In my opinion it’s one of the best modifications you can do to the car. I/we have been involved in many of them.
The only thing that usually prevents people from doing it is the cost
Getting someone to do it all for you will inevitably cost around £800 - £1000
DIY will still cost a good proportion of that plus the price of 71C gearboxes has gone up dramatically over the past 5 years so you might have to wait a while for a good one to emerge
Try and find the best possible 14 or 14a you can
Getting the bellhousing modified can be a little tricky (it’s not tricky in its self) as it needs a long reach boring arm (can be done on a lathe or a vertical mill) a lot of machine shops will suck their teeth as it requires putting their tea down and doing some good old fashioned sudz and swarf machining.
Make sure they reduce the thickness of the new bearing bore correctly, if they don't do it sufficiently, when its assembled it will lock up or squeal when running as it causes too much pre load.
The Z Home article is quite a good write up considering.
Pay attention to the location of the reverse switch on your bell housing (you’re going to be using it), the switch must sit in a certain position to engage with the notch on the reverse yoke actuator rod there are a number of variants of bell housings that work but some require a new tapped hole.
Pay attention to the speedo drive, the usual gripe is "my speedo doesn’t work" it’s usually an easy fix of rotating the speedo drive (its offset) until it lightly locates with the worm gear and then filing a new notch for the location tab to sit in.
Oh yeah, don’t be a cheapskate and use the S14 gear stick, its rubbish, buy a decent short shift they are not expensive and work a treat
