For some strange reason, the last thing I expect to happen is usually what happens to me. This happened on a friday night, on a road in the middle of nowhere. After having just put another engine and transmission into my Z, I was getting used to the almost entirely new setup. Going through the gears, and at the top of second (7000 RPM) ready to shift to third I hear this sound not unlike a land mine going off directly below the car. The engine died, the sound of breaking glass? I saw a flood of sparks on the road behind me. I pulled into a parking lot to see an 8 inch gap between my engine and transmission.

I spent the next two hours picking up parts of my car off 500 feet of the 5 lane wide road.... Lucky I had a friend who helped me get the car home at 1 in the morning.

Not just any engine and transmission, this was a "new" 100K mile 85 N/A engine, lightly used 88T transmission and centerforce clutch. I had ported the heads myself, and felt very annoyed, as two of the exhaust manifold studs had been ripped clean out of the head and two had been shreaed right off (grade 18.8 stainless studs). The witer pipes and hoses on the back of the engine were destroyed, the starter was spent as well as the clutch slave cyl. The only thing that held the engine in place was the exhaust. The only thing preventing the transmission from hitting the ground was the shifter I had put on two days before.

There were too many things to list that were damaged or destroyed. Most of the pictures speak for themselves; look closely.

The pile of stuff picked up off the road:

Note the manifold pulled away from the head:

EGR tube bent to heck:

Parts; easily half of that bellhousing is still on the side of that road.

What I could find of the flywheel (and the input shaft):

Pressure plate:

Clutch disc:

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