Installed Z1 Transmission polyurethane brace!

[Thefunk]

I chose the wrong age to get into auto work as today was painful lol. I installed the trans brace in addition to the Z1 oil catch can, and rotated my tires. Gotta say though the brace made a HUUGE difference in feel of the car. I can feel the engine and transmission now. The power delivery is stellar! It feels like I got a HP increase!

For the noise: Yes louder. The transmission/engine sound now has a lower octave which at first was off-putting but I got used to it. 3rd and 4th gear and louder than the other gears. Cruising in 4th gear has a phasing sound, almost like pulsating. I will post more details when I drive it more. But this is exciting. I still have to install the Z1 rear diff brace.

 

[D2M]

I installed this on my Z as well. I ended up removing it after one day and dissembling it and adding an internal spacer to lessen the preload on the 2 poly bushings. Now %90 of the NVH is gone but you still get all the benefits of a stiffer mount. Love it.

 

[Thefunk]

I installed this on my Z as well. I ended up removing it after one day and dissembling it and adding an internal spacer to lessen the preload on the 2 poly bushings. Now %90 of the NVH is gone but you still get all the benefits of a stiffer mount. Love it.

Yeah huh? I can see how the nvh can get annoying. I'm gonna daily it for a few days and just be light on the throttle to see how it feels when driving normal.

 

[D2M]

Mine would resonate through the whole car around 4k-6k rpm at max load pretty badly. I found the bushings had a lot of preload on them so I installed a spacer inside the mount to space it apart giving the bushings minimal preload (squash) Its been around 2k miles and its perfect..

 

[Thefunk]

So far under normal driving conditions, Standard drive mode, I barely notice the nvh. Cool thing is now there is much more torque to the wheels in Standard mode. Sport mode is just amazing (and scary) now. I'm gonna monitor my fuel consumption too. Technically I should not see better fuel economy but better efficiency.

 

[JonnyG]

I installed this on my Z as well. I ended up removing it after one day and dissembling it and adding an internal spacer to lessen the preload on the 2 poly bushings. Now %90 of the NVH is gone but you still get all the benefits of a stiffer mount. Love it.

Didn't realize this added so much noise. What did you use as an internal spacer - Washers, cut pc of pipe - curious

 

[D2M]

I happened to have a 5mm thick steel spacer that fit exactly in my bin of parts lying around. The stock mount is liquid filled and is very soft. The Z1 is a good stiffness but the bushings are squashed too much so even without any load on the mount a lot of NVH gets transmitted. By reducing the amount of squash the mount is allowed to move slightly when under slight load but is still 100x stiffer than stock when at max load and will probably never go bad. The modification is internal so its not visible at all. The Z1 mount in the pics is before modification, basically the lowest part of the mount will be 5mm lower to relieve some preload. This does not change the mounting height of the mount so driveline geometry is unchanged.

 

[Thefunk]

The noise is honestly not that bad when driving normal. Personally, I prefer feeling more of the car, it's especially useful for troubleshooting.

 

[Thefunk]

I installed the rear diff brace today and test drove it in sport and manual mode. The car is actually quieter now. Not as quiet as it was without the trans brace but the diff brace seems to have helped move the vibration to the wheels. Only problem is I forgot to route the diff temp sensor cable harness to the right of the brace and instead the cable is touching the brace now. I hope it doesn't melt or get damaged.

 

[D2M]

I also did the diff brace a while back. Mine has a slight hint of gear whine at certain loads, I love it as it has a similar sound to a straight cut gear transmission but isn't loud enough to be annoying, its just right. The jacking point is a life saver as Im always working on my car.

 

[Thefunk]

I also did the diff brace a while back. Mine has a slight hint of gear whine at certain loads, I love it as it has a similar sound to a straight cut gear transmission but isn't loud enough to be annoying, its just right. The jacking point is a life saver as Im always working on my car.

The extra length on the jack point is also a nice touch. I too hear a slight whine but my car feels and sounds like a different car now, less luxury more sport.

 

[Zstevo]

I’ve been told that the trans mount NVH decreases after a couple hundred kms? Is this true?

 

[D2M]

I would say not really, maybe a very slight amount once the urethane heat cycles a few times.

 

[JonnyG]

Driven my car approx 850 miles - I've never felt a transmission move up & down (rock) on acceleration and decleration - it was unnerving. DEFINETLY needs the brace and D2M thanks for the spacer info will most definetly do prior ti install.