 1995] for the last 180,000 miles and with 6 flushes [once per year], first gear start from day one, and aux cooler at 30,000 miles, mostly Mobil 1 for the last 150,000 miles.

When I changed it due to the necessity of repairing a rear engine and rear transmission shaft seal. I tested the shift times [1-2 & 2-3]with Consult [accurate to 0.01 seconds] before and after the installation of a factory rebuilt unit everything was within 3-5% of each other and the timed acceleration were identical within 0.2 seconds on the same stretch of road, same temperature, just 6 hours later!

The transmission DOES NOT have to fail or degrade its performance and I can assure you I do more WOT and more redline shifts and more revlimit hits that almost anybody. But $2,200 in maintenance [flushes, filter changes, pan drops, 1st gear start, cooler,etc] may be more than most want to spend to assure 180-200k but compared to a $3,000 replacement earlier seems like a deal to me.

Still saving the old transmission as a spare but it may rot before its needed.

The transmission is only rated to handle 330 lb/ft [roughly the amount produced with JWT ecu].