Monkey-wrench Trophy in ZEN Pinball

There are 5 different car parts that can be upgraded and I will explain them all here as well as which ones are the easiest. Each part is listed in the center of the table or along the two bumpers with status lights representing the number of times the part has been upgraded. Every time a part is upgraded, an additional light will come on for that part until all 5 lights are on and you have fully upgraded the part (of course that’s the goal here for the trophy). Once you have enabled an upgrade for one or more of the parts you will need to shoot the ball into the upgrade hole on the right to perform the upgrade and start multiball. This hole is identified by a license plate with the word “UPG RDE” on it and will be lit when enabled.

• Manifold The manifold upgrade is acquired by getting a ball in all 12 cylinders (holes) of the manifold. Essentially you have to get the “Mainfold” trophy 5 times in one game. I wouldn’t recommend this method for getting this trophy since there are easier parts to upgrade.

• Crankshaft This is actually how I got the trophy and is one of the easier methods. You’ll notice that after you get the ball into one of the manifold holes you drop into another mini playfield with two flippers pretty far apart. The goal in here is to hit the targets in the corners when they are lit. The targets always alternate form one side to the other after you hit them. There are a few tunnels in here that move the ball around, but I’d recommend avoiding them since they don’t help and can be problematic. When the ball first drops into the playfield, hold both flippers up and the ball will come to rest on one of them. Now you just have to go back and forth from one flipper to the other hitting the targets that are lit up. If you miss a target don’t worry about it, just keep repeating as if you didn’t miss to get the ball back to the other flipper. You’re going to have to get a feel for how it works, but the best method is to wait until the ball is nearly falling off the flipper and then hit it. You’ll almost always be able to catch it on the other flipper, but be ready to hit it again if you think it’s going to fall off the edge and try to regain a caught position. Worst case scenario you have to get back into the manifold and back to the crankshaft. The hits are cumulative so you don’t have to get them all in one visit to the crankshaft for each upgrade. The engine starts at 5k RPMs and each target adds 10 RPMs to the total. The final upgrade is at 7k RPMs.

The breakdown for each upgrade is o 10 hits – First upgrade
o 10 hits – Second upgrade
o 30 hits – Third upgrade
o 50 hits – Fourth upgrade
o 100 hits – Fifth and final upgrade That’s a total of 200 hits to fully upgrade the crankshaft, but it’s one of the easier methods.

• Tires This is perhaps the easiest way to fully upgrade a part. The goal here is to hit the exhaust orbit or left ramp repeatedly. The trick here is you can’t hit these ramps as part of a combo so after you hit the ramp you need to wait for all the lights in front of the ramps to go out before hitting it again. The exhaust orbit is that top center ramp that is right between the two orange arrows above the “O” and “2” targets. It’s right above the orange turbo arrow and there is a little gauge light in front of it. You can tell how many times you’ve hit one of these by looking at the drift score; it will be 1k times the number of successful drifts. Similar to the crankshaft, the first upgrade is after 10 ramps and then it requires 10 more for each subsequent upgrade.

The breakdown for each upgrade is o 10 hits – First upgrade
o 20 hits – Second upgrade
o 30 hits – Third upgrade
o 40 hits – Fourth upgrade
o 50 hits – Fifth and final upgrade That’s a total of 150 drifts to fully upgrade the tires, but it’s also one of the easier methods.

• Turbo I have not upgraded the turbo at all myself, but what you need to do is start turbo speed mode by entering the turbo charger as described above for the “Turbo Charger” trophy. After you do this there will be moving lights or drop targets you need to hit to perform an upgrade. I assume each upgrade will require you to hit more targets, but I have not verified this.

• Suspension Although this is an easy part to upgrade once you get into the suspension, it’s tough to hit the drop targets that allow you inside. There are 3 drop targets just above the far left flipper. Once you hit all 3 of these, the left outlane will be diverted to the suspension. At this point you actually want to drain the ball into the left outlane and it will go into the suspension. It’s actually quite easy to complete the upgrade once you make it into the suspension. There are 3 drop targets that pop up individually in random patterns. The suspension itself will be moving up and down. The end of the suspension has an angle which will deflect the ball to the right. You’re goal is to launch the ball using the X button at precisely the right time to hit the drop target that is up. You can’t wait too long because you only have a short amount of time before the upgrade fails and it just pops the ball out. If you don’t time your shot right then you will shoot out of the suspension and you’ll have to hit the 3 drop targets again to get back in. Once again I assume each subsequent upgrade will require hitting more drop targets, but I have not verified this.