CD009 RB Conversion

[TurboTapin]

I had some time so I figured I'd document this, as information out there is very piecemeal and scattered. There's 2 methods of doing this conversion. First method is using an adapter flywheel with original bell housing and second is using regular RB flywheel with milled down bell housing. This will document the second method.

I find there's a lot more pro's then con's with the milled bellhousing method for the following reasons.

1. You're not stuck with a specific flywheel made by only one company. You can use any regular RB flywheel.

2. You cannot purchase an off the shelf twin plate clutch due to flywheel limitations.

3. Adapter flywheels are a fair bit longer. I dislike the idea of adding weight further from the crank and main bearing. 

4. Shifter sits a lot closer to original location. 

5. You can avoid having to deal with dumpster fire companies like Collins Adapters. 

 

Lets start. First step, purchase a CD00A transmission from your local dealer. If memory serves me right, I paid 2600$CDN in July 2022. 

Remove the bits you wont need as you'll need a different shifter kit. 

Next we'll need to remove the bell housing to have to milled down.

Remove the front cover bolts and front cover. Remove the circlip and bearing (Not pictured). Lastly, remove the hidden bolt under the shift linkage cover. This process is well documented in many Youtube videos so I won't delve more into it. Bell housing will come off with some love from a rubber mallet afterwards.

Once removed, drop it off at your local machine shop to have them mill it down 15mm. Before and after picture below.

The starter on an RB does not sit in the same location on the CD009 transmission so the bellhousing needs to be massaged a tad to fit. Some just notch it out completely, but I find it a hack job. I removed just enough meat for it to fit.

I also recut a drain path for oil/water in the original location. 

Next was to reinstall the bell housing and my shifter kit. I went with the SerialNine CD999 Technical shifter. From my findings, it's the closest to sit in the factory location.

Lastly for the transmission, you'll need to measure which release bearing will fit. X-Clutch (Australian Clutch Services) has a nice TSB documenting how to measure it.

TSB-203.pdf

I required a 32mm release bearing with an X-Clutch twin disk. Expect much longer with a single plate clutch. Here's a list of Nissan release bearing lengths and part numbers. If you require more, Collins does sell a 42mm release bearing.

Part number-------------Size

30501-A3800------------12 mm
30501-N1600------------14 mm
30501-U200-------------16 mm
30501-S0200------------18 mm
30501 -B6000-----------20 mm
30501-S0160------------22 mm
30501-K0401------------24 mm
30501-K0510------------26 mm
30501-N1600------------28 mm
30501-N8400------------30 mm
30501-U8500------------32 mm

With the transmission ready, I got to work on the car. Install your adapter plate of choice on the engine. I went with a Collins adapter, but knowing what I know why; I would avoid them like the plague. As the CD009 transmission is a lot bulkier, you will also need to enlarge two areas in the transmission tunnel for it to fit. First, the area where the bellhousing and adapter plate meet (Not pictured) and second, where the tunnel narrows down for the transmission mount. This took a fair bit of work with an air hammer and back and forth with the transmission in place. It's very tight but it fits.

Next up, is to finally get the transmission installed. It was a must for me to have to drop my motor a tad lower by loosening the 4x subframe nuts. Be careful with this as you don't want your motor and subframe to drop to the ground. Just before fabbing a mount, you'll need to measure and adjust your transmission angle in comparison with your differential. You're looking for equal and opposite. As my diff flange sat 2 degree's up, I adjusted the motor/transmission angle to be 2 degree's down. 

I fabbed up a mount bracket with 2" flat bar and a GKTech RB trans rubber mount. The RB and CD009 mount holes are identical and it bolts right up.

Lastly I had to trim the shifter hole a tad. The shifter sits in the original location, but still required trimming for the base. I made another plate to cover it and then covered it with sound deadening. 

And that should wrap it up. Now, sit back and enjoy your 6 speed that should in theory support 1000hp! One last thing I wanted to add is that the CD009 is not a great match for the 4.1-4.3 final drives you find on most skylines. I went ahead and popped in a speedtek 3.3 final drive, but I did drive it with a 4.3 for a short period of time. 1st-4th gears were useless and I'd cruise around 50kmh in 5th gear. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Duncan]

Awesome thread, thanks for posting this up

[TurboTapin]

20 hours ago, Duncan said:

Awesome thread, thanks for posting this up

Thanks, happy to help!

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

You should open up a drive in and drive out service.

(In Sydney, Australia lol).

I would drop off the shit box for this service.

[Murray_Calavera]

Thanks for posting this up, the work is very impressive!

Do you mind saying what the total cost of the conversion was in the end?

[TurboTapin]

On 4/11/2023 at 12:49 AM, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

You should open up a drive in and drive out service.

(In Sydney, Australia lol).

I would drop off the shit box for this service.

Haha, summer all year round you say? Count me in! 

[TurboTapin]

On 4/11/2023 at 3:58 AM, Murray_Calavera said:

Thanks for posting this up, the work is very impressive!

Do you mind saying what the total cost of the conversion was in the end?

Thanks! Here's the parts I used. Prices in CDN which is very close to AUD. Cheers!

CD00A Transmission - 2600$
RB/CD009 Adapter - 600$
RB/CD009 Driveshaft - $600
Nissan 32mm Release bearing - 40$
Speedtek 3.33 Final Drive - 750$
CD009 Slave cylinder - 50$
Serial nine CD999 Shifter - 600$
 

 

[tidi0x]

I am currently in the process of CD swapping my R33 (I cooked a band new R34 GTT box). I was hesitant to attempt it and looked for alternatives (8hp, T56, dogbox stock box) until I saw Mazworxs released the RBVQ bell housing adapter, which will let me run my twin-disk, and I assume better overall clearance. Anyways I am in the middle of swapping it in; I wanted to share pics of the clearance if anyone else is looking to the Mazworxs adapter.

at 0* engine angle (pink socket) I see about 14mm of clearance, and at 3* (red socket) I see 20mm of clearance. I'll be chopping my CD tomorrow and attempting to set it in more permanently, then move onto mounts. 

Pics attached. 

Edited August 24 by tidi0x
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[tidi0x]

I made more progress today. I followed the Mazworx instructions for the SR trans, Marked a line 1/4in in from the second rib on the housing; that cut went well using a sawzall and a grinder. However I want to note, the bottom two bolts are very close to the bell housing, I accidentally cut a bit into the aluminum there; should be fine, but I overlooked it, its easy to f**k that up. After that I circumsized the input shaft 3/8in and beveled it; then assembled the housing on to the trans. That part was easy, just need to RTV the bottom 4 bolts, and use the two Allen bolts of the bottom. One thing I noticed about the bell housing bolts that were included, there is 4, and one is longer than the others. I am not 100% where each needs to go atm. 

As for the clutch fork and TOB; the new one with the CD is near identical to my old one for the Skyline so I plan to use the new CD kit. 

As for how the trans in... It was fairly easy. I was able to get it to sit in at a 1* angle; there is no clearancing issues from the bell housing or the top, The only area that is a problem is the mid plate. On the passengers side the mid plate bolts are hitting the trans mount; this is the only interference, I might be able to shift towards the drivers side, or smooth down the trans, or bash the mount a touch. Either way the fitment looks good and I'm fairly happy for now; ill play with it during the week.

I also measured from the face of the output shaft area to the diff at ~57 1/4" or 145.5 cm (not a final measurement). I am debating my DS options. 

Pics attached 

Edited August 26 by tidi0x

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

So tight 

[Blakeo]

On 8/26/2024 at 9:31 AM, tidi0x said:

I made more progress today. I followed the Mazworx instructions for the SR trans, Marked a line 1/4in in from the second rib on the housing; that cut went well using a sawzall and a grinder. However I want to note, the bottom two bolts are very close to the bell housing, I accidentally cut a bit into the aluminum there; should be fine, but I overlooked it, its easy to f**k that up. After that I circumsized the input shaft 3/8in and beveled it; then assembled the housing on to the trans. That part was easy, just need to RTV the bottom 4 bolts, and use the two Allen bolts of the bottom. One thing I noticed about the bell housing bolts that were included, there is 4, and one is longer than the others. I am not 100% where each needs to go atm. 

As for the clutch fork and TOB; the new one with the CD is near identical to my old one for the Skyline so I plan to use the new CD kit. 

As for how the trans in... It was fairly easy. I was able to get it to sit in at a 1* angle; there is no clearancing issues from the bell housing or the top, The only area that is a problem is the mid plate. On the passengers side the mid plate bolts are hitting the trans mount; this is the only interference, I might be able to shift towards the drivers side, or smooth down the trans, or bash the mount a touch. Either way the fitment looks good and I'm fairly happy for now; ill play with it during the week.

I also measured from the face of the output shaft area to the diff at ~57 1/4" or 145.5 cm (not a final measurement). I am debating my DS options. 

Pics attached 

Been awhile, how is it going? 

[tidi0x]

Update... 

After my last update there was two issues I ran into. The first was the driveshaft, mainly that I wanted a 1350 joint on both ends as I am making ~700+whp... Spicer makes a 1350 yoke out of the CD, but looking everywhere all I could find was 1310's for the rear diff face yoke for the R200 (Mine happens to be a z32 swap). Until I found Driftmotion out of CA makes billet R200 flange yokes, I reached out to them to verify if they offered an Old style R200 not the 350z style, and Arron said they had a few in both styles. Anyways Arron over there is awesome, so I gave him my measurements and a week or so later I got my new driveshaft. The fit up is solid, however I did need to remove the cup on the back of my CD as the shaft yoke was too wide to fit in the cup. The driveshaft is sorted and will handle everything I throw at it.

I also tig'd up a mild steel trans mount. I used an energy suspension T56 trans mount as they work for the CD, it's universal so cheaper and easier to find. I made a decent mount, I am absolutely not a fabricator but It will work. I intend on replacing It at some point with something I model in CAD and send to send cut send. When I built it I used some trig to get the operating angles right since I did not have a driveshaft at the time. I left myself some gap to shim the trans up with plates to get it dialed in. The only thing that bugs me is I went a touch too narrow on the cross bar, but it supports and functions well. 

However my current and persisting issue is with the clutch. The first pass of "Final" install on the trans I reused the pivot ball and fork from the CD as the setup was identical to what I was running on my RB big box. However once it was installed  it was clear I did not get the full travel only half. I thought it could be that I am running the transmission plate or the fact there is really 2 pivot ball sizes 41mm and 54mm. Mazworx was not super helpful and said "the bell housing was dimensionally the same an OEM one", and that I need to "use an RB26 push config" which is technically what I was using. So I ordered the 54mm pivot ball incase that is correct, Tonight I swapped it in and it also does not seem correct. I am going to spend some time researching, because I hope they don't mean I also need to run the stamped steel RB26 fork, and I want to avoid purchasing the $500 tilton kit. Either way this is where I am currently stuck... One other note about the Mazworx housing, the clutch slave provision does not fit either, so I will need to clearance material to make it sit flush with the mounting face. Side note, I am using a RB25 Spec twin disk clutch, It worked great on my previous box, their kit is the same for GTS-T and GTR so I don't think the clutch is the problem.

 

[tidi0x]

Follow up to my last update….

I was wrong about the clutch setup. Mazworx was right, dimensionally everything is the same.

I probably did not have the bell housing all the way tight, or because the slave was not in the milled pocket all the way it was not functioning right. I went ahead and refitted the trans and everything is good 👍. That being said the clutch slave pocket not being milled out caused a headache for me. I need to cut away material from it to fit the slave in correctly, and even when I thought it was flush it was not and I cracked the iron bolt holes. I have a new nismo one sitting ready to go in so nbd, but it’s a miss I’m surprised they didn’t check. either way the clutch setup is good now, and functions well.

 

I was able to drive the car, first off the shifter feels great, it’s super tight and precise compared to the 5 speed. I went with the serial nine cd999 shifter since it had the shallowest mounting; I was considering the gktech, but it looked a touch longer. (I don’t have any photos atm of the hole I had to cut I’ll add those tonight.) 

the only other driveline issue I had was with the driveshaft being so big it was clicking on the parking brake cable tabs, so those will need to be either bent or replaced to make work. 
 

otherwise my swap is done. In the end for my swap I used…

- brand new cd009 (used the clutch fork, pivot ball, and TOB) 

- Mazworx VQRB bell housing kit

- kept my old twin disk clutch

- Driftmotion 1350 driveshaft (if your not over 600whp you can probably run a 1310 yoke setup)

- Serial nine cd999 shifter

- home made transmission mount. 
 

it’s fairly straightforward to do this swap, if I was doing this, I would do this route again. The bell housing allows for lots of clearance to get the transmission in; I don’t need to take it to a machine shop. Hope this helps others in the future, and I hope the cd can really handle the 1k hp like people say it can. 

 

 

 

[tidi0x]

Shifter images as promised.

[Duncan]

Any plans to seal it from the cabin? It will throw plenty of oil/grime over the years.

On my auto to manual Stagea there is a custom ally sheet  to cover most of the hole then the standard rubber seal is attached to that to join to the shifter

[tidi0x]

Yes, I've been thinking about how to fabricate something. Either how OP did it with an alloy sheet or more complicated. Because of the CD shifter protrusion I think I will need to build a raised aluminum box to clear, then I would reutilize the same OE seal just shifted back. When I went on my test drive I popped open the EWG and exhaust just filled the cabin, so it will need to be closed up.