Another major piece of the puzzle picked up.
A CD009 6-spd manual transmission from a 2005 350Z.
The engine I’m using only came in trucks and SUV’s, and it never came with a manual, so I’ve decided to try to use this one. I’m not the first to do it, so there are some adapter plates and parts developed by others that will be helpful.
I found this one locally (at a different parts recycler) via car-part.com and Nik met me with his truck to pick it up. Good friend right there. We slogged back to the shop 20 miles in 5pm Houston traffic, which takes about an hour. Brutal.
The transmission is pretty light, so it was easy to unload by hand with the two of us. Now it's on the floor of the shop, where I suspect it will live for longer than I'd like to think about.
The CD009 transmission has a bit of a ridiculous reputation on the internet. It's not hard to find claims that it will hold a 1,000hp drag launch in stock form. I'm dubious of such claims, but it is well accepted that it is an excellent transmission with close gearing (5th is 1:1). Nissan worked to improve the CD00x from its debut as the CD001 all the way through to the CD009. One of the big improvements was going from single-cone synchros in the early versions to triple cones on 2nd and 3rd for the CD009. Shifting is largely improved.
One of the tricky parts of getting a CD009, and not being stuck with the double synchros of the CD008, is actually verifying which box you have. The CD009 came in 05-06 model years on the VQ35DE engine, but not the HR version that debuted in 2006 in the '07 model year G35's. The production run didn't start until sometime in the '05 model year, so just getting an '05 is no guarantee either. Then add the fact that the case markings (you'll see stampings of "CD0 #1" or "CD0 #2") aren't correlated with the transmission version (despite what some may claim on various forums). Needless to say, not being an expert, I was nervous about which version I was actually getting.
Fortunately, this transmission was pulled from a running car at the auto recycler from which I bought it, and they provided me with the VIN (which is also stamped on the transmission case). A quick call to a local Nissan dealer's parts department allowed me to confirm that yes, this car was built with a CD009. I really lucked out with this find. The shifter snicks smartly in and out of gear, so I feel pretty good about it.
While we were moving engines and transmissions around, we shuffled some cars and brought Nik’s red WRX into the shop. He’s hoping to fix a few things on it and get it running nicely. With all the cars in the shop, it’s looking pretty serious!
I snagged a stock Nissan Titan junkyard wiring harness that came up on eBay for extra cheap a couple weeks ago, so I unboxed it and draped it over the engine to make sure I had all the connectors I wanted. It was way cheaper to buy a used harness than buy all the connectors separately, which I'm sure you all know anyway. Just confirmed.
All the connectors are there. My plan right now is to dissect the junkyard harness and harvest wire and connectors to graft onto the standalone harness. I imagine doing this once with the old stuff as practice on the engine test stand, then doing it again with new connectors for the final car harness.
Speaking of which, I also picked up Walmart's finest engine test stand. It’s not-suprisingly very heavy and was a huge pain to pick up and transport myself in the back of my car.
I'm 99% sure this thing is cheaper than I could buy the individual components and metal. Feels pretty odd to get it from Walmart, but we'll find out together how good or bad of a plan this is. I'm sure there will be some custom parts needed to get everything mounted up, but this is a hell of a head start.
With so much stuff happening in the shop, I wasn't super efficient, so I just had time to unpack the test stand. I'll work on it the next time I'm out there.
I was able to measure for a crank trigger wheel, so I have all the information I need to order an ECU and starter harness. I'm balking a bit at the commitment; I was supposed to order today, but I think I'll sleep on it over the weekend. No need to rush a decision on that, I think.
Thanks for reading!
damen
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