ZY UZI Tear Down & Upgradesp90

This is a bit of a guide for the teardown and possible upgrade to the latest ZY UZI gel blasters that everyone’s red hot on at the moment… big thanks to @RokSolid @Maiphut & @BME for providing the gel blaster… very much appreciated. :pray:

No review as such… BME’s pretty much covered that beautifully in another thread. This is more of a rough and ready guide for gearbox removal… if you’re game. :wink:

Initial Performance Stats

Put through the chrono in stock trim, this UZI’s hitting around the 135-140FPS mark… a little lower than expected and less than the chrono results on X-Force’s review, which was around 175FPS stock

The Teardown

A small Phillips screwdriver and a pin punch is all you’ll pretty much need… but be aware, there are quite a few small screws to remove ( 15, in fact! ) and keep track of and they’re not all interchangeable, so grouping of parts with relevant screws as they’re removed is highly recommended. Lots of photos to refer to on reassembly is also a good idea. :+1:

First things, remove the magazine and top cover, unscrew the front collar and remove the outer barrel, exposing the inner barrel.

Remove the large takedown pin located at the rear of the grip just behind the safety switch.

This allows the grip assembly to be removed. Unclip the two wiring connectors.

Next step is to remove the rear sight assembly. Remove the two screws on the back of the end plate.

Then punch out the small knurled pin located in the side of the rear sight.

One the pin is removed, you can access the spring which locks the rotating aperture sight into the selected position.

The whole rear sight assembly can then be removed by sliding rearward.

Next, remove the two screws located on the top of the front sight plate and remove the plate.

This gives access to a third screw… remove it and the front sight assembly can be removed.

Remove the four screws which hold the inner barrel guide plate in place and gently pry the plate free from the rear end. Take care at this stage to not damage the battery wiring located in the notch.

With the inner barrel guide plate removed, the gearbox can be lifted free. Slight outward flexing of the receiver shell is needed, and the box can only be partially removed from the receiver at this point. Take care not to foul or pinch the wiring and two connectors to the trigger assembly while removing the gearbox.

The gearbox is gearbox is now free and clear of the receiver.

The Gearbox

Looks to be 100% proprietry, similar to the Le Hui MP9 gearboxes in size, so basically a pistol gearbox with very little cylinder volume.

What jumps out at you immediately is how incredibly under volumed for the length of the inner barrel this blaster seems to be, which comes in at a surprising length of around 25cm!!

By comparison, an MP9 inner barrel comes in at around 10cms and that’s hitting around 210FPS. Testing different length barrels on the MP9 showed that with the very small cylinder volume, any increase in length dropped FPS markedly, so that long barrel would be giving horrendous VE and probably causing vacuuming and gel drag.

The first modication therefore is to the inner barrel length, i.e. shorten it by 8cms, the inner barrel will finish about a centimetre into the front outer barrel assembly. Should increase the FPS significantly, with a new inner barrel length of around 18cms.
Still not ideal VE but about as short as it can practically be. The inside diameter of the outer barrel is 10mm, which shouldn’t create problems with the 7.5mmID inner.

Shortening the barrel does mean losing the rubber hop up, but the plan is that if this does acceptably increase FPS, the inner barrel will be turned down and the rubber hop up reinstated, or alternatively the outer barrel bored out to accept an adjustable 11mm hop up. I think the latter.

Shortened inner barrel.

Reassemble everything in the reverse order to the steps above. Simples!:ok_hand:

The Result

Putting a few through the chrono to check for any improvement, the shortened barrel showed a gain of about 30FPS. Not stellar but a gain just the same. It’s now sitting on about 170FPS, still slightly lower than X-Force’s review results but closer to their demonstrated 175FPS.

The test gels may have been a little old, so fresh gels brewing as I write to eliminate innacuracies and variables. After that, if it’s still low the gearbox comes apart to see if there’s anything to be improved there, maybe a spring upgrade / modification.

Stay tuned, more to come. :+1:

3 Likes

I would imagine that’s the same sized cylinder as what’s in the Uzi Pro but I was getting shy of 190fps out of that with it’s miniscule barrel, never actually measured it in hindsight, but it’s still get some reach and great accuracy with that fixed hopup.

190 - 200FPS would be good. :+1:

200 -210 would be better. :wink:

Thanks for doing the work @Friendly_Fire
I’ll have no chance for an Uzi for a month or so as they are all gone!

I can tell you all with the utmost honesty… blaster externals are quite nice… I was not impressed with the performance of them… and right from the first one I fired I went “Haha that sounds massively under volume!”

You can just hear these things after a while.

With the minimal inspection I had of them, I think an XYL hopup barrel would be perfect, and likely finish so the hopup can be adjust with the top cover off… also better volume with a 11cm of barrel.

Inside the gearbox I really can’t guess what could be upgraded… in AEP gearbox form the spring and orings are very likely smaller diameter than a normal AEG.

Keen to see what the community can do with these while I wait for the next batch in about a months time

I did get around 180-190, out of my Ooozi…

That was with fresh i hobby blues.
There was some variation though…

Small cylinder syndrome…

I’'m considering shortening the barrel a little more.

As it is now though it just makes it to the outer barrel, which it needs to do for stability.

I’ve got a few ideas cooking. :+1:

That’s not bad for stock… mine was hovering around 140 ootb.

Haven’t checked FPS with a 7.4v yet… only 11.1v… shouldn’t matter but we all know it does, especially on a full auto only unit. :person_shrugging:

I honestly havnt even tested mine yet so it will be interesting to see for comparison of ootb performance

Oooh I’m getting the warm and fuzzies. :smiling_face: This is what I love seeing. Bloody great work FF!

You are gonna tear it down and have a little peeky inside yeah? I’m curious if the new gen of AEP have more sturdy internals.

Yeah, the box is coming apart tomorrow. I’ll post updates to this thread as it happens. Today was just testing barrel length concepts. :+1:

Like most blasters, once you’ve had 'em apart once, they’re easy. It’s just working out what needs to come off first time apart. :rofl:

With this one, the foregrip came off and so did the main grip… it was only later on that I realised they don’t have to. :joy:

I like being the crashtest dummy… good fun! :sunglasses:

2 Likes

Looking pretty good so far…

All metal gears…
Nylon shell is good quality…

Much better than the plastic glocks of old…

Also…
Looks good , dressed up…

(EBB on Right)…outer barrel now polished.

the adjustable external hopup sounds the go … would look good as an extension if you can ream out the outer sufficiently.

ill send mine back to you for some R&D? :slight_smile:

I know your busy though …

Hold onto it for now, it will just sit here for around 2-3 weeks at the moment… I have suspended taking on jobs for the next couple weeks so I can catch up on the jobs I already have… and get some of the new blasters ready.

Would be good to look into one and find out. @Friendly_Fire is definitely gonna beat me to it!

I had always decided mine was in the second batch, I knew they were all going to disappear quick.

Being AEP I suspect they will be a bit limited to what they are capable of, but I am sure some improvement can be done.