HI All,

 

Just joined the forum and bought my first 300zx over the weekend and have a few silly questions that i'm hoping someone will answer.

 

It's a 1995 300zx fairlady Z with an Auto gearbox.

 

1- the Auto gearbox has a red plastic peice at the front? what's this for?

 

2- next to the gearbox is a button that says Power at the top and Hold at the bottom? What does this do? Bear in mind, i've just bought the car and didn't really want to press it not knowing what it did in case you have to do it at a certain time ie: before you engage gear.

 

Changing gears. In an auto normally you can change down gears manually to gain more power to overtake etc. With this car, the Overdrive button is located on the side of the gearstick and when you push it in a light appears saying "overdrive off". Is it ok in general to turn the O/D off to over take the press it to turn it back on when your done? (like changing from 4th to 3rd gear then back again)?

 

I realise these questions may be really silly to a bunch of hardened ZX owners lol.

 

Cheers

 

Peter

2, power mode changes the gear ratios slightly, a/t will notice what you do with that right pedal ;)

.....and put you in to power mode when you accelerate, hold mode is best for snow etc, stops the car going in the lower gears

 

I would keep it in Drive with o/d on most of the time , if you remove o/d it will induce engine braking, best for going up or down steep inclines and NOT designed to be taken off at speed

 

Hth

The red thing i thing you mean, is a manual over ride for the park solenoid, i.e. with the key out of the ignition, you can't take the box out of park until you turn the ignition on (you can't take the key out either until it's in park) if you push that red thing in, it allows you to change the gear without having the key in.... The power lets the car rev more or less up to the limiter, so you get more of the power out of it, it changes up later, but flooring the accelerator does that anyways (you'll see the 'power' light come on the dashboard when you floor it, and the hold button makes the car set off in 2nd, and changes up at lower revs, for driving in snow/ice etc. to reduce the possibility of wheel spin and possible carnage :) HTH, not sure about your overdrive question tho.... And your questions aren't silly, mate, i think we've all asked them at some point! :)

welcome to the club mateas for your questions

1 the red plastic piece not to shure on this one

2power and hold button will I think in hold will keep the gears in high mode and power will give you more reves in acceleration

3the overdrive button if turned of will stop you going into top gear when acceleration hard but also if you drive with the overdrive on and accelerate hard the zed will over ride this setting and you will see the power light come on. hope I am right with all this if not some one will put me right

lol my reply was not technical, but i always leave mine in at mode, as it goes in to power mode on acceleration anyway then use hold for snow etc, but was always told never to take o/d off at speed?

 

Chris

any pictures of your new car then mate? oh and i always turn overdrive on and off whilst moving along??? hopefully it will break the box though as it will give me a good excuse to do a manual conversion! lol,, :thumbup:

 

oh and welcome to the club!

Thanks for all the help guys. Glad i asked now beofre starting to drive it properly. Was going to use turning the O'D button off to accelerate slightly quicker.

 

In my other auto cars the O'D setting was always in the actual gear line up and i use to often just drop it from O/D to D to accelerate and back again like shifting from 4 to 3.

 

Cheers

 

Peter

Red button, targa = ejector seat :whistling:

Ah, i have one of those in my KITT replica lol

need some picks of your zed mate:yes:

need some picks of your zed mate:yes:

 

http://www.300zx.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=136259 ;)

It will drop in and out of overdrive very easily and smoothly no matter how hard you are driving because the gearbox software is adaptive... i.e. it changes the settings according to how you're driving at the time. In the maual the recommendation is to only manually disable the o/d if you're travelling slowly through town or city traffic

Ah, what about the Power button on the gearbox? Am i alright to turn that on in mid stride? ie: driving along at 50, decide i want to overtake a load of traffic, can i flick the power button on to save flooring the pedal?

Ah, what about the Power button on the gearbox? Am i alright to turn that on in mid stride? ie: driving along at 50, decide i want to overtake a load of traffic, can i flick the power button on to save flooring the pedal?

 

it does the same thing as flooring the pedal mate? if you switch the power button on and then only push the pedal half way it wont really get anywhere too fast..

 

i find the o/d very handy and use it like you said before, like going from 3rd to 4th, but as the manual recommends only doing it at slow speeds i wouldn't do it if your intending to keep your autobox just in-case. i find the hold button handy as well as sometimes i just want to floor it in the same gear,

 

i.e...... your on the motorway doing 50 in some speed limit roadworx area then it opens up to national speed limit, if the hold button is off and i floor it, it jerks and redlines and generally revs the ******ks off the engine, i normally just put the hold button on and accelerate smoothly in top gear to my desired speed,

 

hope this makes some sort of sense??

Makes perfect sense mate :)

 

Just want to use the car to the best of its ability without wrecking the autobox :)

Makes perfect sense mate :)

 

Just want to use the car to the best of its ability without wrecking the autobox :)

 

You'll eventually find just through driving the autobox will just destroy itself in some way/shape or form - they are the achilles heel of the 300zx - enjoy it while it lasts! :nuke: lol

I thought it was just the Early Z's that had problems with the Autoboxes?

Please don't say that my car is doomed to fail even before i have had a chance to enjoy it. :( The Autobox went in my White Trans Am and it cost almost a grand to have it re-conditioned. :(

 

Peter

Hey bud - I'm not saying it's doomed, I suppose some might say that a well looked after/serviced auto will last a lifetime, and yes the earlier ones had smaller autobox coolers, but the reality is any Z auto can go regardless of how well the car has been kept and looked after.. You could do a little service on it for your own peace of mind I guess, and i'm not sure about the stresses and strain differences between N/A and TT's.. So you may be alright?.. But I have had to go down the conversion route myself and I would never have an auto Z again. But fingers crossed :duffer: you wont have any troubles :)

Edited March 11, 201015 yr by 300ZX_DRE

If your worried best thing to do would be check the oil for any metal filings etc, or maybe even do an oil and gasket change and clean out the filter in the process.

Thanks for the advice :)

 

May do that in the near future. Till then, i'll just keep my fingers crossed.

 

Peter

I've never had any problems with Z auto boxes over about 5 years worth of driving, even with an auto line controller fitted that increases the line pressure for swifter gear changes at high revs. I hardly ever use overdrive (just on motorway runs obviously) as in overdrive it feels like driving an unresponsive coasting lardy slug. I don't bother with the power/hold button either, it's just a gimmick and pointless. Power will hold you pointlessly longer in each gear under slow acceleration, and comes on automatically when needed at kickdown anyway. Hold cuts out first gear, so you pull away in second, and disables kickdown. I've never found a use for either.

Most auto box woes are probably on J-spec cars; since the oil cooler is smaller and not up to the job!

 

Here in the UK we drive harder, faster and further than they do in the Land of The Rising Sun. The UK spec cars have a bigger oil cooler - doing the modification will, in theory, help you 'box last longer......

 

......although the auto box on my red ZX still fried itself at around 95k miles; losing 2nd and top gears.....:scared:

 

Richard:cool3:

I have tried the Power and Hold buttons and both seem to do next to nothing except put an orange light on my dash. Back to the changing up and down from 4th to 3rd gear by relesing the Overdrive then applying it again. Taking into account what has been said in this thread, has anyone else had experience doing this that has caused there box to malfunction? Reason i ask is that i feel this is the best way to get extra overtaking accelration without the need to floor the car.

 

Here is another really stupid question? Where are the Jacking Points?

I've looked under the car and there are no real pronounced double folded or thick points that i can see? Anyone have any pics? I'm always worried about jacking up cars as i've had a few where the jacking point has completely crumbled and one that ended up with a hole in it.

Quick bump to the thread hoping someone will help with the jacking point question above.

 

My new wheels should be arriving in the next couple of days and i'd hate to jack it up in the wrong place :)

 

Cheers

 

Peter

We have an online workshop manual on this site in FAQ, which will help with your questions about jacking points, along with loads of other info. http://www.300zx.co.uk/cgi-bin/manual.cgi

 

Paul

Cheers Paul, appreciate the help.

 

Peter